Splashbacks and upstands in Upper Norwood

Yes. Upper Norwood is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE19. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Original walls are thick, lime-plastered and rarely straight, which makes dry-laying and scribing the bulk of the fitting day. These runs are long and often include a range recess, so the splashback is nearly always more than one piece and the joint placement matters, put it in a corner or over a hob centre line, not randomly in the middle of a clear run. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes.

Where the hall runs straight through to the back the piece can be walked in flat, and it is only the two door frames that have to be cleared. 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. They stand upright in the van and stay upright until they are on the wall. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback.

An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. 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. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. The range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Two budgets, settled before anything is cut.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. A door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Big rooms hide their falls, and the difference from one corner of a five metre floor to the other is measured in tens of millimetres. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The flatter the wall, the taller the stone.

Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. 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, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. Panels travel on edge in a frame, and the frame needs the same clearance the finished piece does. Joint positions follow from that.