Confused about Howden's Pricing!

milliebear00001

Hi there

I am rapidly getting fed up with the 'trying to buy a kitchen' game and could do with some advice about my expectations.

I have a fitter who is charging me around £2000 to fit new and remove old kitchen, plus sort out the 'extras' like moving electrics/gas/plumbing/tiling/boxing in etc.

He egenrally works with Howdens, but will fit independently sourced units too. I know Howden's are good quality but they are charging me £2500 just for the units, sink, tap and worktops. This is a tiny kitchen, so there are only 5 units in total!

Howden's haven't given my fitter a list of charges, so he has only provided me with a flatrate quote for the components. I need a broken down list so that I can see exactly what I'm paying for each element, and whether I could source these more cheaply elsewhere.

Is this normal? Am I being unrealistic in expecting a fully broken down quote?

rob7475

As far as I know, howdens rarely give prices other than RRP to the public as they are 'trade only'

Depending on how much the tradesmand spends with them, depends on how much discount off RRP they get. It can be anywhere upto around 80% depending on the product.

Your fitter could be getting his discount from howdens and then adding his mark up to make additional profit. Lots of people on here have an account at howdens so i'm sure if you list what you need, someone will give you idea of what you should be paying.

Cheers

milliebear00001

Thanks for that. I won't buy a kitchen if I can't see exactly how much each component is costing. Otherwise, I could be paying well over the odds for (for example) the sink. I would then want to buy this elsewhere.

Think I may have to buy in the components myself and just pay for fitting.

andy208833

Your fitter will have a price breakdown of the units to be fitted both ex vat and inc vat. My builder fortunately was family so he showed me the trade price list. I suspect the fitter has added a considerable mark up and doesnt want to show you the real price.

Did the kitchen include electricals? These are greatly overpriced in Howdens and cheaper to source yourself from Currys/comet using the units sizes to be fitted. I knocked £2500 (was £6000) off the price of my kitchen by sourcing my own Fridge/Freezer, dishwasher, oven, Hob, sink, taps etc. I only fitted the units which were much better quality than B&Q/wickes and not flat pack, delivered made.

wearside_2

My daughter recently had a kitchen fitted by a firm of builders who dealt with Howdens. Every time she wanted to change anything, she went in to Howdens, told them, who in turn told the builder, who in turn passed the new price to my daughter. This happened a few times until she was completely satisfied. The result is a great looking kitchen but I would not want to go through this palava. Howdens explanation was that they only deal with Trade Customers.

bordercars

millie you have a PM

tpt

have a look at diy-kitchens.co.uk i've used em 4 times and each time they have been great. good quality and units come made up with doors fitted.

milliebear00001

tpt wrote: »

have a look at diy-kitchens.co.uk i've used em 4 times and each time they have been great. good quality and units come made up with doors fitted.

Wow, that site looks fab, and great prices too! Anyone else used them? How good are they if there's a problem?

Ionkontrol

milliebear00001 wrote: »

Wow, that site looks fab, and great prices too! Anyone else used them? How good are they if there's a problem?

They are good, admittedly 8mm back panels vs. 18mm of others, but they were my 2nd choice, mainly because of their big price delivery which swayed me.

FOXY1

Howdens are for trade only for a reason. If you want to compare prices then compare them with B&Q, Homebase, Wickes etc. Howdens are much better quality and are prebuilt so you cannot compare. For example it takes 0.5 > 1 hour to build a unit so at Howdens you are saving about 2 days in labour for a typical kitchen, £150 per day = £300.

Cooker_expert

FOXY1 wrote: »

Howdens are for trade only for a reason. If you want to compare prices then compare them with B&Q, Homebase, Wickes etc. Howdens are much better quality and are prebuilt so you cannot compare. For example it takes 0.5 > 1 hour to build a unit so at Howdens you are saving about 2 days in labour for a typical kitchen, £150 per day = £300.

It's amazing how often I hear that B+Q and Wikes are lower quality than others, I've done installation work for both and can tell you straight that it's a load of tripe.

The budget range is crap but the rest of the stuff is easily as good as Howdens.

On the subject of building a unit, your talking under 10 minutes each for most, coming ready built can also be a major disadvantage if you are tight for space which slot of places are.