The upstand is an elongation of the kitchen countertop covering the wall up to 65 to 115 mm in height.
These extensions usually consist of the same material your countertop consists of, and most of them are of glass, acrylic, and wood.
Do You Need Upstands in a Kitchen? You can add upstands in your kitchen because these are easy to install compared to tiles. Upstands increase the beauty of your cooking area with a continuous and smooth flow between the worktop and its adjacent wall. These fill the expansion gaps and crevices present in your counter. In addition, these prevent dark stains on the kitchen wall and protect it from oil and water.
Their thickness should be 22 mm, which is less than the thickness of the worktop that generally accounts for 32 mm.
How to install a kitchen upstand?
It is an easy task to fix these items with the wall, but you have to take measurements according to the size of the panel.
Their size and thickness vary according to the designs and people’s demands, but an act of negligence can waste your hard work.
Clean the wall and make its surface even for applying a binding agent that allows an accurate and precise fitting.
An adhesive material is helpful for its attachment to the wall but does not use this material for fixing the product with the worktop.
It is better to have a gap of 2 to 3 mm between the counter and upstand panel that helps to add silicone sealant for precise sealing.
For wooden products, oil treatment is optional because it provides finishing to the countertop facing heavy food traffic.
Why Do You Need Upstands in a Kitchen?
Many people want to have upstands in their kitchen due to its benefits, and still, it is not a compulsory item.
Looks nice
The counter extensions look beautiful to see because symmetry comes to the working area.
A sense of continuity is associated with these worktop elongations that extend to the wall.
These come in different colors, and by having a simple light color countertop with a dark color upstand at the wall, you can give aesthetic value to your area.
The kitchen is representative of your personality, and it should have the perfect and beautiful alignment of stuff.
Its combination with rustic shelves and cabinets is in trend nowadays because an antique appearance looks attractive.
Align the wall
Construction companies do not care about the imperfections in the building because they are not emotionally attached to your home and are only concerned with making money.
After construction, many people observe that the floor, roof, and walls are uneven in their homes, but they are helpless.
An uneven kitchen wall feels a continuous source of irritation as you have to visit this place frequently in a day.
It covers the wall, undergoing general wear and tear that cracks the paint and does not look appropriate.
The adhesive material and sealant between the upstand, wall, and worktop help make the wall look straight and perfect.
Filling the expansion gap
Your kitchen is a place where there is frequent use of water, and generally speaking, it is the most damped place of the home.
Wood can change its shape and size with the variation in humidity at a place.
It can shrink in size due to water loss and enhance its dimensions due to its ability to absorb moisture.
Therefore, it is better to have a 3 to 4 mm gap between the counter and the wall that proves helpful.
As the wood expands, this gap works well and fills the gap, but you do not know the exact expansion of the wood.
At times, gaps are there that you can fill by fixing the kitchen upstands to have a well-furnished look for your cooking area.
By failing to fill these gaps after the expansion of the wood, you can suffer from many dangerous problems.
Protects the wall
The worktop should be of better quality because it has to bear a daily burden of food traffic and water that you cannot get rid of in your kitchen.
There are food spills and meal splashes all around in the wall and shelves, but the presence of an upstand can help you to keep your walls neat and clean.
The strains and splashes of the meal look dirty, and a person can easily judge your personality by these smears on the wall behind the stove.
It helps to keep the paint fresh, without any spot presenting an eye-catching and elegant area in your home.
No space for insects
The gaps between the countertop and wall help the insects by providing the space to live in your kitchen.
Contaminated food with insects can bring hazardous problems to your health that should be your foremost priority.
The presence of insects in your cooking area looks annoying because it is directly related to hygiene, and there is no compromise on hygiene.
It can also become problematic for your image before your relatives and guests if they come to see the insects in that area.
These fill gaps and crevices by creating a smooth and insect-free surface for cooking in the kitchen.
It helps to make a healthy image of your personality and keeps the standard of hygiene for yourself and your family.
Affordable price
A person does not find the upstand installment a difficult job because it is readily available in the market and demands less money.
Price may vary with the design, size, quality, and material of the product, but still, they are cheaper than the tiles and backsplashes.
Because oil and water splash frequently exists in the cooking area and upstand fixing to the wall reduces the expenses of repainting the wall.
How are kitchen upstands better than the tiles?
The upstands in the kitchen remove the need for tiles on the wall adjacent to the countertop.
Tiles are expensive to install and demand proper cleaning by consuming your precious time.
They are costly to buy, but many people use them because of their beautiful design, colors, and ability to withstand temperature variations.
They replace the need for tiles because these are equally important in bringing a beautiful and smooth look.
These are cheaper than the tiles and require less maintenance by using a cleaning cloth that you are using for your worktop.
These are easy to clean without damaging the color while cleaning the tiles is difficult and time-consuming because strains fill the tiles.
Its installment requires accurate measurements, adhesive material, and a sealant, while tiles fixation is laborious.
Are upstands old-fashioned?
Many people consider these kitchen upstands old-fashioned items because these are limited in their colors, quality, and designs.
Beautifully designed tiles of various designs and colors are amazingly replacing them, but tiles are costly.
Many people want a blend of upstands with tiles allowing them to make an attractive appearance provided with the seal to gaps.
Why should you not use laminate upstands behind the kitchen hob?
Laminate upstands consist of wood, and it is useless to fix these wood products behind the kitchen hob, which is a type of stove.
The kitchen hob emits high flame and heat, affecting the wooden material on the wall.
As a result, the color will darken, and eventually, the wood will rot, which is hard to handle and requires replacement.
Furthermore, it can catch fire, which is dangerous for your kitchen and the workers.
It is better to have granite, glass, and quartz items behind the kitchen stove because they are not affected by the heat like the laminate ones.
Difference between upstand and splashback
The kitchen upstand is the elongation of the countertop extending the wall for a few millimeters while splashbacks are more in length and cover the whole wall adjacent to the countertop.
These are generally 22 mm thick, while for splashback standard criterion for thickness is 8 mm, but most people go with a 10 mm thickened splashback.
Splashback is suitable to fix on the wall behind the stove, but you can keep it on the whole wall of the countertop.
These are suitable for continuous placement along the whole length of the shelves because they fill the expansion gaps.
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