Splashbacks and upstands in Surrey Quays

Yes. Surrey Quays is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

An infill house is built to modern standards on an old plot, so the room is square even though the site around it is not. Every socket, switch and any USB point has to be cut out of the stone to the actual measured position, so the template has to be taken with the faceplates off and the back boxes visible. A hundred millimetres covers more than it looks. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. 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 sets the joint, not the wall.

Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. 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. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. The crate stays on the van until the route in is clear.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. Buyers upgrading before handover work to a choices deadline set by the sales office rather than by the build programme. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Panels for every unit, cut in one go.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Scribe to the wall rather than stretch the panel. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

An unsupported overhang off a stud wall wants noggins fixed between the studs before the boarding goes on, and once it is boarded and skimmed that option has gone. 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. Height follows the sill, not the plan. Any socket you intend to move must be moved and re-plastered before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece of stone. 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. Agreed with whoever is paying for both.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Distance from tail lift to door is the whole risk here.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Access is a question about the plot rather than the house: a narrow frontage between older buildings with nowhere obvious to stand a van. The plasterboard is flat enough for a full-height panel; it is the socket positions that cause the trouble. The plaster behind it is the real question.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Stud centres are almost never where the brackets would like to be, so fixing positions get set from the framing and the stone is designed to suit. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Block and beam floors with blockwork walls are true enough that the scribes are light and the joins can be pulled tight. A full-height panel is bonded across its back and carried on the upstand line rather than left hanging on adhesive alone. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel.