Kitchen buying and fitting

Currently fitting a kitchen to my own house at the moment.

It needs a serious bit of dedication and is not a small undertaking. You need to know how to use and have access to a range of tools (jigsaws, routers, circular saws, tile cutter, SDS Drill, blow torch - to name a few)

It depends on what level of finish you're hoping for as regards cost, a lot of the DIY store kitchens are much the same.

I'm sure I can dig out pics, but they're mostly just phone-cam photos.
 
Chabsy said:
There is a big differece between carcases the better ones are pre-asembled and will have thicker chip board
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Indeed but once under the worktops who actually notices that the the chipboard is slightly more dense. Never seen any thicker than 3/4" personally.
 
Whats the normal price for a medium sized kitchen fitting? Im not talking 30 grand kitchens here either, although Gordon Ramsays kitchen was half a million in his house!!!
 
schnipps said:
Whats the normal price for a medium sized kitchen fitting? Im not talking 30 grand kitchens here either, although Gordon Ramsays kitchen was half a million in his house!!!
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Im a B&Q Kitchen Installer ,

your looking at around £2500 - £4000 on an small to medium size kitchen


a lot of that cost is electrics , gas, part P certification and Tiling
 
CF93 said:
Some, but it depends on what work the OP is doing. Particularly the cooker ring is best done by a pro.

As for the plumber....yes, my brother is a CORGI plumber and heating engineer.
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I believe the CORGI part is to do with being qualified as a heating engineer, as it may involve gas. If its just plumbing, then there is no qualification/certification needed.

As has been mentioned above:
to do electrics, you need to be NICEIC registered (with the exception of some works, as listed in a post above);
to do gas work, you need to be CORGI registered, eg. fitting a new gas boiler;
to do plumbing you need no certification/registration.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

With plumbing, a lot of people think its some sort of black art that takes 3 decades to master. This is not the case once you have a grasp on the basics. Though, an experienced plumber will almost certainly do a quicker and neater job than a DIY plumber.
 
Definately do it yourself. I fitted my kitchen (with some help from my brother).

I got it from B&Q. I got them to come round, and do me a design. I knew what I wanted where etc, just let someone else spend their time fiddling around with the layout and getting the list of all the bits. Then I went and picked them all up. Ripped out the old kitchen, got some plastering done, electrics done, plumbing done, then levelled the floor, then put it all in, then tiled it. Job done.

I did everything but the electrics, plastering and some of the plumbing.

Admittedly I wasn't living in the flat at the time, so could make a bit more mess, but it isn't that difficult if you plan it all out and research what to do. B&Q quoted £1800 to fit a kitchen that cost £900.

And I'm not a DIY expert, I'm just willing to give things a try!
 
Deadly Ferret said:
Screwfix sell reasonable quality units for a comparably low price to the firms mentioned.
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They dont seem too bad, although never fitted one

Screwfix + B&Q are owned by the same company, Kingfisher plc
 
sunama said:
As has been mentioned above:
to do electrics, you need to be NICEIC registered (with the exception of some works, as listed in a post above);
to do gas work, you need to be CORGI registered, eg. fitting a new gas boiler;
to do plumbing you need no certification/registration.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
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I shall indeed do so, domestic electrical work like many other aspects of building work comes under the building regulations, and is required to meat requirement P1 "Reasonable provision shall be made in the design and installation of electrical installations in order to protect persons operating, maintaining or altering the installations from fire or injury. " Certain types of work are notifiable to the local building control office, mostly this boils down to any work (except straighforward replacing of fittings) in a kitchen, bathroom or garden, and the installation of new circuits or replacement consumer units have to be notified, two ways to notify, one is the tradition submit a building notice way just as you would if you wanted to add a new doorway (Part A), toilet (Part H), or replace a window (Part L). the other is a member of a 'self certify scheme' can put it through them and not need to pay the LABC, such schemes are run by the NICIEC, NAPIT, BRE(ECA), ELECSA, and BSI KITEMARK (CORGI amongst others run limited scope schemes for other trades who don't focus mainly on electrical work). Working to BS7671 (including issueing a MW/EIC!) is the best way to meet P1

As for gas, the law says CORGI reg required only if you are doing it in the course of a business, if you are competant then you may DIY gas, what consitutes competant is not an issue to be taken lightly tho! (and some parts may still be notifiable)... but electrics is my area, can't really advise on this
 
Adam_151 said:
... if you are competant then you may DIY gas, what consitutes competant is not an issue to be taken lightly tho! (and some parts may still be notifiable)...
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Now thats interesting.
 
Adam_151 said:
As for gas, the law says CORGI reg required only if you are doing it in the course of a business, if you are competant then you may DIY gas, what consitutes competant is not an issue to be taken lightly tho! (and some parts may still be notifiable)... but electrics is my area, can't really advise on this
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the health and saftey exec with love you for that one :D ALL new gas work is now notifiable. they've jailed landlords for trying that one btw ;)
 
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Hixxy said:
the health and saftey exec with love you for that one :D ALL new gas work is now notifiable. they've jailed landlords for trying that one btw ;)
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I think you'll find that one is actually something to do with the requirements to have a gas safety cert for rental property.

I'd suggest that very few DIYers are actually competant in the proper meaning of the word to do gas work beyond perhaps unplugging and replugging a cooker hose. I'm certainly not (Electrics is my field as I said), but its good to know what the rules actually say.
 
sunama said:
I believe the CORGI part is to do with being qualified as a heating engineer, as it may involve gas. If its just plumbing, then there is no qualification/certification needed.
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NO, he has two CORGI registrations, one for gas work and one for plumbing. He does both for a living....
 
So are you saying that to change a tap you need to be CORGI registered?

Ive changed a few taps around my house and installed a pump for my hot water taps. Surely, I didnt need to be "certified" to do this work?
 
Very on topic post!

Costs so far. Kitchen £2500. Mates rates £200 (worktop, boiler, labour, gas work etc). Tiles £150. Various tools £200.

Just in the process of fitting a new B&Q kitchen myself (well, along with the help of a few mates). Took a day and a half to rip out the old kitchen (Wed night and thursday) which was:

  • Electric cooker and gas hob (had to cap the gas pipe which was very straightforward).
  • Sink (this was the biggest PITA as there were no isolater valves to the taps so had to shut off the cold water feed and drain the hot water).
  • Worktop was easy enough after the above were already out.
  • 9 units of which 4 were wall mounted and 5 were floor standing.
  • Removed old fridge/freezer to garage
  • Stripped tiles off walls using a cracking tool, it's like a big razor blade on a handle, well worth investing in!
  • Replastered the walls with some spot plastering from B&Q where the tiles had ripped off the plaster.
  • Moved 3 sockets about 50mm as they were in the way of a couple of cupboards.
  • Removed old extractor fan and filled hole inside and out
  • All the wood parts were smashed up and taken in my little Clio to the local council tip in 3 trips.

Started fitting friday, went something like this so far:

  • Build all the units up.
  • Place floor units in as per plan. Level floor units. Connect together and also fix to wall. Cut all panel cladding to size and fix to unit ends (only ever done this with this range of kitchen)
  • Cut worktops to size and shape joins (mate helped with this as he had a rotuer/jig to cut some nice curves)
  • Place worktops on top of units .
  • Mark for sink. Cut sink hole out. Fit taps to sink Mark for hob. Cut hob hole out. Fit taps etc.
  • Spend 1/2 day ******* around with old pipework, use every expletive in the known universe. Fit isolater valves for taps. Connect taps to pipework using flexi push fit hoses (how easy are they to fit!!). Spend an hour trying to understand how you should fit the 1.5 bowl plumbing with the kit supplied, totally ignore kit supplied and make one up yourself. Fix sink to worktop
  • Join worktop pieces together and seal. Fix worktop to units
  • Mark level for wall units. put brackets up and fix wall units to wall. Fit cladding to units. This took a while as i had to carve out big pieces of one wall unit to accomodate the boiler. Also had to improvise on how it was mounted on one side due to needing access to it in the future (basically mounted properly on onoe side, then two huge screws in through one side into the wall)


Got a mate coming round tonight to reconnect the gas hob as i didn't want to do it myself, plus he is servicing the boiler and central heating when he is here too (have it done every year for insurance purposes). Also hope to have the electric oven with glass hood and integrated fridge freezer in by the end of tonight. Then it's on to mounting the doors and frames on the units and then got the pelmut (sp?) to fit. By the weekend i hope to be able to get on with tiling, so about a week without a full/proper kitchen.

Some little tips i have found along the way with this style of kitchen (Amberley from the B&Q select range) is to go down to your local B&Q and inspect how they have put it together as it's not quite a straight forward as you think due to having to clad all the floor/wall units with an extra piece of wood on each end, also the doors fit onto a frame not the units itself. (i was down there for about 45 minutes taking pictures of how all the joins went together, how the cladding should go on). As far as B&Q, when it is deliverd you have 3 days from then to check everything is there, i had reports form people that after those 3 days it can be a hassle to get things that are missing, so i was advised to phone up and log a call for something, doesn't matter what, being missing then at least you have an extra few days after that to check through what has been delivered (i am missing 2 clad on panels, the '40' bit of a 60/40 fridge freezer door and also the door kit to an L shaped door, but on the plus side i have two hoooooge doors from a totally differen't kitchen range! :rolleyes: )

Some piccies. First is thursday afternoon, second is sunday night. Didn't manage to get anything done last night due to work.


 
sunama said:
So are you saying that to change a tap you need to be CORGI registered?

Ive changed a few taps around my house and installed a pump for my hot water taps. Surely, I didnt need to be "certified" to do this work?
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the work is sectioned and you must be qualified to do each section. pipework + meters, water heaters, gas fires, cookers, central heating, LPG etc. each has an exam and practical assesment and of course a fee and a days lost work. this only covers gas saftey and has nothing to do with plumbing a tap.

so a corgi guy who has done the pipework and central heating assesments would be qualified to work on the meter, gas pipework and boiler but not on the cooker, gas fire or any LPG. the list of what the oprative is allowed to work on is on the back of the corgi ID card.

OP looks like your getting on great with the kitchen glad your getting a mate in to do the gaswork, well worth it. btw that cuboard or the boiler is crooked :p
 
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