HOWDENS - good value? (and what colour tiles shall we have?)

[PavlovtheCat]

Our builder/maintenance man has offered to get us a kitchen from Howdens on his account. He can't fit it but knows someone who can. That's not a huge problem is that doesn't work out, a couple of people can fit kitchens that I know.

But, he is obviously taking a cut, and being a bit dishonest about how much this is. He says he is getting his balance wiped at Howdens as his 'cut' but that's £150 he says, and he is working quite hard to get this for us, so i suspect it's more than that. It means we don't really know what the costs are made up of, exactly. I would prefer he just told us what his cuts is, and how much Howdens' cost is out of what we are paying as, well he ain't doing it for free and tbh neither would we expect him to.

So. What I want to know, roughly, is this. Is what he is charging us good value, roughly (obviously you have no dimensions). It is a 3 wall U-shape kitchen, with a fourth wall for dining table.

Price is £6250.

It's going to be made up of:
(extra tall units, think this works out around one additional shelf equivalent)

one boxed in boiler.
one corner wall cupboard with normal door - front and unit
4 normal wall cupboards - front and unit
one corner wall cupboard with larder style door (looks like two doors, is actually one) - front and unit
One half wall cupboard above a built in microwave, and the unit for the whole thing.

Handles.
Sink and tap.
carosel unit in one cupboard.

Built in own make appliances:
under counter fridge, freezer
double oven, hob, extractor
washing wachine, dishwasher
microwave

On the fourth wall - two small glass units and a thin tall cupboard.

Not including:
splashback
tiles
flooring
any lighting at all, not even under cupboard lighting.
And obviously not inc installation etc.

And, my second question is. Small ish kitchen, white gloss doors, would like a bold colour on dining room wall, thinking of grey walls. DH really, really wants white tiles. What do you think?

I think I'd try & work out how much the appliances would be then see how much the carcass and everything else would be.
We've just ordered an utility room from Howdens; L shaped units, with double wall cupboard, double cupboard doors, SS sink and tap for £900. The room is 3m2 but it's only for 2 walls. White shaker doors, laminate worktop.

well, apparently we have an amazing deal on this. We originally went for no fitted washing machine or dishwasher, and they have (Howdens) apparently said they will add both of theses for £500. So without these, it was originally £5,700, but that was apparently with a substantial discount.

It doesn't sound like a huge discount to me... but then, I have never bought a new kitchen before!

forgot to mention it includes a laminate oak effect worktop (length is oven plus two cupboards either side, and width is 3 two cupboards worth. If that makes sense). I should measure the room.

I have just had builders in for a loft conversion. I found out transparency was impossible and found howdens frustrating because they do all they can to foster this lack of transparency, by being very vague when asked prices "it's in the range of..." "it depends on your builders account". Basically they make sure the builder has the best hand. I guess maybe you need to look past this, decide whether you like their product (I was looking for oak veneer fire doors and in the end found cheaper and just as good elsewhere- by posting on mumnset) ;and whether the price is right for you.
I've come to the conclusion that all DIY and homeware shops use little sweeteners to draw people in.
My top tip is keep control of the works with the builder as he may want to add on extras you never thought of and may not need. I distractedly said yes to a lighted bathroom cabinet but really did not need one as the light levels are v good in the bathroom. So that's an extra £150 for the electrician on something i ll never use.

I've just looked at my plans, I've got 8 cupboards & 6m worktop. Our builder got 50% discount, I've seen the invoice. HTH

Our builder claims we have a 'big' discount, but won't actually say what! I suspect we have around 30% discount and he has the rest. October is a huge discount time, it seems. It's a huge chunk for him to just let us use his account. I know someone else who can probably do that and give us the full discount so will go talk to them. They are not local so might not work if they are not planning on visiting near me any time soon.

If I added a little more to what your's is, as our's is 3 walls, so let's double it. That's £1800. I will round it up, as that's also easier. And add another £500 for having tall cupboards, so £2500. That means £3800 for the appliances. That's bullshit.

Builders alway suggest howdens when doin a project yet not many will have one themselves.
Just be careful with what builders suggest as they go on mark up and not the qaulity factor.
Howdens is also the largest contractor for council houses and the carcass is the same product, all they do is chancge the door fronts and offer you an upgrade for the hinges.
They also come out expensive compaired to many if you look at this price compare
www.evokitchens.co.uk/compare-price.html

I work for a building company and just to let you know the builders discount with Howdens will be dependant on their spend with them.

I don't know enough to give you exact figures but the way it works is Howdens have a list price - which they should be able to provide you with.

The spend will then go in brackets so say for example:-
up to 20,000 a year - discount will be 5%
up to 50,000 a year - discount will be 10%
up to 75,000 a year - discount will be 20% etc, etc, etc

It is then of course the builders choice if they pass that discount on to you or not. Also by encouraging you to buy from Howdens they are increasing their annual spend with them which in turn could result in them being awarded a bigger discount.

HTH

Also...
I have had a Howdens worktop in my kitchen for 10 years and other than one end piece chipping I have never had any problems with it.

It sounds like a lot tbh. We got a big kitchen from Ikea which was around 2.5 but only included fridge/ freezer, dishwasher and cooker hood. We got it fitted for around 600.00.

Personally wouldn't go grey and white, but whatever you like. I have white gloss and copper cupboards with pale yellow/ green walls. Love it!

We've got a Howdens kitchen in our new flat. We didn't install it but it was new when we moved in (a year ago).

To be honest, I'm not impressed. The Lamona (Howden own brand) oven is awful, the own brand hob & extractor are bog standard but presumably were bottom of the range.

The build standard is ok, but no more robust than the IKEA kitchen we left behind. All in all, I would prefer an IKEA kitchen because you can easily and cheaply upgrade or replace bits. I'd like a carousel fitting for our corner cabinet but when you look it up on the Howdens website it's £££ and so I'd have to involve a builder and opaque discounts....

I'm highly suspicious of these enormously inflated prices which are then brought down with the trade discount thing. It's so hard to see what you're getting and compare like with like.

Howden's is decent quality IMO, but possibly only worth it if you get a hefty discount. Ikea will be cheaper, other brands may be depending on what you want and how much of the Howdens discount you get.

i wouldn't buy their own brand appliances though - we bought a Howdens kitchen 2.5 years ago and bought all appliances separately. The Which reports we read put us off.

We had a Howden's kitchen fitted 15 years ago. The kitchen has lasted but the "free" dishwasher lasted 2years. To give him his due, the builder told us that their appliances are "shite"
He gave us his invoices and passed on all the discount.

If you're going to get appliances from Howdens, forget the Lamona stuff and pay for the upgraded Bosch appliances. We use Howdens kitchens in all our refurbs and they last well.

Your kitchen sounds ridiculously similar to the one we're having installed at the moment. I would say the price sounds similar to ours. Or, what ours would be with appliances. Our fitter recommended not getting them from Howdens and we bought hob and oven from AO (who I love). We are having metro tiles on the walls with grey grout (even if this is about to go out of fashion, I still love it) and Potters clay on the walls - though I'm currently having a panic the paint won't match the Smoke grout and the tiles are up with two pots of paint ready to go on the walls (be warned smoke grout is a lot darker than it looks on the site). It is difficult to know value without the dimensions, but I've seen our invoice and the discounts vary across different products and they do seem pretty substantial. I can't comment on quality as we haven't lived with it yet, but I do know someone else with one and she is happy with it.

ok, so, the fitter just didn't seem to be being honest with us and we were struggling with getting a list of what he wanted us to be paying for, and hassling us to pay before he goes on holiday tomorrow.

I get that he is likely to take a cut from the discount and we told him we expected him to have done that, but he kept changing what was included in it and pressuring us to pay by tomorrow directly into his account, with no contract drawn for what we were getting etc.

Our old builder who is moving away has met with us and and agreed to fit us in before he goes away. He said avoid Howden's as they are much more expensive these days than they used to be, and he has suggested we try Magnet. He also talked to us about some of the cupboards in the dining section of the kitchen, which are costly and we can get from Ikea instead for a fraction of the price (nicer too).

We have gone to them today, decided to buy the appliances ourselves, he himself said that we can get almost identical from AO or similar at much cheeper prices. But, we did get a dishwasher and a fancy carousel and pull out door included (sounds daft, but I can't bend to get into the back of a cupboard so need a good carousel that uses as much space as possible.

We costed it, with approx prices on appliances that we are getting ourselves, which will be decent make such as Bosch (Howdens were supplying their own make, and it made me nervous, so thanks for confirming they are shit).

And, it works out about £1000 cheaper, and we will also be saving money on some remedial work as the builder can do the remedial work as he is a builder/carpenter/kitchen fitter, all the plumbing, electrics etc and will get his friend who is a qualified part P electrician to sign any work off, as well as the fitting.

So, all in all, £1500 in total saved with some better guidance from our builder, and some more of an idea of what we are doing and some confidence to do some of it ourselves and some bartering with Magnet

Feel happier.

and then the guy we were working with on Howdens said if we had gone back to him he could have got it down by that much plus 10%. But, not with Bosch or similar appliances.

If we were to buy comparable appliances, we could probably change that £1500 saving to almost £2000.

That money is going to pay for us to build a decent larder cupboard in the hallway and complete the hallway cupboards that have been waiting for years to be done, which will make this place fabulous and organised. Maybe even revamp the bathroom too.

teaandkittens I love the metro tiles and dark grout. Not sure DH will go with the grey grout, but have found a fab splash back, so if we go with that we will do white tiles, possibly metro as DH likes them and a coloured splash back, but grey won't go well with the splash back, so maybe a soft version of one of the splash back colours (multicoloured).

Instead of feeling anxious, I now feel excited. Got my spreadsheet set up with all the costings, and am now working on getting as good as appliances and accessories as I can for as little as possible

AO are doing a good deal at the moment, with £20 off each additional appliance after the first one, so if we can find what we want from there for everything, we can save £100 just by using them.

So any tips of where to go for cheap kitchen accessories, or style designs let me know!

Sounds like you've done really well. Are you getting a mix of Magnet and Ikea now? Or still with Howdens? We are just starting out planning a new kitchen and I find the lack of transparency really daunting. I'll have to Google AO.