Howdens - HELP!

[LaMigraine]

I'm sure this has been done to death already - sorry!! - but could anyone advise on what's reasonable to expect with Howdens?

I got a quote from the branch who my builder has an account with and it came to £10k for an 18-unit kitchen, including a small island, but with no appliances or worktop. It's now their October sale and after some tweaks to the design (not changing the number of units, only the layout) I asked for their final best price, taking the sale into account, and they've given me £500 off! When I said that doesn't seem like much of a discount for a sale, he said the plan was always to buy during the sale period (true) so his original quote was priced accordingly. But it still seems really high to me. He says it's a "big" kitchen - I disagree. It's not tiny but it's only a single run of units plus island - the run is 7m long, but that includes almost 2m of fridge/freezer and range cooker (which we are supplying ourselves).

Trouble is, I really do want the kitchen (which he probably senses though I've tried to play it cool!), but we literally can't afford £9.5k. At the moment he seems pretty immovable, but (a) am I being unreasonable in thinking he's taking the Mickey a bit with the price, and (b) how can I haggle him down?!?!

Thanks in advance for reading...

@Lizaa No the sink is Lamona, which I think is their own brand? So shouldn't be an especially pricey choice. We do have 3 tall units, which I guess ups the price: one to house the boiler so non-negotiable really, one that's needed to house the hoover, ironing board, etc - also can't really be changed as we have no utility room, and one that will be used as a pantry, also really needed as there's not much space for food storage otherwise.

@stucknoue Well according to the branch manager I'm getting a 73% discount - so random, honestly - so in theory even better than your dad's discount.

@Cazg86 The quote is for the Chelford range - is that their premium? It had to be Shaker rather than modern, really, as our house is old Victorian, and I didn't like the Fairford as I'm really not keen on the wood-grain effect. But maybe I should try to like it more if it's cheaper!
Does anyone happen to know how the ranges are ordered, price-wise (i.e. which is the most expensive, second most expensive, etc)?

Me and hubby run our own kitchen fitting business. He is on the tool himself and we have trade accounts with Howdens, magnet and benchmarx. If you are in london then would be happy to give an alternative quote. We always pass the trade discounts on.to our client.
Chelford is their new range of doors which is replacing their Burford range which was around for about 14 years. I still prefer the Burford over the chelford so not sure why they replacing it. Price and quality wise chelford sits around 4.5 mark where 1 being the cheapest and 10 bring the most expensive.
Benchmarx Turin is a similar door quality wise and price is better. We've just done one for another client which started if with Burford then had to move to chelford as Burford dove grey was being discontinued but got offered better price by benchmarx on their Turin cashmere so cleint went with that one in the end.
The October mega discount at Howdens is nothing but a gimmick actually. It's exactly the same price all year sround. It's just false marketing for ore Christmas sales drive for the firm. The individual discounts on items means nothing as they are looking for their gross profit tab on their sales estimating screen when quoting. Most Howdens branches operate at a 32% GP.

Howdens will price match Diy kitchens.

It took a little time, on the Diy kitchens planner I had to add each individual item on the plan, and add soft close fittings (they are standard with Howdens) and give them a printout of the estimate. I saved nearly £2k on a 23 unit kitchen.

I bought the sink and taps from screwfix and saved a lot there too.

the turin is actuall a lower quality door as is pvc foil where the howdens chelford is mdf and melamine on the back so leads you believe is painted.
if the chelford is vinly all over then both door ar as poor as each other.
Anyone who knows the kitchen world would know to stay clear of pft + vinyl doors - looking forward to the hate on this one

Oh and that was 2k better than using the fitters discount.

We had a Howdens quote and then got a Benchmarx quote ... about £2K cheaper and much more transparent. That kitchen is being fitted at the moment

My local howdens and magnet refused to price match diy. It may depend on your branch I guess. Also I sent diy my kitchen plan by email and they created a like for like basket for me to compare price so it was no work at all.

Honestly so impressed with them compared to all the hassle my friend had with howdens and I just found out last night how much she paid for hers 😱 I was less and I’ve had a wall down, all the pull out and swivel cupboards and bells and whistles and a bigger kitchen with an island to start with.

Call a local carpenter (they will all have an account with Howdens and all get the 70% discount), the carpenter will know a local plumber and spark, they all work together. £10K for a Howdens kitchen of that size is way to much. Have the trades provide you with a day rate, carpenter should be there for about three days, plumber 1 day and sparks 1 day. Youll need to sort tiling. Hire a 6 yard skip in yourself to get rid of the old kitchen, should be £250 to hold it there all week.

We've just agreed a Howden's kitchen with our builder. One worktop (2m long) and one breakfast bar (also 2m) in solid oak, 5 base unit cupboards (Chelford with drawers inside) and 3 long drawers, includes handles, laminate flooring throughout, Lamona sink and tap and the cost price is £4,200. It was a cheaper but we switched to the solid oak worktop and changed the flooring.

OP, do you have lots of the add-ons? Eg. Lights, cutlery drawer, larder interior, interior baskets/rubbish bins? They really add up.

RJnomore1 and *Which DIY Kitchens range did you go for if you don’t mind me asking? Were your deliveries straightforward? Have read here that some customers have encountered issues with their deliveries in the last few months.

Sorry that should have also been directed to Mrsladybirdface

We went for Luca Matt in dove grey (bit boring I know but we have always had shaker so wanted something different.)

Delivery was great came when said...think it was about 3 to 4 weeks from order. There was one damaged corner post which they resent within 2 days, they also missed off some internal shelves, which were also sent within a few days. I had missed off a couple of end panels and their communication over getting these wasnt great and I was expecting quite a long wait for them but again they came with in a few days of ordering.

I'm really pleased with all of it and cannot fault them apart from slight lack of communication. For the amount I saved it is definitely worth it! I had an ikea kitchen previously so am used to planning kitchens. I would say it is better quality that IKEA and as it all comes fully assembled it is much quicker to fit. (IKEA came out at a roughly the same price)

My 1 meter wide larder cupboard is a thing of wonder.

Once it is all tiled and I can post pictures I will do a post.

11 units from DIY Kitchens. Including pull outs, bifold doors to one unit and laminate worktops. Fully made up and much more solid than Howdens. Just under 4k including VAT.

In their showroom they have examples of units from other suppliers inc Howdens and the quality really shows. Lots of different doors to choose from. So much easier than Howdens as well as you can do your own design and try moving things around to see what works for you. As PP planner.diy-kitchens.com/

I had a new house built and used a self build forum and unless people were paying out 20k plus for bespoke, they overwhelmingly love DIY kitchens. My fitter usually used Howdens and wasn't very impressed that I sourced it myself but then was extremely impressed with the quality to the extent he now recommends them too

How strange, I've just this second purchased the Howden's Chelford range.
To be perfectly blunt, you need to speak with at least a further 2 companies to appreciate the price.

Howden's was the middle ground for us, it wasn't the basic but not the premium either. For 12 cabinets, tall larder, solid oak worktop s, sink and tap came to £3800+VAT with discount. And 4700+VAT without discount.

You could switch to the Allendale which is 2mm thinner than the Chelford and woodgrain. That should save you some money, although frankly I didn't like it at all.
Oh and their worktops are over priced. They quoted 700+VAT - These are half the price in wickes.

I would get in touch with Wickes and go to Onlinekitchenstore.co.uk with your list & plan to request a quote - I purchased a sample from them and it was excellent quality, their customer service is great and you can order it all online, you will just need to use the fitter you spoke to and include that in the price.

I hope that helps somewhat.

I got two quotes from different branches of Howdens using my BILs account (so I got the quote directly to me). There was a 15% difference between the quoted prices. The pricing is really not transparent. And their ‘October sale’ appears to be meaningless.

We got Howdens to price match DIY kitchens. Ended up with 10 chelford units (incl some tall appliance units) and quartz worktops for £5.5k, we probably could have got it a bit lower if we’d taken out the appliances from both quotes too, but didn’t think of that until too late.

We paid 5k with howdens with trade discount.
That's 13 units (I think) and work tops and all integrated appliances (except oven and fridge) not sure which range it is though but all very good quality.
we tried b and q kitchens which were 1000 pound cheaper but quality was just not the same.

@HotGingerPudding

Ours is the Luca range too but gloss. Delivery in 3 weeks, I was short of the little plugs for putting shelves on (I think the joiner went off with some by accident tbh) straight in post and arrived next day, again I was an end panel short which was my fault as I changed the design slightly, it arrived quickly but as with other poster that was the only bit the comma wasn’t great, got phoned on the delivery day to tell me.

It’s definitely better quality than the almost identical howden in my friends house and much better than b n q. The advantage over Ikea which was slightly cheaper was that the units were ore built so fitting cost less. No wickes up here in Scotland so cant comment on them. Magnet were an absolute waste of time. Said they would price match but put in basic units where I’ve got pull out, corner carousel etc then jumped £2k when I pointed it out.

Howdens don't actually have an October sale, it's the same price whatever month, just dependent on what discount your tradesman gets, they just let u think its a sale

Our kitchen is from Howdens, initially quite pleased with it but the appliances are awful. They’ve all needed replacing and the kitchens just over 5 years old. Plus our friend who now is a property developer told us that Howdens ask the kitchen fitter/joiner how much “mark” up do they want them to add on for them. I wouldn’t use them again for that reason alone.

The truth is with Howdens a lot of fitters don’t pass the full discount on to the customer, Howdens will give the client 50% but the fitter gets another 20+ discount I always pass the FULL discount in which in my case is between 73 and 78 % .

Can confirm; Howdens will always give an inflated "RRP" to retail customers while quoting their actual prices to their trade customer.

Some will pass it on, some won't. If in doubt, get a comparison quote from a competitor and take it back to Howdens; I've seen them drop their "best price but only if you buy it today" by 2k to match a competitor quote.

(And yes, Lamona appliances are absolutely dire)

Hmm to Howdens. We got a really good price as DH ran a company that had done a lot of business with them. They sent multiple wrong items, drawer fronts that were a different width to the drawers, and then charged for worktop we hadn't had. One day a member of staff ended up driving to our house with yet another missing part. They insisted on coming to our house to check the amount of worktop we had in the kitchen I don't think so. Think we had Burford units (if they are the framed shaker style?). They didn't last well tbh, the end panels split at the bottom, several hinges fell out because the carcass didn't hold the screws and they chipped easily. The extractor packed up really quickly too. I wouldn't use them again.

I know someone who managed to register as a howdens approved fitter just to buy their kitchen at trade price and fit it themselves. They'll also ask your fitter what discount they'll give you before giving you a quote.
It's all very under hand.
We went to wicks in their sale and a similar kitchen to yours was 3 k then we bought the work top form worktops direct online. Bought door handles from amazon and so extra door inside from eBay.
Don't buy the handles from them it'll be the biggest rip off ever.
Also have you considered keeping your current units and replacing only the doors or doors and worktop?
We got cooker etc in the January sales.