Splashbacks and upstands in West Acton

Yes. West Acton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W3. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The boiler has usually been moved out to the garage or the utility, leaving a capped flue and a run of dead pipework in the kitchen wall. 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. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it. 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. 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.

Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. Nothing is leaned anywhere it could slide down. Overhanging branches clear the roof of a car and catch the roof of a van, so the drive is looked at from the driver seat rather than from the doorstep. 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.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. 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. 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. 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. 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. Scribe to the wall rather than stretch the panel. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Two budgets, settled before anything is cut.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Internal walls are hollow clay block or stud rather than solid brick, so two points a metre apart on the same wall want two different fixings. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Making the wall good first is cheaper than working around it.

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. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. 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. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Tall panels are what push a job into a second slab.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. A serving hatch through to the dining room is common, and closing one up leaves a panel of newer wall exactly where the run passes. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Same slab run, same day, same batch.