Are Wickes having a laugh?

[Panda57]

Just got a quote from wickes for a very very small kitchen. There is only 1 tall cabinet, 1 under the sink cabinet, 2 corner cabinets next to sink cabinet, small drawer cabinet and 5 wall cabinets. No appliances, only laminate worktop and a stainless steal sink in addition to the cabinets. Price 4k (this is a sale price as well, it's originally 7k). Plus trying to charge 2k for installation (no electrics or tiling involved, just removing old cabinets and putting new cabinets in the same place and putting in a new sink in the same place). Surely this is too much, especially the original price?

That does sound pretty steep, especially considering it is wickes. Is it a particularly fancy set of cupboards?

When I was looking for a new Kitchen I found Wickes ridiculously expensive, they wanted to charge me 15k for a relatively small kitchen.

Ikea isn’t that cheap an option either these days.

aphen it was the oban ivory cupboards

They do look like a nice set. I like the colour.
Still, see if you can get something better value elsewhere. Or do what our previous home owner did... attach nice solid wood doors onto dodgy old mdf cupboards.. we didn’t notice until we moved in!

People who sell kitchens seem to amuse themselves by having imaginary prices.

Surely nobody pays "list" price? It's only there so they can knock X% off it.

Like plastic windows, kitchen units are things that most people buy very raely, so they don't know what the price should be.

if you can manage to find a good independent carpenter, by personal recommendation not on an advertising website, he can probably assemble a set of chipboard boxes as well as anybody, and you may be able to pay his daily rate rather than an inflated shop price.

A plumber and an electrician will probably do their parts to a higher standard than the average kitchen fitter.

When we bought our Wickes kitchen, we had a copy of the price list, and we selected the "standard" selection of cupboards, which were more heavily reduced to make their example kitchen look a better price. This surprisingly made the kitchen much cheaper than if we'd sorted the design then priced it up. Our kitchen was a great design as well, though, and was only small.

We (well, DH) have also fitted a couple of kitchens ourselves, over the years. For a small kitchen, it wasn't so hard at all, if there's no electrics or plumbing.

Are you asking them to remove the old kitchen and dispose of it? If not then £2k for fitting is too much. Most kitchen fitters charge per unit being fitted ime.

10 cupboards... doesn't sound too unreasonable. I seem to remember 500 a cupboard fitted being an average so 5k

Most expensive kitchen fitters ever Alexalee! We paid £2500 for 28 units to be fitted.

500 including the cost of the cupboard... works out about 100 labour cost per cupboard

Ah - I read your post as that was the cost of fitting per cupboard.

Lol God no... If that were true I would have a go myself haha

Wickes should have given you a breakdown of the parts list, to validate.

Go to DIY Kitchens' website and price up a like for like.

£2k for installation is pretty reasonable - it's generally a week of work for two people. You might be able to reduce it by breaking down the old kitchen yourself.

Seems expensive to me, I estimate that would take one person about 3-4 days to fit, at £150 a day, so £450-£600, I’m in the north west. And the cupboards seem a lot, I’d shop around and get some more quotes.

We got quotes from Magnet, Wickes, Wren and two local independent kitchen shops and Wickes were the cheapest. Plus you can negotiate.

If you want a real laugh, try Wren!

Even funnier than a Magnet quote? Magnet had units with 75% off and still their quote came to over £30k for the kitchen and fitting. When we asked was there anything they could do on price because we loved the design (their designer was brilliant). The manager started removing things, like the island worktop, to reduce the price. He was deadly serious too. It was hilarious. Luckily I had enough detail to be able to recreate the design with DIY.

We payed 4000 for a medium sized kitchen including fitting. Laminate worktops and average priced doors. We didn't have any fancy fittings but the price did include a own brand dishwasher, hob and double oven. That was from Howdens and we got our builder to fit it. I would recommend finding a fitter and getting a quote with their advice on where to get the kitchen.

They are extortionate!

We got our kitchen from diykitchens it’s amazing great price and quality would buy another one if I need one!

Following with interest

Someone from Wickes is coming to look at our kitchen and gives us a quote at the weekend. Mine is a small galley type kitchen, not a lot you can do with it.

We are interested in two kitchens, one is solid oak, the other oak veneer. Laminate top. Will be asking for built in fridge freezer/washer dryer/dishwasher and oven too. Plus fitting. Should be interesting....

I have been dreading having my kitchen done, the logistics, the mess, the cost. Top floor flat, no lift. Where do we store all the units when they are delivered? Not much space.

We had a Wickes kitchen and it’s been great quality, really solid, much better than other diy warehouse type places. Also they came out and measured and then went away and drew up plans for free. I think they are worth paying more for. However, they did knock money off when I said it was too expensive. I held out because I couldn’t decide and towards the end of the month the store manager called me and said he’d like a sale and could take another £500 off. However I got it all fitted independently and I didn’t buy their appliances or worktops.

Also you used to be able to buy Wickes kitchens at Bencmarx and Travis Perkins not sure if this is still the case? Might work out cheaper.

Second that, we have had bespoke kitchen in ours but DS1 has just bought Bencmarx it is still in pieces in dining room while a new joist goes.He is getting local joiner to put it in but he ripped it out. Next door neighbour is a builder and recommends them.

Negotiate with them. It's the end of the month this week so if they haven't hit their sales figures they may be keen to make the sale and knock a bit more off.

Unless you are having every gadget going - drawers, corner unit and so on they are taking the piss.

Our builder got 50% trade discount on there full prices so shows how much profit is involved!