Kitchen Fitter Cost

[Notmyfirsttimeinthismadhouse]

I have a tiny 2.5 m x 2.5 m galley kitchen that needs replacing.

We are planning on using DIY kitchens. The kitchen, appliances & laminate are coming in at around £4k (basic white gloss handleless, going a little fancy on sink and tap, integrated fridge/washing machine).

We've been trying to obtain a fitter to:-

Remove the old kitchen
Put down new flooring
Install the kitchen
Install worktop
Paint/plastering
Elec/gas/plumbing

Given the size and layout of our kitchen we are quite limited with what we can do so the sink is only moving slightly further left. The hob/oven slightly to the right. Washing machine will remain in the same place and the fridge freezer placement will mean a plug socket needs moving to the right.

We are only replacing the floor up to the units so about 3 lengths of whatever LVT we buy.

Boiler isn't being boxed

We are having a laminate splashback on both walls.

We are receiving quotes of between £5-£10k for the above with 10-14 day timescale. This seems a lot to me but just i'm wondering what the MN concensus is? We're in Surrey.

I would expect the fitting to be about the same price as the kitchen so I don't think the quotes you have been getting are too bad.

Thanks. It just seems sooo much (and such a long time) for such a tiny space!

Sorry OP but I agree those quotes seem.about right. We paid £800 just for the electrical work in our kitchen earlier this year (plus more as had the fuse box replaced as well). If you are going for an induction job they often need to upgrade the electric wire to make the current powerful enough (I am paraphrasing here as not sure if the technical details!), extractor fan fitting, sockets. Our kitchen wasn't much larger than your dimensions. We were quoted £80 per spotlight, £95 for each new socket, £45 to replace a pendant. Plastering will be about £1000. Painting £400-500. Our kitchen fit took 2 weeks especially if having LVT as they screed one day, fit the next day. So £5k including removal seems about right to me. 12 years ago we paid £2.5k for similar work so prices have roughly doubled. We are in the North.

Those quotes seem normal to low actually....

We recently looked into kitchen refurb and the quotes for all in (including howden's trade units with an independent fitter were coming in around £50k. We aren't doing it right now! Just coping with our horrid mouldy kitchen

(Ours isn't galley but it's only mid size)

We're not having an induction as it will involve too much work (apparently need to go through the living room concrete floor to connect to the consumer unit).
No new spotlights required. Light switch remaining in situ. £10k quote was for gas and no decorating!

Oh no, i suppose I'm going to have to suck this up or do it myself

It doesn't seem outlandish. I'm in the Midlands and we removed our own kitchen, and are doing our own paint/plastering works. Our installer fitted the new kitchen and worktops, and moved some plugs, but he didn't do gas work so we had to get someone else to do that. We paid £2k for both of them.

Thing is it only really matters what you can get someone in to do the job at, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Also, the idea that it is a tiny job because it is a tiny space doesn't necessarily hold. You'll still have the same services connection complexity. With the added drawback of having to do it all in a very small cramped space.

This thread has horrified me as I have a 30 year old kitchen that is falling apart. I couldn't possibly afford those sorts of prices nor would I want the disruption of having workmen in for so long.

Maybe you could save money by removing the old one yourself or if it isn't totally knackered offering it free to someone on Facebook if they remove it themselves.

I saved money by assembling all the units myself so the installer just had to fit the worktops and fit the wall cupboards and trims. I was/am in a small flat so it was a bit chaotic but the units are just like assembling any other flatpack furniture and once you've done one it gets easier as it is mainly repeating the same thing.

Would a kitchen fitter be the best option for laying flooring? It might be cheaper to get someone from a flooring place to do it.

There is a lot of that you could do yourself - at the very least taking out the old kitchen and floor, and decorating. If it was me, I'd only be paying the electrician, plumber, plasterer and worktop fitter. And it would not be costing 10k. But it would take longer than 2 weeks by the time I'd lined up all the trades.

@msbevvy DIY kitchen come ready made so we don't need to put the kitchen together (just feet and doors need fitting). The timescale is then an issue as our house is tiny and the kitchen will then take over our dining part of our living room diner so we'll pretty much need to live upstairs but with no kitchen sink/water or washing machine.

@fashiononono I think we'll take the kitchen out and do the floor ourselves. I'm getting tempted to do it ourselves and just get trades in for elec and gas, maybe the worktop. Plastering and painting is minimal since the walls are having units on and having a full length splashback. Hob fan is recirculating rather than vented. It's just the time, we both work ft, kids etc.

Seems reasonable price wise and decent builders are v sought after, timescale is prob because they are on other jobs?

Ok thanks for everyone's help, it's been really useful.

Yes we had a quote for 8k so husband spent 2 days fitting it himself. It's a bit fiddly adjusting the unit heights if the floor is uneven but nothing difficult. We had quartz tops so we didn't fit that and then just hired gas and electricians as needed. You can definitely do most of it yourself

Think carefully about DIY Kitchens if interior space is tight, I'd strongly recommend you get the kitchen delivered a couple of weeks in advance so you can unpack and check every item. We sent back nearly 60% of our items for exchanges due to damage, wrong items sent, and I promise it's not just me, the DIY Kitchen Facebook page is full of people with a similar experience (hence why we ordered it so early).

As you say the units come ready assembled so take up lots of space as ideally you want to store indoors rather than in a garage as the cold/damp could warp the units and they need bringing up to room temperature a few days before fitting.

I would seriously consider Howdens or similar, they have their autumn sale on and need to have delivered your kitchen by end of October for it to count in their sales so you can negotiate hard, we got nearly 50% discount on the original price they quoted but decided to go with DIY as it was still a little cheaper. But bare in mind a local fork.can swap items if damaged the same day and you won't need to store the kitchen in advance of fitting.

I'd imagine the kitchen fitter will include a provision for dealing with items missing, wrong items sent, faulty items, etc. as he'll have to spend time working around that even though it's not his fault. It wouldn't surprise me if they cost in an extra day or two for "rectification" due to supplier mistakes which are far too common sadly.

@HanSB

Could you have done it? (Not your husband, you)

@Severatwists

This is the first negative post I have ever read on MN over many many years.

@Notmyfirsttimeinthismadhouse

I have read, literally, thousands of positive posts about DIY kitchens.

I'll be using DIY when I get mine done. I hope my fitting quotes haven't doubled, 😫😫

Our kitchen referb last year cost 14k all in,the actual kitchen cost 9k,1k electrical work,2.5k fitting,the rest went in plastering and plumbing,although we still had led pipes unbeknown to us so we had all that replaced,I’m in Yorkshire though.

I ripped the kitchen out an took the old plaster off the walls,you have to wait for the plaster to dry before you can install a kitchen I believe.

@Severatwists I'm on the DIY FB group and have seen the delivery and damaged items issue. Definitely seems they have a few issues at the moment. That said, the sample door we have is much better quality than an identical one at b&q. We were thinking about howdens last night but reviews for that are mixed too.

@AutumnTimeForCosy24 agreed I had also read only positive posts and also know a few people who have had them fitted over the years hence why we went with them ourselves. The price is still very competitive but they have expanded significantly recently so I don't know if that has affected quality and customer service. The Facebook group had similar complaints and we posted photos of some of the damage for feedback to check if we were being overly fussy before we returned them.

To be fair it was all rectified by DIY and we received some compensation for the inconvenience but our kitchen was part of wider building works we were having done so it made it very stressful and it annoyed our builder when a couple of replacement items we had to send back twice were delayed. They are cheap but you need to be prepared to factor in the time and effort for the checking process and that won't suit everyone so just giving my experience here.

We're having ours fitted at the moment - £5k for fitting and a further £500 for floor laying.

Yes why not - I meant any capable adult could do it

@Severatwists

what a shame. Their reputation has always been SO good, hopefully they'll get this glitch sorted quickly.

are you loving it all now??

what kitchen did you go for? I'm looking at the newish Bramley, but not sure which colour yet.