Kitchen fitting (B&Q)

We are having our kitchen totally redone, it's a very small kitchen (2.4m x 1.4m). Quote from B&Q was £1500 for the units/appliances.. we thought this sounded ok - it includes integrated washing machine, electric oven, gas hob, hob chimney, new sink, taps, worktop, 8 units, and new flooring (we are keeping our existing fridge/freezer)

BUT......... for our tiny kitchen they quoted us £2700!!! for fitting. Ridiculous, no? Especially considering that this charge does not include extras that we will need e.g. swapping round the position of the washing machine & cooker. It also includes a £77 charge for moving our freestanding fridge/freezer out of the kitchen during fitting, and moving it back into the space in the kitchen afterwards! Think I can move the fridge myself actually!!!!

Suffice to say that we are NOT getting the kitchen fitted by B&Q, although we are ordering the units & appliances from them we are getting a local handyman to do the fitting....
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Comments

  • Sooler
    Sooler Posts: 3,108
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    sunstarrr wrote:
    Quote from B&Q was £1500 for the units/appliances


    Have you checked the price of the items you are buying - do they come £1500.


    I purchased some kitchen items at the end of last year and they stated that for the fitting service you have to spend £1500 on the kitchen items - the fitting fee is then extra to this.

    So if your items come to less than £1500 they'd round it up to this if you wanted them to fit the kitchen.

    I think they were saying that even if the kitchen stuff only came to £1000 say, you'd have to pay £1500 for it in order to get them to fit it.

    I guess for what your buying it'd be about £1500, just thought it odd it just happened to be the £1500 figure.
  • Hi there,

    It actually sounds like a good price for your kitchen, but these places charge a fortune for fitting!!! In our last house MFI supplied and fitted our kitchen, and fitting more than doubled the cost.
    I would advise getting a quote from a local joiner, you'll find they are MUCH cheaper. And they will also do a better job. B&Q et al contract out their kitchen fitting jobs to private joiners - hence the person doing the fitting won't always do the best job. After all it's the store's reputation that their upholding, not their own. If you get a local joiner he'll do the best job he can, because his livelyhood relies on a good reputation and word of mouth.

    We too are in the process of getting a new kitchen - have ripped most of it out today and new one is delivered monday.

    Luckily my dad is a builder and he's fitting mine for me at a reduced price. To give you an idea he would normally have charged about £150 for a days work - say 3 days to fit the kitchen so about £450 - £500.

    HTH
  • we have recently bought our kitchen from B+Q also, the cost after discounts came to around £2100 - we asked about B+q fitting but we were politely told it'd be at least the same again for fitting

    we also wanted a lot of peripheral work doing - bricking up back door, installing new electric capacity and changing cooker over to a gas hob - so that would have bumped it up even more

    luckily my dad is a joiner and the wifes dad is a Corgi registered plumber... we're getting the sparks done off my d-in law's mate at cost - though its going to take much longer as we have to do it over weekends, we didnt have the money for a fully fitted/managed solution from B+Q or anywhere else!
  • ictmad
    ictmad Posts: 274 Forumite
    iam getting my kitchen fitted by a joiner i know from work fro £800,but wickes kitchen rep told me they charge between £2000-£3000 just to fit the kitchen
  • Try to find a local fitter, my hubby's fitted for all the main stores (b &q, magnets, ikea etc. ) he gets paid about 50% of what they charge you for fitting, but he has to take it as he has his own ltd. co and website but getting it advertised etc. takes time, it's illegal to leaflet drop in the car parks - even though it's really tempting !;)
    so basically you would be getting the same fitter for about half the price,

    he's based inside m25 / essex area if you want the website address pm me as we can'd advertise on here !
    :p
    I'm trying to be a good moneysaver
    but I keep reading the bargains on the grabbit board !:rotfl:


    :rotfl:
  • Aliktren
    Aliktren Posts: 306 Forumite
    We had a pretty big kitchen fitted last year with lots of custom work (walls out, etc), that made the eventual bill big but as far as I recall the MFI actual cost for the fitting was 1000-1500, which seemed reasonable (and they did a cracking job)

    £2700 for just simple fitting seems a lot to me
  • alzeebub
    alzeebub Posts: 222 Forumite
    Rigid Kitchen from National Kitchens: £4000
    Fitting by a local joiner: £1000

    Knowing that the local John Lewis quoted £20k for the same kitchen: Priceless ^^
    "The reasonable man adapts to the world,
    The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself,
    Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
  • B&Q have a Guaranteed Installation Service which generally means that everything moved, installed or connected is covered for 24 months on completion of the project.

    When moving or installing an appliance previously owned, that would be covered too. So if it broke down after they had finished - B&Q would replace it for a new one! You can however move it yourself but liabilty would fall upon you instead if it stopped working. Or in the case of a Washing Machine or D/Washer leaking, eveything needing replacing would be the sole responsiblity of whoever installed it as well.

    You can get fitters for cheaper but you never know who you might be getting. I have had someone disappear off the face of the earth half-way through finishing off my building work, but there are a few good ones out there. Word of mouth and personally knowing these people would be good advise.

    At the end of the day you do tend to get what you pay for and good fitters aren't cheap and cheap fitters aren't always good. Is it fair price? When Kitchens can be bought so cheap nowadays - installation will always seem too dear. It would be a good installation if it is guaranteed. Wouldn't it? Lets face it - it doesn't matter if you buy a cheap kitchen or an expensive one, if its not fitted right you won't be happy.

    A Big company like B&Q are also duty bound to install BY THE BOOK and cannot cut corners - so in the case of Bodgit & Scarper Inc. they insist upon Gas and Electrical safety (which includes getting all the relevant certificates).

    They grade the fitters now with assessment of their work done by installation site managers as well as feedback from customers. Therefore the fitters work has to be A1 all the time.

    The downside is the waiting time from agreeing a price and the amount of work to be done, to having the work completed. So only okay of your not in an immediate rush. They also have a minimum order value of aproximately 2.5K before taking on an installation. This amount would be made up with Product and installation costs. So they wouldn't do just your utility room for example.

    MFI quote for installation but they don't seem to guarantee the work? I have also noticed that their initial quote for fitting does not include the Gas and Electric work - so only includes the bare bones of the kitchen fit itself.

    I like the security that is offered by B&Q and understand why it might be a little bit more, when everything is considered. I don't take risks with my money, I have in the past and suffered the consequences as a result.
  • Tom_Jones
    Tom_Jones Posts: 1,562
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    Sorry Cheekyjonesy but do you work for B+Q by any chance ? and sorry but I've seen and know a couple of B+Q kitchen fitters, one team are not even carpenters, and a lot of their work is very poor, I certainly wouldn't employ them. And please don't give out the rubbish that B+Q fitters are assessed properley, B+Q are like any major company only interested in the bottom line/profit.

    Any reasonable contractor/carpenter would know that all Corgi and Part P electrical installations have to be certified, do you think they would risk prison for maybe a couple of hundred quid to employ the correct tradesmen, who would provide the appropriate certificates.

    £2700 plus extras to fit a kitchen of the size mentioned in the first post is nothing short of a RIP OFF !!!
  • BobProperty
    BobProperty Posts: 3,245
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    I'm with Tom_Jones on this, Cheekyjonesy, half your post looks like it was cut and paste from a B&Q leaflet. My info is that the fitters get about half what the customer pays for fitting. B&Q are also notorious for not delivering all of an order or getting the delivery timing correct, or delivering everything without any damage (they are not the only ones, I'm just highlighting their situation). You can, from a consumer point of view, take what I call the British Gas approach: Yes they are a big well known firm who should know what they are doing. Yes, if you try hard enough you will find someone who will eventually sort out any problems BUT you won't half pay for the privilege.
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