Grrr kitchen fitters Grr grr... (and Ping Jon Rumm)

[Vir Campestris]

Our dishwasher reported a fault. I'm busy so we actually tried to get a man in. And failed. So I looked myself.

I'm impressed that it could detect a split drain hose at all. Less impressed that it didn't do it until quite a lot of water had gone under the cupboards.

But...

To get the kickboard off from the front of the dishwasher I had to remove the one from the front of the sink.

To get the one from the front of the sink off I had to push an allen key into the 3mm gap at the top, then pull hard. No finger space. And the length is a little long, so it was a really hard pull - there's a dent in the cupboard where it was sitting.

Then I could see that as I'd suspected the one on the front of the dishwasher had been screwed through from the sink one.

I could then get the dishwasher out, immediately see the problem, and order the new part. Which took about 20 minutes to fit.

Followed by an hour and a half to get the dishwasher back into place, some of which is to plug it back in - the socket it on the wall under the sink, and _behind_ the panel at the back of the cupboard that's supposed to stop things falling down the back.

I also noticed that the wiring for the kitchen is mostly lying on the floor. That includes a large square junction box. Is that even permitted?

I haven't put the kickboards back yet - I want to dry it all out back there.

Andy

[Theo]

I think it's technically OK - the kitchen carcasses are counted as part of the fabric of the building (like a stud wall), so it's OK to have fixed wiring attached to them and the wiring under the carcasses is supported by the floor and not likely to be disturbed (in a similar way to that in the loft).

Needless to say it's not the best idea.

Theo

(on the todo list is to rewire and replumb the kitchen to make things actually user friendly, rather than the kitchen fitters' cunning wheezes to make the inaccessible... still inaccessible)

[alan_m]

I fitted the units in my kitchen and for some of the floor units where in future I may need some access instead of slotting the back panel in the grooves I cut it down so it could be screwed from the front into extra battens I fitted to the back of carcass. This forward planning was a result of previously having the same difficulty as you ;)

In my mothers house I've no idea how the original kitchen fitter managed to connect the washing machine to the water supply. Somehow he managed to connect the hoses (both hot and cold) with an access hole of a few inches diameter. I had to take a saw to enlarge the hole before I could even get a clear view of the connection.

[John Rumm]

While not elegant or necessarily sensible (as you discovered, things in kitchens can leak, and gravity and water usually conspire to have it end up on the floor!) There is no direct rule that prevents cable being supported on surfaces of what are in effect voided off parts of a building. (you could possibly argue it is installation method No. 40 - single or multicore cable in a building void).

Personally I would not do it, and generally don't particularly like having accessories mounted on kitchen cabinets either unless unavoidable. However it is probably quick if you are a kitchen fitter tasked with doing the wiring at the same time as the rest of the job (rather than an electrician completing the wiring before the kitchen fitters turn up)

[williamwright]

I have recently seen kitchen wiring done by kitchen fitters, who were apparently not electricians. We were stripping the kitchen out. There was a length of 1.5 T&E loose on top of the units. It looped in and out of the extractor. To find out which of the two cables was live I tested them. They both were. One end went around the kitchen then up to the 13A socket in the bedroom and the other went to a 13A socket in the kitchen. So I think two circuits were linked, but there had been no ill effects. We removed every bit of cable from the whole kitchen and got a man in. The history of this is that the man who lived in the house until about the mid-80s was a bit of a DIY freak of the over-enthusiastic variety. (in between his tenure and the much more recent one of my friend the house was inhabited by a reclusive old woman.) Amongst other peculiarities was a water pipe sticking out of the wall at the back of the house with no tap on it. The water was controlled by a stop tap in the basement. In the back wall of the garage was a rectangular hole that was boarded up, as if a window was going to be fitted but never was.

Bill