Recommended Pronorm kitchen retailer?

ryder72

stueyhants wrote: »

Thank you Furts and Private Church. It's great to get a good honest appraisal of the market away from the sales pitch you often get in posh showrooms. I'm going to be supporting British manufacturers (diy kitchens) when I choose my kitchen later this year. People do forget that Britain has fantastic design and manufacturing capability (just look at aerospace, automotive and materials engineering). The assumption that German is always best needs to be challenged.

Agree with you mate. The problem is not the ability. The capability to translate it into reliable, repeatable mass production is a real challenge for British manufacturing.

I visited Nobilia, the worlds largest kitchen manufacturer last week. 3000 kitchens and around 35000 units produced per day. Each item custom made to order. Nothing is for stock production. The scale is simply mindboggling. 50% for domestic consumption, rest exported. Why isnt Europe's second largest economy able to play host to anything remotely close to this?

dw14

Sorry ryder72. Took your post the wrong way as can easily be done on forums.
I liked my IT comparison though!


Anyway thanks to everyone who’ve posted.
Went along today, got a great quote, brilliant service and lovely aesthetics and finishing. Loved the fact that you can tailor it to exact needs.
They were very knowledgeable about the product and happily answered all my pedantic questions!
So, deposit down.
Only thing is it’s a 5-6 weeks delivery but not too bad.


I’d highly recommend our local independent.


Went for the Classicline with upgraded doors to Lacquered. The door down looked slightly creamy white but the lacquered is lovely ice white.
The Pronorm range of wall panels, worktops etc are v nice as well so just getting it all from there.
Her indoors never liked the sinks or worktops from Howdens etc and is very picky.


All in all, came in cheaper than Howdens and Macintosh and is including taps, sink, wall panels and worktops. Howdens and others hadn’t factored those into their quote.


Well pleased!
Such a relief, we’ve been looking for three months.


I’ll post back as we get delivery etc if anyone’s interested.

ryder72

Good luck with it dw14. You have a kitchen that is beautifully finished, will look great, last a long time

Private_Church

ryder72 wrote: »

Chipboard had greater strength compared to MDF. MDF has benefits where a good finish is required such as a lacquered door but when melamine or laminated faced the lesser finish of chipboard is fine. moisture resistant chipboard is used by some manufacturers.

No it doesn't............... Chipboard has voids and if you stress test the 2 I would guarantee the chipboard would fail first. As I posted previously , voids are a weakness and when the chipboard cracks its always travels down the voids.

So you are saying 10% is negligible? Not where I come from. I would change lots of things in my life for 10% increment.

On space yes, absolutely its negligible unless space is a premium which in the case of most kicthens its not.

DIY - 2mm ABS
And credit to them for it. I cant think of any British manufacturer that ones ABS. Its either PVC or PU edging. I dont know what Pronorm use but the one I use do 2mm ABS as well.

I checked the pronorm spec and its 1.3mm

http://www.pronorm.de/index.php?id=195http://www.pronorm.de/index.php?id=195

If you supply only 30 types of units all in white and 10 types of door fronts it isnt difficult to carry stock. If you do 300 types of units in 15 carcase colours, in 50 - 200 types of fronts, its impossible to stock.

DIY have plenty of options for units and numerous choices of colour including painting in any RAL colour.

I have said numerous times UK manufacturers have been playing catch up when comparing the flexibility of the German manufacturers but in general they aren't that far behind and I stand by my post that quality wise there is no difference whatsoever............

I think I've covered everything I wish to say and its entirely up to the customer who they wish to go with at the end of the day but I don't like seeing the public deceived into believing they are buying better quality when buying German Kitchens when they clearly aren't.

Private_Church

ryder72 wrote: »

Agree with you mate. The problem is not the ability. The capability to translate it into reliable, repeatable mass production is a real challenge for British manufacturing.

Howdens etc have given the industry a bad name along with Vance Miller but UK manufacturers can and do have repeatable,reliable mass production, DIY will make and deliver a kitchen in 2-3 weeks.They don't hold lots of stock and its all made to order. The "challenge" has been met and I challenge any indy supplier to come up with a German kitchen in 2-3 weeks.

Germany is a far bigger country with a larger population so of coarse their industry will be bigger but bigger isn't always best.

The only reason people use Howdens as an example is because it fits their agenda of sh*te service and very average quality but even an average quality can last decades........

superyachter

so where did you buy your kitchen from in the end?