Kitchen quote - Second Nature

amymoneysaving

Hi,


We have received a quote from an independent kitchen fitter/supplier for a complete replacement - units, quartz work surface, appliances, lighting, tiling (but not flooring). We are based in North London and it is a Second Nature kitchen (a brand where PWS manufacture the doors and your kitchen fitter supply the carcasses). The kitchen is 10 by 9 foot, so a fairly small room.


With Neff appliances, it is coming in at £15k (including labour). Of this, the units are £7k. They are MDF, not solid wood. Doors are painted custom colours though which pushes up the price. The brand is more expensive than a standard high street kitchen, but not as premium as others we have seen at high end suppliers.


Does anyone have any experience of negotiating with an independent kitchen fitter? We did get another quote which was more (bottom line was more but the cost of the units was £1k less..). Given that we are spending a lot of money, don't want to just go ahead without considering negotiation. The prices for some of the appliances are lower online if we bought them ourselves (fairly marginal).


This is more than we were intending to spend on the kitchen but we have pretty much fallen for this particular kitchen so are willing to pay a bit more, but don't want to be ripped off.


Obviously if we were buying from a high street supplier we'd be in the January sale period and saving money but this is the kitchen we want and we don't know the protocol for negotiating with independent suppliers.


Any advice would be gratefully received and if you need any more info, just let me know.


Thanks.

glasgowdan

You love this kitchen, but you're a human and flexible and if you saw the right 'other' kitchen you could love that too! What element of the £15k is the labour cost of it all? If the units are 7k, appliances 3k? That leaves 5k for 3-4 days fitting/plumbing/electrical which sounds a lot. Our joiner did a top professional job for about £2000 including the plumbing and electrical guys and supply and fit a lot of bulkheads, then there was £1k for tiling and full room plaster and decorating.

blackshirtuk

Look carefully at the plan, you may be able to save a substantial ammount just by changing a couple of units

for example the plan may call for 2 x 500 units but a 1000 unit will be nearly the same price as 1 x 500 unit.

Also look for thing like end panels, filler pieces, pelmets etc to see if the are absolutely necessary where they placed, could you get away without some. these items are very expensive.

When the kitchen is designed it is done with an eye towards bumping up the price, not an eye towards saving money.

brightontraveller

I’d never use a “ kitchen fitter” to fit a kitchen they need absolutely no qualifications, training etc to call themselves one use appropriate trades carpenter, electrician, plumber, joiner etc avoid those flat pack experts the kitchen fitters and you'll have a better job done at a lower cost ....

Dan-Dan

I fancy spam for dinner

glasgowdan

Warms my heart when new users join the forum solely for the purpose of helping others!

amymoneysaving

Thanks everyone for your advice and sorry I went AWOL. We got another quote to compare and feel a bit more comforted by it all now. Have been able to haggle a bit which is useful!


Glasgowdan, we had £2k for quartz too so the labour is about £2.5k (excluding electrics). We also suspect prices are pushed up being in London which is certainly a curse.


Blackshirtuk, thanks for your advice. We have cut out two small units that are somewhat unnecessary and it's brought down the price a fair bit.


Brightontraveller I see your point re different trades, but it's so much work to get people to quote for all of these jobs especially when we don't know anyone that can do it, so are gambling that they will be good/trustworthy. The labour cost is not too bad compared to other quotes we've had so I think we will stick with this approach.

Alias_Omega

I have a howdens account, you get 2 prices...

The real price...and the customers price.

Real price is what you are charged... £450 (yep, its cheap)

Customers price... £950....

Fitter fits for £1000, customer pays fitter for kitchen....fitter makes £500 too... cheers..