Splashbacks and upstands in South Hampstead

Yes. South Hampstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6, NW3. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Estate roads inside a controlled zone are sometimes managed privately rather than by the council, which changes who has to be asked. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These kitchens are big rooms with long perimeter runs and an island, so level has to hold across the whole floor rather than along one wall. These runs are long and often include a range recess, so the splashback is nearly always more than one piece and the joint placement matters, put it in a corner or over a hob centre line, not randomly in the middle of a clear run. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. 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.

The top step is rarely the end of it, because a door swinging out onto the landing has to be held back before a piece can come off the flight. 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. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. They go in with the first load where the stop is short.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Reordered next year, it will not match. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening 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. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. 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 same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Lime plaster on nine inch brick has been patched with gypsum wherever a radiator or a socket has moved, and the two finish at different depths. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Making the wall good first is cheaper than working around it.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. 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.

A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. 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.