Splashbacks and upstands in Walthamstow

Yes. Walthamstow is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E17. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Waltham Forest. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The meters sit in the hall or under the stairs on the way through, so the carry passes a cupboard door that has to be shut and protected before anything moves. 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. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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.

Whether the kitchen sits straight ahead or off a turn at the end of the hall changes the maximum piece far more than the hall width 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. They stand upright in the van and stay upright until they are on the wall. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A narrow gap between parked cars decides how a panel turns.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is 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. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. 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. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. A second visit needs a second permission.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Scribe to the wall rather than stretch the panel.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. A permit covering the street is permission to park rather than a space reserved on it, and on a full street the difference is the whole morning. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. The panel behind a hob is usually the tallest piece in the kitchen, and its height is set by the extractor above it rather than by the wall cupboards either side. Tall panels are what push a job into a second slab.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Lath and plaster, a settled floor and a hall with a turn in it are the three things that decide how this job runs. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Behind the hob is where full height earns its cost.