Comments on B & Q Kitchen

[TheScullster]

Hi all

Patience is not my strong point, so instead of trying to source good condition second hand I went out and bought 1 wall unit and 1 base to be fitted in a walk in cupboard for my light tools. Didn't investigate too far, but presumably all B & Q kitchens use the same carcasses?

Problems experienced:

Wall unit fixings - are they serious? This had 2 bits of bent plate which are each screwed to the wall with 2 screws. I used 2" x 10s and found that nipping them up "damned tight" started to crunch the bracket throught the plasterboard (dry lined brick wall). Then there are these weird plastic! adjuster blocks with a metal claw projecting behind to engage the top edge of the plates. So the unit just hangs on the plates and is not "locked" vertically. Granted it is unlikely that the unit will be lifted in future accidentally, but the whole arrangement seems weak albeit neat and straight forward. Anyone had any failures?

The internal finish does not seem as solid as MFI stuff (the only self assembly items I have constructed recently have been MFI wardrobes). The veneer tended to flake as I screwed the metal post-type fasteners into place.

The backing hard board was ripped. Looking at the way this was packed, it would be difficult for this item to survive any package handling at all. It is the weakest part and was on the bottom of the pack, in some areas only "supported" internally with polystyrene blocks.

I believe all modern units are now constructed as boxes on plastic legs like this one, instead of having full height side panels. The adjustment thread on those legs is coarse and there doesn't appear to be a way to lock them at the required height. I found that these could easily move when I was fine-tuning the position of the carcass.

Finally handles! These are purchased separately at what appear to be rip-off prices.

The only positives were:

Managed to talk the "showroom" guy into allowing exchange of parts from other box rather than re-package and return the whole thing back.

Got most of the job done over weekend.

For some reason the doors were incorrectly priced in our favour - £6 instead of £26. I guess this just about compensated for the return hassle.

Am I expecting too much? Following a suggestion from Jacob in my thread last week " Where do all the old Kitchens Go", I mentioned the possibility of free standing furniture to SWMBO. Didn't get the rapturous reception it might have I'm afraid.

Phil

[Grunff]

Are /you/ serious? This is the standard way of hanging wall units, common across many ranges.

You're not supposed to just screw it to plasterboard - you need something behind it.

[Andy Hall]

This is a very standard way of fixing kitchen cabinets and has the advantage that they can be adjusted in multiple directions to achieve a precise alignment.

You can put a self tap screw through when they are set up. Once you have the worktop in place, they are not going to move anyway.

At the B&Q price point, this is about what you get. Reasonable quality for lowish price.

There is the cleaning issue....

[Tim Mitchell]

In article , Andy Hall writes

We used B&Q units for our kitchen, I thought they were good for the price. They often play funny pricing games with the doors.

I found a lot of the in-store stock was damaged in some way. We had ours delivered (cos there was quite a lot of it) and it was all in perfect condition.

If you pay quite a bit more you get the solid pre-assembled carcasses from Magnet, Jewsons etc.

[TheScullster]

Grunff said

Yes, it's 20 years since I fitted a kitchen so much has changed!

As stated in original post, this is plaster board dry lined over brick wall!

Occupational hazard - working in heavy(ish) engineering has the disadvantage that anything less than an M16 bolt looks positively dangerous!

Phil

[Grunff]

In this type of situation, it's common (certainly recommended) to hack out some plaster board and attach a piece of board to the wall behind to provide a firm fixing.

When we did our kitchen, I pre-installed pieces of 3/4" ply running along the wall where the fixings went. If you do this at the dry-lining stage, it's a lot easier.

[AlexW]

I did some MFI units on heavier duty frame fixings. Solid as a rock. If brick (as stated) use correct size drill if aeriated block a slightly smaller one might be a good idea (does not really need to be a masonry drill in this case).

Re-boarding with ply works (done it for some bathroom fittings) but might be effort intensive for a whole kitchen. In my (admittedly small, about 5) experience of dry lined kitchens I have never seen one fitted this way by a fitter etc.

HTH,

Alex.

[TheScullster]

Grunff said

Now you mention it, I seem to remember a similar post previously. Also saw that someone got the builder to put a line of adhesive behind the plaster board at fixing height. Trouble is remembering these handy hints when you are doing the jobs for real.

Thanks

Phil

[TheScullster]

Tim said

Thanks Tim, I'll look at these other suppliers at kitchen time

Phil

[Stuart Noble]

They are serious, and I don't like them either. They supposedly allow you to drill the holes anywhere in the general vicinity and use the adjustment to level things up. They didn't feel that positive to me and not being able to see what's going on behind the cabinet doesn't help.

Handles and knobs are surprisingly expensive wherever you buy them

[Robin Mayes]

Try Ikea - I know, the name just sends shudders down the spine, but well worth the suffering - same with legs too. In fact, the whole of the kitchen range is pretty good and far cheaper than similar products from B&Q, Homebase, etc

[Tim Mitchell]

In article , Robin Mayes writes

But if they haven't got everything you need in stock you can end up waiting forever to get the rest of it.

[Andrea10163]

Nothing much has changed then in 16 years. Just put in a full but small kitchen and the adjustment in the top hangers for wall units is pitiful and the quality of the screw head is poor and becomes unusuable making further adjustment impossible and that was with using only a normal screwdriver :-( Not everybody's walls are even and straight.