Dull, I know, but I’m weighing up options and would like a one-stop-shop who will deal with design, removal of old kitchen and all the electical, plumbing and joinery without delays or hassle.

Can’t be arsed with local cowboys who are “too busy” to get back to me.

So, any experiences of B&Q or similar? Price? Reliability? Quality of product and workmanship?

Cheers,

SC

(PS – I’ve searched the forum and nothing comes up, though I’m sure it has been discussed before)

It will be locals doing the work, so YMMV from others’.

I know a great builder in Larbert if you want details.

Ordered one here for a school staff room. Nightmare, some bits not turning up, selection of local trades (joiner/tiler/sparky etc) all blaming each other and holding the job up. Took 9 weeks to fit altogether.

My best mate used to fit B&Q kitchens and now works for Howdens, B&Q vary between branch but he told me the carcass of the kitchen was about right for the RRP, nothing special. I worked for Living Design kitchens (owned by the Anglian group – they have different names in different counties) I wouldn’t touch one of thier products with a shitty stick.

Hmmmm… That’s what I suspected.

Al – contact details would be good (stuart_campbell40 at tiscali dot co dot uk). Is this someone you have used to do the same thing? Will he deal with the whole job from start to finish and be 100% reliable?

i’ve recently fitted a b&q kitchen and basically ‘never again’! i found the quality and in many instances logic of construction incredibly poor. next time i’ll go to ikea.

What everyone else said.

They charge a fortune for fitting, often more than the kitchen itself, however they pay peanuts to the tradesmen. Consequently you get a crap job.
They offered me some fits, to do a decent job of it, I would have been on the equivalent of about 90 quid a day

We went to B&Q for a kitchen quote and found one on display that said £700 (ish) for 9 units…bargain.

Sat down with the consultant (read that as spotty oik), and after going through it all, and him tapping away on his computer he asked what our budget was. We said around £1000 (going with what we’d seen on the shop floor)…he said well we’re almost there and quoted us $5,500, without fitting.

After changing for the cheapest surface and various other things, we got it down to £4,000.

They also said they didn’t have any B&Q fitters, but they had local independant fitters who do it for them, apparently there was a 3 month wait though.

I ended up going to Wickes and getting a flat pack kitchen off them…it cost £700 for all the components, and then I spent £200 on tools and fitted it myself. A few weeks later and after much swearing, we had a perfectly good kitchen for around £1,000.

We had wanted to move the cooker, but didn’t as we’d need an electrican to do it, so just worked with what we had.

I think you’d be better off finding a fitter recommended by others rather than going for an all in package, you may get lucky though. Good fitting is key IMO.

If you are looking at B&Q also take a look in Wickes, I’ve found their range pretty solid and delivery good (as in everything turns up when it is supposed to, nothing missing)

These stores always have deals on, one rolls into another so don’t get carried away with ‘special’ deals ending soon.

Echoing the above, I bought units etc. from them in their (available every january) big sale – fitting was quoted at 4 times what I paid a local guy to do, who did such a good job in such a short time I gave him 10% extra to stick in his back pocket and paid cash for the job. Dad’s a sparky which helped, but what we did electrically was very straightforward.

They’ll still do the plan and parts list for you even if you don’t use ‘their’ fitters.

A relative used them about 5 years back. It transpired B&Q did not have thier own staff/fitting teams they just subcontracted to others. Part of the result of that was the kitchen being finished off after a lot of blundering around, then a couple of hours after the staff left they came home to find all the floor was flooded. Big issue with B&Q over getting people back out to deal with the water, getting money from them for the damaged units, ruined new flooring etc.

It put me right off them.

To add to my last comment, the kitchen fitting took many days, spread out over several weeks of deliveries and fiddling about. I did not mean they fitted it all in a single day.

All the sub-contractors were from different firms too, so communication not great between floor fitters, plumbers, unit fitters etc.

my experience with b and q was bathrooms and echo everything said above. The prices you see in store are about 1/4 of the final price you’ll pay. They sub out all fitting, and there is months to wait. soo, we just got one of the basic kits and paid a local fella to install. He was great, did the work very quickly.. .and helped us out a lot when half the fittings etc… AND EVEN THE BATH weren’t in stock when he went to collect it all in his van from b and q (even though they were supposed to have been put to one side for us). They were next to useless, and basically we had to do their donkey work of phoning round other stores to get replacements.

never again will I shop in b and q if I can help it.

Sheffield Queens Road store is my experience above. And Chesterfield, which is where the bath was eventually found in stock. But once got home half the fittings were missing.

OK guys.

That’s a good enough cross-section of opinion to steer me away from them (pretty much as I’d feared, really).

I’ll give cynic-al’s builder a call.

We did once, never again. It was a total nightmare. Ordered in June and they still hadn’t managed to deliver all the bits by the time they started fitting at the end of September. They sub out to local tradesmen so as above, YMMV. However, the one thing I learned was that if they were any good as tradesmen, they’d be working for themselves, not the peanuts B&Q throw them after taking their cut. Project manager who did work for B&Q was worse than useless as well.

There are web sites dedicated to B&Q kitchen nightmares.

At least me managed to claim for the hall/stairs carpet they ruined.

Only once did i see a B AND Q kitchen and got asked to fit it, half the pizza boxes where missing parts, the knobs and handles where charged extra, the sizes of the units didnt match the space for them to fit into, electrics and water pipes where in the wrong place for the cooker and sink.

Walked away.

Howdens are not allowed to recomend any fitter for prodiucts as if we cock up or something goes wrong wwe may bring the name of Howdens in disrepute.

Howdens lorries are also seen delivering to Focus sometimes ,and the kitchjens are made in the old Hygena /shreieber factory in runcorn.

I’m a self employed Kitchen fitter (Leicester), looked at working for B+Q as a sub but like said above the pay rates were pretty bad.

I fitted a B+Q Kitchen purchased by the customer direct last week and whilst it was OK enough, it was nothing to shout about for the money, I wouldn’t recommend one. However, this week I’ve been tiling at someone who’d had Moben in to fit their kitchen, they make B&Q look like saints! £23K for a kitchen without worktops (granite being done by A N other) or tiling and the fit standards are terrible, I could do better blindfolded, 6 weeks in and still waiting for some stock parts.

Have a look at Wickes/Howdens and get a local fitter to quote. most likely cheaper all round. Howdens don’t have their own fitters as it’s trade only so a fitter would have to buy the kitchen on your behalf.

my neighbour who is a builder won’t quote to fit B&Q or Homebase kitchens. He uses Howdens, or a couple of local specialist kitchen suppliers to get prices/ideas – central belt too, if you want his details.

On the other hand, I got a B and Q kitchen (Cooke and Lewis so not the bottom of the range) about a year and a half ago and it is great. It was delivered when they said, fitted when they said by their own tradesmen and has been fine since day 1. I couldn’t fault the service from B and Q throughout the whole process (they designed and fitted it) and the quality of the units and tradesmen was right for the money.

Seems we just got lucky?

On the other hand, I got a conservatory from CR Smith and wouldn’t recommend them to an enemy. That was a whole lot of heartache.

I had a kitchen from MFI. Must admit the quality of fit was very good but they use approved contractors to fit them – and mine as I had confirmed to me at a later date was a right sharkster with plenty of complaints about. Ended up having to pay extras £50 here, £50 there because of “new regulations” or the spec was not quite right. His fitter then wanted all this paid in cash seperate to the standard fitting charge.

On complaining to MFI they just washed their hands explaining he was the “expert”, and extras were a seperate contract to them as was it turned out the fitting. I was also not best pleased about not being informed about paying everything up front 6 weeks before delivery. Next time i’ll buy the kitchen but use my own installer by recommendation.

The way the MFI system used to work was as thus (I was an MFI premier fitter before they went bump)

MFI charged for the kitchen and the bare fit 6 weeks in advance of delivery. The fitter then did a prefit survey, after the sale was made, on site with the customer present and worked out a quotation for the ‘extras’ dependent on what needed doing as no two kitchens/sites were alike, this however was from a pre approved price list, the fitter wasn’t allowed to make up/set prices. some were generous, others very very poor for the work involved.

The fitter was to be paid direct by the customer for the extras, but only when satisfied that the job was complete and to the required standard. When MFI got a completed customer satisfaction survey back, they paid the fitter their share of the money. The only odd practice was that the fitter didn’t get paid a penny until all outstanding stock issues/quality problems had been resolved, even if it was MFI’s problem, often taking 6-8 weeks to resolve, in the mean time the fitter had paid out for all fittings and materials that had been used on the job. in the event of the customer not being happy with MFI or whatever reason quite often they held back the balance of the cash, which was the fitters money of course as MFI had already been paid in full 6 week earlier.

We don’t have to worry about that anymore though now…. as mentioned above best way is to contact a recommended fitter, have a chat with them about what you want to achieve for your given budget, they can then suggest a supplier to suit your needs and go from there.

Agree with blazing above, and used to be a manager for MFI, to clear up the mfi stuff above the designer/sales person was supposed to advise the customer that there could/would be extra’s to pay to the fitters, for some reason alot of the shop floor staff never used to do this which would just piss the customers fitters and me off clearing up the mess

The Hustler – That sounds about right, shame they went down though as the actual product was good and they were usually very good to work for… Where abouts did you manage? did you stay “in the business”?

Mum and Dad ordered a kitchen from B&Q when it was delivered some of the parts where missing and others they didn’t evern order. Dad not inpressed so told them to come a pick it all up and get a refund.

So I planned out what he wanted on the Ikea kitchen planner, ordered the stuff, collected it and fitted myself over a period of 2 weeks and it’s a cracking kitchen well made and solid and it cost less than B&Q. I mate fitted a Ikea one over 5 years ago and it still looks like new. Have a look at the Ikea web site the kitchen planner is great and easy to use and you get to have a 3D view and try different styles and stuff.

Sorry can’t help with a good kitchen fitter.

Interesting reading the above. And its true, at no stage was I told there would be extras, until the subcontractor inspection by which time i’d already signed the contract and had a delivery and installation date if i recall. So basically you’ve signed up to using MFI and the subcontractor, the latter could then go to town on their shopping list of extras, even if MFI had stipulated what they could charge.

There was an over riding feeling that the sub contractor was then The Man, and the MFI staff just didn’t want to know. Not sure what this customer satisfaction survey was – i was handed a grubby piece of paper to sign by the fitter that i was happy.

Well, the mfi I worked out of always was the point of contact for the customer and dealt with any problems. We had a completion certificate that was to be signed and returned before we got paid.

Little point in worrying about it now though as they’ve been gone for 2 years now.

What is the cost of H Owden’s kitchen?

My brother will order it for me through his company, so we get trade price, he thinks somewhere around 75% to 85% discount, but that means nowt since I don’t know the base figure to discount

Any ideas?

Howdens kitchens come pre assembled, no pizza boxes, you do pay for everything though like legs and pelmets and plinths.

Usually 60 to 70 %off the list price in their catalogue, but thats just something to show the customer, then deduct a % off

Re Howdens, it’s a trade outlet so you’re expected to know what bits you need to buy to make a kitchen. The cabinets come pre assembled and DO included legs, intact everything except facias and handles usually. Plinths are a 3m length so would be tricky to get inside the box if included??

Ignore the discount, the Rrp is just some made up numbers to make them look cheap ie plinth rrp £800, discount 99% price = £8. not sure why they do this as surely no one actually believes a plinth costs £800? Still, better just to get a price off them for the lot, if it’s acceptable then order (it’ll most likely be in stock) or don’t order if you don’t like the price.

Blazin-saddles, Howdens als do a kitchen design service free for account hiolders like me, the price in the catalogue is the price you show the customer then deduct whatever you feel is going to get you the job,plus callbacks, the customer thinks theyre getting a good discount 30% while you still earn a bigger discount.

The pelmets and plinths are quite expensive so pop down to B and Q and get some matching 6 inch contiboard for the plinth.

Oh and i got charged extra for the legs once.

another thing be nice to the fitter as as he bought the kitchen for you, he has sole responsibility for getting spare parts, and replaceing any damaged bits, piss huiim off and you could be waiting for certain bits.

Fi you were not lucky. Our experience was also very good. We went the Cooke and Lewis route and have absolutely no regrets.

We have kept the details of the fitters so we can use them again.

The problem with any big set up like B&Q will be the variations store by store and region by region.

Blazing, when i worked there i worked at stafford, telford, shrewsbury and dudley, wife and i had our own business so gave up the stupid long manager hours and moved to Howdens which was at that time part of the same company, MFI retail was then sold and died its death, but i left howdens 3 years ago to concentrate full time on our own business (opticians).