Is £12k too much for a basic Howdens kitchen supply only?

[Charlock]

Hi,

Getting a new kitchen. 15 units, 4 towers, couple of wall cupboards, small peninsula. Opting for basic doors, laminate worktop, basic appliances. £12K? Pretty shocked tbh. Priced up similar on DIY Kitchens, came out at £8.5K. Obv they don't have same overheads so can keep costs lower but still. And that's with decent appliances too.

I don't like the whole smoke and mirrors pricing situation with Howden's at all. Like I can't even just swap out the appliances and worktop and see how much that takes off because they only give you the total number. Do I just say what I can get it for elsewhere and see what they do? Both the designer and the joiner were like yeah, that's the price with the trade discount, nothing we can do.

AIBU to think 12K for an economy, no bells and whistles kitchen is a bit much? (Price for materials only.)

Yea it was perfect. Measured myself but they had some great tools on their website to help. Fantastic experience (promise I don’t work for them I was just really impressed)

I hate my howdens kitchen. Within in the first year we had to have three doors replaced because the mdf had blown. The drawers have never felt substantial. This was the clerkenwell range. My builder said they were called the “landlords special”

avoid.

@Stillreadingalot wow that's excellent! I think mine is 15 units, 4 of which are towers, with one for boiler, fr/frz, ovens and one 300ml shelved larder. I'll need to go back over and tweak it some. Thanks!

@unitmeasures I've already designed it on the tool myself. In fact, I gave the Howden's designer my own sketch and she really only came up with one novel thing that I would consider keeping. The rest was my design. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

@Doris86 thanks, was quoted for rigid units from both companies.

@FunkyMonks thanks. It's the pricing situation that really bugs me. I approached the builder (used before, good rep). He then contacted Howden's and their designer contacted me. She came up with a design, but gave me a price directly. I didn't expect this because I was aware they were trade only and expected the price to come from the builder. Designer sort of implied she'd given me a bigger discount than the builder could. I messaged the builder, said I wasn't sure if that was the final price and he said she would have given me the price with his discount applied. Both seemed to imply it was the lowest they could go. I did mention I can get same for 3.5K less from DIY but he didn't seem bothered. As I'm writing all this down I'm thinking bollox to this, I'm going to DIY! The quote was for Lamona appliances. I don't like the lack of transparency. It's like playing a game of poker.

@CuntOfTheLitter sorry you had a crap experience. I like your username though.

Yes just go with DIY OP, at £3.5k cheaper why wouldn’t you? If your fitter isn’t happy with you doing that, it’s because he is getting a kick back from Howdens for introducing you as a customer. Just get a new fitter if you need too.

Howdens discounts are a joke. I got given a 80% ‘discount’ when I got a quote there. So for example a £2000 unit was discounted to £400. The equivilant unit at DIY cost £300. At that point I refused to deal with Howdens any further. If they insult by intelligence by trying to make me believe that £2000 was ever the normal price.

@Doris86 I feel the exact same. It's a total charade and a waste of my energy. Tbh the builder said he's happy to install DIY, they've done it before. It's just the whole what if a bit is missing or gets damaged, delays etc but for £3.5K I'm willing to risk the inconvenience.

Recently had s kitchen installed /Howedens were hard sell, whereas Wickes were lovely. Very happy with Wickes kitchen and bathrooms too -have wholeheartedly recommended them to several friends Excellent communication and delivery too.

@Charlock both builder and kitchen designer are feeding you rubbish on the rare occasion a builder might allow customer to have their prices but it’s very rare he’s been asked if they can deal direct with you and have slapped some extra on it for him so that you get the constant sales calls.

@FunkyMonks that sounds about right. What a daft way to do business, only the completely guileless would tolerate it.

Ask your builder/ fitter what trade discount he gets from Howdens. It is standard for builders / fitters to have a 75% discount on the ‘list price’ of the units. So if you have been told that the ‘list price’ of the kitchen units / doors / fascias / plinths etc (don’t think this includes appliances) is £10k, then the builder will be getting a 75% discount on that, so they will only be paying Howdens £2.5k for it. Then it is up to the builder how much of their ‘discount’ they will be passing on to you. When we got quotes for our kitchen (we didn’t end up going with Howdens), our fitter was a friend, so just passed the quote paperwork straight onto us (so I could see the discounts listed). And in fact, the units for our utility room were actually discounted by 85% and 95% (I think it was the sale period in October).

If you want to see direct comparisons between the kitchen cabinets, Nick Morris ordered the same kitchen from 5 companies. He fitted DIY kitchens in several renovation properties and in his own house he extended and renovated.

I am sure that DIY kitchens now have a planner in store you can pay to look over your designs. Lots of people on YouTube renovating their houses have fitted them and I believe the Facebook group is really helpful too. Save the money and get a kitchen from DIY kitchens. I hate the whole pricing thing with Howdens.

I did this - almost same as you, sent Howdens my DIY kitchen quote and said if you can match it I will buy from you. They matched it. I have heard that DIY Kitchens are better quality and would have went with them, once prices were equal, I was swayed by seeing the kitchen in the showroom vs just online and the delivery timing, plus knowing I could just pop to a Howdens during the install and get bits so the fitter wouldn’t be held up.

I hate Howdens, it’s so underhand they won’t just tell you what it costs… they try to wheedle out from you how much you’d be willing to pay.

We got Howden’s out to measure (before we realised the business model) and then used those measurements for DIY kitchens. Really great quality, lots of options to customise things. Our kitchen fitter didn’t have any issues with it.

We left a couple of weeks between receiving our DIY order and the fitter starting, in case any units were damaged. None were. Our fitter loved the DIY units, having never fitted a DIY kitchen before. The price was thousands of pounds cheaper than Magnet or Howdens and the kitchen planner tool worked fine for us (although I spent a good couple of months playing on it to get the right design for us). Visit the showroom in Oxford was great too. We'd only go with DIY in future.

The business model is (I think) used by all of the big kitchen firms. Essentially the inflated / ‘RRP’ list prices and standard 75% discount for trade buyers (and the fact the units are ready built, not flat-packed), encourages the fitters to use those kitchen suppliers. As they are easy to fit (ready built), and if they can get away with charging the end-client up to four times what it has cost them to buy the units, then they are potentially making a huge amount of money.

They can also say to the end-client that they get a 25% discount and will pass it on in full to the end-client. But this means that for a kitchen with £10k list price of units, the fitter only pays £2.5k (due to the 75% discount) but charges the end-client £7.5k - so that is £5k straight in the pocket before any labour charges for fitting etc.

We had Howdens kitchen fitted January. Only the units and doors though and that was £5.5k. It was Halesworth range. Chilcomb the higher end one came in around £8k.

Appliances I got online c.£3k. Bosch ovens and hob. Fridge and dishwasher hotpoint as I was less fussed by the brand for these.

Worktop we did Gemini and that was just under £2k.

Then fitting was £3k. So just over £13k in total for the whole thing.

When I got everything quoted for with Howdens the total came in at £17k so I shopped around as I didn’t want to spend more than £12-13k. We were fortunate though that we made use Black Friday sales.

I don't think I would buy a Howden's kitchen. Why can't they have normal pricing rather than pot luck. It's quite a lot for a basic kitchen supply only. I thought Howdens were more budget kitchens.

One fitter who quoted for us was keen for us to go to Howdens. We did go and look but we didn't really see anything we liked so went back to DIY. We didn't like the lack of transparency around pricing.

We fitted one DIY kitchen about 15 years ago in our last house and it looked as good when we moved out as it did when new. We also fitted one about 3 years ago in a rental property - and that's the one we're having in out new house.

I've got a tall shelved larder, a tall pull and swing larder, tall oven/microwave housing. 8 sets of drawers, a drawer sink unit and 2 regular 500mm pull out base units. Also one open shelf unit. No wall units (hate wall units). Sourced appliances, worktop, sink, tap and handles separately.

DH would happily have fitted himself but we need the wall taken down and some gas plumbing and electrics done. Also now we're older we can't lift and shift stuff quite so easily.

My Howdens kitchen is falling apart. my Ikea kitchen in previous house looked brand new 10 years in. I don’t rate Howdens at all.

Thanks for your replies everyone.

We have Howdens kitchen but I don’t like the way the pricing is done.
We bought directly not through a builder and the quote started at 17k.
We ended up paying around 10k after haggling with no changes to the anything!

Is this direct with Howdens or via your builder/fitter? I know Howdens used to offer commission to builders - not sure if they still do.

We got ours from DIY Kitchens 10 years ago and it still looks great.