Tips for a better fitted kitchen (MFI Kitchen Furniture)

Member Name: Keith

Product:	MFI Kitchen Furniture
Date:	07/10/06 (2179 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You'll be happier with the result for years to come

Disadvantages: You have to book a good independent fitter early as good ones are busy!

I agree wholeheartedly with Ray, the northern kitchen fitter who provides excellent advice. MFI kitchens on the whole are pretty good value and quality compared with some of the others. Wickes do have solid 18mm backs to the units which are actually a disadvantage for the fitter!

I to am a kitchen fitter, and many of the kitchens I fit were ordered from the B&Q Warehouse in Chippenham. I've noticed over the past few months that kitchens ordered from there are being delivered with many important parts such as doors, cornices, pelmets and worktops missing. The store staff are incredibly helpful - it's their awful system that let's everyone down. I often wonder if it's an intentional ploy to make the independent fitters life a nightmare. I can't imagine that their own fitters put up with this.

Most of the flat-pack suppliers can be similar though - you just have to grin and bear it I'm afraid.

My advice is to get your worktops seperately from one of the many excellent companies on the internet, who deliver direct in a matter of days. At least that way you know that you have them - you can live without a door or two for a couple of weeks, but not the worktops! 616mm deep are better, but 600mm are usually quite adequate unless the walls are so uneven that you have to cut them along the back to fit snugly.

Get them delivered before the kitchen is, but don't store them in a cold damp garage or a hot conservatory for any length of time, especially real wood worktops as they will warp or even split. The SLIGHTEST warp across the width can make it impossible to create a perfect scribed joint.

A really expensive kitchen will look appalling if it's fitted badly with poor attention to detail such as mitres in the cornices and pelmets, or badly scribed invisible joints. Equally, a very modest kitchen can look, and feel, fantastic with the simple addition of soft door closers and premium drawers that self close, IF it's fitted well.

Ray is also right about the corner baskets that slide out on a complex frame supposedly to help you make use of the corner space. In reality, they take up so much space themselves there is precious left for the contents you want to store. They're also expensive - around £200 a cupboard! They were on special offer at £99 from B&Q recently, but in my opinion still not worth it. Tall, pull-out pantry trays seem to be good though.

Independent fitters are much cheaper than the stores own, but insist on written references. Don't accept any fitter who casually says he can do all the gas and electrical work himself unless he is CORGI registered (verify it!) and a properly qualified electrician. If he was he'd be either an electrician or a plumber, both of whom earn considerably more money!

These two areas are a minefield, especially the electrical side where a Part P qualification is legally adequate for some electrical work but not others.

Many fitters, like myself, always employ the services of a fully qualified electrician and CORGI gas fitter. Sourcing these tradesmen seperately can save many hundreds, even thousands of pounds, on a kitchen installation and the job will be all the better for it, believe me.

Summary: A cheaper kitchen fitted properly will look better than a dearer one fitted badly.