Splashbacks and upstands in Tottenham

Yes. Tottenham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N17. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

The flat entrance door is a certified fire door on a closer, and taking it off for an hour means dealing with the seals and the closer before the day ends. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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 panel takes its height off the steel.

The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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 panel is sized to the turn, not to the wall alone. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. 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. Tall panels are what push a job into a second slab. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. 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. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut. 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. Nobody reseals a worktop annually in a let property, so a material that depends on being resealed is the wrong specification however well it photographs. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Upstand height taken from the specification.

Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. A breast return is scribed on three edges.

What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. 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. It travels on edge, so the clearance is checked on edge.

Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. 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. 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.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Height is agreed before the cut list closes.