Splashbacks and upstands in Victoria

Yes. Victoria is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1E, SW1P. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. 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. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. 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. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. 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.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

A dishwasher door on one side and an oven door on the other cannot both stand open in a narrow aisle, so which appliance goes where matters more in this shape than in any other. 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. Height is agreed before the cut list closes. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel. 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. 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.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. These kitchens were service rooms once, so they are long, narrow and further from the entrance than the floor plan suggests. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Panel thickness changes what the sockets need behind them.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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. The reveal decides where the stone dies.

If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A window at one end and a doorway at the other means one end of the run is lit from behind and the other is interrupted, so the two ends of the same length behave differently. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident.