Splashbacks and upstands in St Ann's

Yes. St Ann's is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N15. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

A bay-fronted terrace has a long hall running past the stairs to the kitchen, so the hall turn caps the piece length before the run length does. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on. 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. 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. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.

A pendant light hanging in the middle of a hall ceiling sets the angle a piece can be tilted to, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to take. 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 break goes where a joint reads as deliberate. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Two hands and a clear route, or it waits on the van.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run.

Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. 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. Behind an island there is no wall to hide against. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. An owner can wait for it; a void period cannot.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. A full-height panel in a chimney recess is templated as a trapezium, since that recess is square in neither direction. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. 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. Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site.

The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Visitor permits are issued to the household rather than to the trade, so the ones the day needs come from the customer and are best in hand the week before. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip.