Splashbacks and upstands in South Harrow

Yes. South Harrow is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA2. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Harrow. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Where the van has to move, the panels come in first. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls are dense block or in-situ concrete with a bonded plaster, so the bottom course of tiles brings plaster with it when the old top comes off. The rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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. A tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives.

Booked delivery windows on a managed estate run to an hour, and a worktop install does not happen inside an hour. 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. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. 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. External corners are mitred, not butted. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Where the wall cannot be made good, setting the stone deliberately proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail rather than a bad fit. Scribe the top edge too or it stands off. Any surface trunking or conduit has to be rerouted or accepted and boxed before templating, because the stone cannot be scribed around a live conduit on site. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two trades, two budgets, one drawing.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling.

Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Many have been extended at the rear since being sold, so the kitchen is half original and half newer with a floor junction between the two. That suits a full-height piece, because a large flat panel bonded across its back is more stable on concrete than a run of small tiles ever was. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Communal heating pipework rises through the flat and is boxed in at floor and at ceiling, and none of it moves for a kitchen. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Window reveals decide where the run of stone stops.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The ceiling is a concrete soffit with a skim on it, so there is nothing to fix into overhead and no void to hide anything in. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. The extractor position is measured before the panel is drawn.