Splashbacks and upstands in Upminster

Yes. Upminster is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The crate stays on the van until the route in is clear. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Ceilings are lower here than in the terraces of fifty years earlier, so wall units and a full-height panel compete for the same band of wall. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it. 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. 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 sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. 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. Two people to a panel, however light it looks on the van. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Distance from tail lift to door is the whole risk here.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop fabrication. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. One damaged panel, one twin already on the shelf. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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 downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. A second visit needs a second permission.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A long carry turns a light piece into an awkward one.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. The original kitchen was a working room with a scullery and a pantry off it, so what is now one space was two or three with brick walls between them. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. The ceiling over a staircase limits a standing panel as much as the walls.