Splashbacks and upstands in South Hornchurch

Yes. South Hornchurch is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM13. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

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. Dense concrete takes adhesive better than fixings, which actually suits a large bonded panel. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Parking courts mean a long flat carry, so we bring the trolley as standard here rather than treating it as an exception.

Estate layouts with parking courts, garage blocks and shared paths rather than individual drives, so the van parks in the court and the run to the door can be fifty metres or more. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. It decides panel size before anything is cut.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Corners get their own pieces. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Decided before fabrication, not after.