Splashbacks and upstands in South Croydon

Yes. South Croydon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR2. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Ceilings are high enough that an extractor over the island has a long drop, and its position is fixed before the island top is templated. Behind a range cooker with gas burners, granite or sintered stone is the sensible pick; quartz has a resin binder and does not enjoy sustained radiant heat at close range, so keep it out of the immediate hob zone or specify a different material for that panel. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. Scribed along the top edge as well.

A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. Nothing is leaned anywhere it could slide down. Where the nearest legal space is a couple of streets back, the walk with each piece becomes the job, and the crew is sized for walking rather than wheeling. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. They go in with the first load where the stop is short.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Reordered next year, it will not match. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. The obstruction breaks the length, every time. The range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Agreed with whoever is paying for both.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Open-tread and cantilevered stairs give nothing to lean a piece against, so the whole weight stays on the crew for the full length of the flight. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. A large villa has wide doors, a generous hall and somewhere to park, so the joins that go in are chosen for layout rather than forced by the route. Long runs mean more than one piece, and the joint belongs in a corner or on a hob centre line rather than mid-run. Nothing goes on a wall that will not hold it.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. A handrail that has to come off before a piece will pass is twenty minutes at the start of the day, and it goes back on the wall before we leave. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. A panel that would need turning indoors is turned outside instead.