Splashbacks and upstands in Wood Green

Yes. Wood Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N22. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Inter-war purpose-built blocks have curved external walls and steel windows, so a run along an outside wall is following a genuine curve rather than a bow. Boxed risers break the run into returns, and every return is a separate piece with its own mitred corner. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Basement car park headroom is the killer here - a Luton will not get in, so slabs come off a smaller vehicle or get walked from the street.

The High Road and the shopping city dominate the centre, with servicing yards, timed access and no kerbside space. Tower blocks need a booked delivery slot and a residents' lift with a weight limit; some will only take deliveries through a basement car park with a 2.1m height restriction. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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. Joint positions follow from that.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets final before template. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run as the tops.