Splashbacks and upstands in Surbiton

Yes. Surbiton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT6. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. 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. 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.

Inter-war purpose-built blocks have curved external walls and steel windows, so a run along an outside wall is following a genuine curve rather than a bow. Mansion block kitchens are full of boxed-in soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing is usually plywood or plasterboard that stops short of the ceiling, so the splashback run gets broken up by returns rather than running clean wall to wall. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Interwar flats have solid but uneven screed floors and out-of-square walls, so a template beats a drawing every time here.

Wide tree-lined roads with driveways on the semis, but the mansion blocks have communal entrances, half-landings and small lifts, plus resident-only parking courts with no visitor bays. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. 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. 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 replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation. 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. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. 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.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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 riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Same slab run as the tops.