ikea kitchen fitting

DH is a chippie and says 'A kitchen is a kitchen'

Very profound dear His way of saying, if your builder knows what he's doing, he sees no problem.

If you have a builder that you can trust, no contest. You would not know if the Ikea kitchen fitters were sub contracted. Stick with who you know.

I think most of these companies sub contract.

I had a kitchen fitted by a well known DIY store (not IKEA). I arranged my own, trusted electrician, plasterer and tiler who did a superb job and at short notice. I also bought and arranged delivery of cooker, fridge, washing machine and drier at the right times. The store sub contracted to some great guys who were frustrated by wrong, missing or delayed deliveries of items. I felt really sorry for them as they worked so hard in difficult circumstances and often arrived to find they could not proceed! I don't think they were paid on these occasions - disgusting! The whole process took from July to November to be completed and that is only a small, standard kitchen. I eventually had some compensation in vouchers for the same store. I would not recommend them!

The S.O. had some floor tiles laid by someone from B&Q and the whole lot had to be taken up and re done because the tiles were faulty [and the person laying them hadn't noticed].

Tegan the sub contractor laid my tiles and refused to finish until the edgings (if that's the right word) were matched correctly. The problem was sorted at his insistence. I did not mention the name of the well known DIY store!! I repeat the sub contractors were great guys!

I had ikea kitchen cabinets fitted by my builder, but bought worktop appliances etc elsewhere. All fine except for fridge which didn't fit ( this was the only appliance we bought from Ikea as it was on a special offer! ) did get it sorted eventually but still not perfect, moral: do not buy your appliances from ikea. We are happy with the cupboards, if we gert fed up with the doors or one gets damaged it's fairly easy just to buy new doors and change tem.

My kitchen is from Ikea. It was easily fitted by our builder, including all the appliances. Apparently Ikea units are deeper than UK built ones so allowances have to be made for pipe work and electrics at the back of them. I have had no problems apart from, 4 years on, still not getting to grips with the numerous options on the oven and microwave oven but that's because I am totally inept at reading complicated instructions

There was an item on this on Radio 4 this week, possibly "You & Yours" ? Chap had problems mainly because Ikea had sent wrong worktop or something.

Should still be available on the BBC Radio 4 iplayer/website doo dah.

We are thinking of replacing our kitchen - but everything seems so expensive and we hadn't thought of Ikea which appears to be a better price than some we have looked at. What do grans who have had an Ikea kitchen fitted think of it? I see there is a 25 year guarantee - should see us out!

I went for a more expensive kitchen but my daughter and a close friend have Ikea kitchens, which were fitted by their regular builder/chippy. My friends is 7 years old and looks like new and they are a busy household.

We had an Ikea kitchen fitted in the guest house in York. The kitchen units, etc.,were really good, but the builder was rubbish.
We had to have just about everything else redone by a friend of the decorator.
We had nonslip flooring put down, and the builder had not taken up the old floortiles and put down the subfloor properly, so the tile corners kept appearing through the flooring.
The builder was tiling the walls and the tiles were at different levels on either side of the door where he started and finished, so even the wall tiles had to be replaced.
His dad was an electrician and had done all the wiring. All his son had to do was put the sockets on the wall. When we put a fridge under a worktop, it would not switch on. The son had just plastered and tiled over a bare wire.
His dad was so upset he said he would never work with him again.
Because the guest house kitchen was out of commission for a fortnight, we went away for the first week, so most of the problems were hidden when we got back.
Fortunately we had only paid for materials. When we had the work redone, we took the cost from the money we owed.
He tried to sue us, but did not get anywhere as we had photos of all the work that had to be redone. He was a member of the FMB, and lost his membership.
No, I am not exaggerating.

My husband and I have fitted a couple of kitchens in our marriage, the units only though, always had someone to fit the worktop.

What I would ask whoever is doing the fitting is do they have experience of cutting and fitting a butted worktop joint and if it's not correct are they going to replace the whole worktop.

Son and wife recently had a worktop fitted by builders who did a good job on everything else but they did a terrible cut of the worktop and it had to be replaced.

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I fitted my own ikea kitchen over a decade ago so don't know if they are still the same. Yes a kichen is a kitchen but I would say the thing I remember about the Ikea kitchen is that the backs fit right at the back of the unit whereas others that I'd fitted previously had a 2 inch space for pipework to run along behind the units with minimal cut outs etc. We got round that by rerouting all the pipework down to ground level so that we could have backs on the units and no pipework on display inside the cupboards. All the pipework runs at ground level and can be accessed via the kickboards if necessary. Hardly an issue for a competent builder. I recently replaced just my worktops, sink and hob as the units still look good.

We are currently getting prices for a full refit to our kitchen, but prices are coming in too high by about 2K as we also need to refit flooring throughout ground floor. I have read that you should not be afraid to ask for discounts, but how much should I expect/haggle for - help/advice please?

We have an extremely large kitchen, and we have just finished fitting an Ikea kitchen . Me, DH and SiL. Easy - Peasy. You just have to follow their well thought out instructions.
It looks splendid. Has a 25 yr guarantee and was £3000 cheaper than others we were quoted. Highly recommend. They will fit it for you for an extra £1000.

It depends on where you've been quoted prices from Saffysgang10 and if they're all pretty much of a muchness. If they are from a variety of sources and all give roughly the same price then it will be hard to get a discount. If they're all big name stores then a builder/handyman will be cheaper and more flexible with their pricing. Maybe you just need to increase your budget to get what you want.