Am I paying too much for my new kitchen??

melody83

Hi,

I am just about to order a 12 unit kitchen with Howdens (incl intergrated dishwasher, oven, hob & extractor hood) but laminate worktop, for just under £2700 incl VAT. my kitchen is 14'5" x 8'4" so not the smallest kitchen but not huge either. The installation includes knocking out a bricked cupboard and bricking it up on the outside where the door used to be. My builder who has worked for me before and who I trust is charging me £2245 for the buikding work, installation of the kitchen including the price and installation of laminate flooring and tiling the walls...

Is this a good price or am I being charged too much for the installation?? Please help as I don't know any other builders in the area!!!

Welsh_Totster

Im in the process of exactly the same thing as you. My kitchen is 9 1/2 ft by 9ft with a pantry recess. My Howdens kitchen, including 5 burner hob and extractor and solid wood worktops is coming in at £2k dead on. My electrician is charging £250 for moving sockets around, creating new ones and 3 different lots of lighting. Builder/fitter is charging £1970 but that includes knocking a wall down to create a new doorway, blocking up an existing doorway, skimming ceiling and 3 walls, blocking up serving hatch and skimming both sides, rejigging the plumbing, creating cold inlet to plumb fridge freezer in (in pantry), fitting the whole kitchen, blocking up a double doorway between two living rooms and reusing the doors from the opening for the kitchen.

Dont know if that helps at all.

melody83

OMG!! that really does help! thank you!
Sounds like you are getting a real good deal with your builder too, is he a friend or just a local builder? I forgot to say that the building work also includes moving sockets round, moving the radiator and putting the gas oven in a different place as well as skimming the ceiling, walls etc... so I suppose it is comparable?
you also got a really good price for the kitchen, I didn't think you could get real wood worktops in our budget!! but as its a U shaped kitchen it is quite a lot of worktop so that may be why...

Doozergirl

It's a little hard to judge on the kitchen - but Howdens are not competitive on appliances and their own brand is not highly rated at all - you would be much better buying elsewhere in my opinion. You will save some money there. How much are the appliances coming to in total?

I buy my kitchens from Howdens but never the appliances. We always have a chat but the price is always too much for what they offer - plus the choice is limited anyway.

It does sound like a lot of work needs doing so the labour sounds pretty fair.

melody83

thank you. yes you are right about the appliances. what I did was get the sink and tap from b&q- this saved me £150! and I got a composite sink instead of stainless steel. the dishwasher is £250 which I think is quite reasonable and they did the oven, hob, extractor for £175!! which I couldn't get cheaper in b&q. I know their own brand isn't the best but I am on a tight budget...

spirit

Doozergirl, where do you source your appliances? Your kitchens always look fab. i'd like a bosch but he cheapest (Exxcel) i can find is about £750 for a double built in one.

Pete*G_4

£2700?! OUCH!!

I can't make suggestions on where to go on the tradesman's side as my family and I have construction backgrounds so I did our 14ft x 21ft kitchen/diner myself, but in terms of where to get a decent kitchen, we've always found there to be very little difference between B&Q's iT kitchens and their Cooke & Lewis ones, which are certainly the equal if not better than Howdens.

As for appliances, get them seperate. you can buy far far cheaper by shopping around than by going through Howdens.

phill99

I run a Maintenance Company and do a lot of kitchen installs. We tend to use Howdens more than any others but not exclusively. Howdens are expensive for their appliances so I would encourage you to shop elsewhere. Also, it depends what kitchen they are quoting you on. All of the carcasses are exactly the same (white or beech) for all their kitchens (except the ones with rounded corners!). Its the doors, plinths etc that create price differences. Their 'entry level' range is the Greenwich range. These are considerably cheaper than the 'Studio' or 'Gloss' ranges. So whether the £2700 is a good price or not depends on which range you have opted for.

The builders price seems fair (although difficult to tell with only a brief description). Also, the fact that he has worked for you before and you trust him is worth alot for the piece of mind. I guarantee that you can get it done cheaper. But that doesn't mean that they will be as good as your existing builder.

To put the builders cost into perspective, if you bought a £2700 kitchen from b & q they would charge you in the region of £3000 just for fitting the kitchen. Other works would be on top of that. So in relation to that, the figure you have from your builder is realistic.

Doozergirl

spirit wrote: »

Doozergirl, where do you source your appliances? Your kitchens always look fab. i'd like a bosch but he cheapest (Exxcel) i can find is about £750 for a double built in one.

I get them all over the place tbh, wherever's cheap!

Ex-display items, graded items, brand new with discount codes and cashback - I'll scour for decent value for money. In my own house the fridge is a Bosch ex-display from B&Q, the hob ex-display from Comet, the matching oven is from a company called the Trading Post who I found on pricerunner. My tumble drier is from the old Littlewoods catalogue with a stonking discount code, matching washing machine and dishwasher were boots and currys I think (discount codes and quidco!), the sink a total bargain from the B&Q clearance sale, the tap from ebay... :rotfl:

I tend to use pricerunner for comparisons.

melody83

@phill99 thanks for your help. the kitchen we are getting is the Burford range in cream, which is one of the more expensive ones with much higher quality doors than the Greenwich (which was also a lot cheaper). It also includes a few glass doors, real wood chopping board/tray unit which is very expensive and it includes most appliances. I thought that with this in mind it is quite a good price. I did shop around for the sink and taps and saved a bit there but with the discount that Howdens were offering on the appliances, it is hard to beat! I also negociated a bit on the delivery price so its actually costing me £2600 all in! :-)

melody83

i also got a quote for a Cooke and Lewis kitchen with similar doors and the price was very close to the Howdens one, even with it being half price on all doors and an extra 15% off!! But he Howdens do come in rigid carcasses as opposed to the flatpacked ones from B&q so I think for the same price I am getting a better quality kitchen.