The process of Kitchen Fitting and what you should expect as a customer.

The following describes the process of fitting a kitchen. All kitchen Fitters do things a little differently but the order of work will more or less be the same, it is the end result that counts so please only use this as a general guide. It will help to you understand, not only what work is involved at what stage but also what you should expect from your Kitchen fitters.

You, as a customer will be expected to have all kitchen units and drawers emptied ready for the kitchen fitters arrival, usually monday morning. On arrival the most important thing is to fill up the kettle before turning the water supply off at the stop tap (we do like a cup of tea !) Most importantly, you should expect to be without any services in your kitchen for approximately three days and sometimes longer. There will be no Hob, Sink or oven. These items can only be fitted after certain stages of the kitchen fit have been completed. For example... the sink and hob cannot be installed until the worktops have been fitted.... the worktops cannot be installed until the kitchen units have been fitted etc, etc. Every now and again on some contract/trade jobs I still get customers asking me, on a monday morning.... "will the sink be back on today ?" This is a case of the designer(salesman) not explaning the process fully.

Genarally, we will only have the water turned off at the stop tap for a couple of hours and it will only be turned off once during the whole installation. There will be no need to fill pots and pans or buckets with water. After this two hour period where alterations to the pipework in the kitchen are made, the water supply to the rest of your home will be reinstated and not interrupted again.

With the water turned off and taps open in the kitchen allowing any water in the pipework to drain off, it is time to start removing the existing kitchen. We usually do this by removing in this order.... all doors, drawers, oven, hob, cornice, pelmit/light baffle, wall units, tiles(whilst worktops are still in situ), worktops including sink, plinth and lastly all base units. It comes as a suprise many of our customers how quickly the removal of the existing kitchen units actually happens, the whole thing can be sitting in a skip within an hour. It is at this stage where things start to look worse, don't worry it will get better from here on in.

The next stage before fitting starts is to carry out any "first fix" work. This involves making any alterations to the plumbing or electrics where needed. This can take anything from half an hour to a few hours. The first fix is a very important part of kitchen fitting . Getting things in the right place at this point is essential for a trouble free fit however, It is one of those jobs that can be time cosuming but doesn't really look like much progress has been made, the majority of this work is generally hidden by the new kitchen units.

With all pipework and electrics in the correct place, it is time to start fitting the units. Some (but not many)kitchen fitters start the installation with the wall units but we always start with the base units. There is no right or wrong here it is just down to the kitchen fitters preference and probably stems from how they were taught at the begining. Starting at the corner and working out and around the room all base units are fitted then, any tall housings which are usually on the end of the run of kitchen units this then gives the wall unit height.

Again starting from the corner and working around the room the wall units are installed. Depending on the amount of kitchen units this stage is usually reached mid-way through day two of the installation.

Next in the process is fitting the worktops. We always fit the sink into the worktop during this stage and lift the worktop with sink fitted into place, this eliminates any difficulty with access to the rear sink clamps which are sometimes impossible to reach due to the base unit back panel. Generally speaking... fitting an L-shaped worktop with one worktop joint, two straight ends and the sink cut-out and clamped in place takes approximately two hours, a U-shaped worktop with two worktop joints and sink... approximately four hours and a G-shaped worktop with three joints (one of wich could be a breakfast bar)... approximately five hours.

Next: Fitting cornice and pelmit. For the average sized kitchen this stage shouldn't take much longer than one hour to complete. It is one of those jobs that can set kitchen fitters apart, badly cut / constructed mitre joints on the cornice will spoil the whole kitchen. It is these finer details where the DIY fitted kitchen fails. A fitted kitchen is all about the quality finish. Anyone walking into the kitchen for the first time will pimarily take a broad look at the whole thing then, focus on the finer details such as mitre joints and worktop joints.

Above: First fix plumbing in the correct position for the sink.

Base unit with plumbing for sink

Above: First fix plumbing after base unit is fitted.

kitchen units been installed

Above: Installing the base units.

Above: A worktop joint. Sometimes called a Butt and Scribe or Masons Mitre.

Cornice mitre joint

Above: One of our Mitre joints on the Cornice. These joints, done well, make all the difference.

Please note: This website is currently been updated. More information will be added over the next few days.