Splashbacks and upstands in Strand-on-the-Green

Yes. Strand-on-the-Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W4. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A small room puts the sink, hob and tap cut-outs close together on one short length, and the bridge of stone left between them decides whether it can be cut in one piece. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Because every piece is hand-carried along the towpath, slabs get broken into shorter sections than you would normally accept and the joints get planned around the carry, not the layout.

The hardest access in the borough. Frontages face a towpath with no vehicle route to the door, so everything is carried from the nearest road, and high tides put flood boards across the way in. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. Joint positions follow from that.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop fabrication. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets final before template.

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. 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 low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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.