There are several things that you need to do when hiring a kitchen fitter – and it’s important to ensure that you’re sure of each step as they will protect you from losing money and ensure that your kitchen fitting goes smoothly.
The basics
One of the most important things to look at when researching kitchen fitters is to get recommendations from your friends and family. If you haven’t got any friends or family that can recommend a good fitter, you should look online – and once you’ve found one recommended on a site Google their name. This way you’ll find that any complaints should also show up – good and bad, you should be able to get a good gauge of the group you’re planning on using. Even if you use family recommendations it’s important to ensure that you’re getting the best company for the job, so ask for or seek out their references and other information.
Don’t be afraid to ask for references and information too – these are important to make sure that you’re hiring an experienced team. Most use their best client installs in their brochures, but if you’re hiring someone without literature to support their design or installation claims, you may want to consider asking for them. This is not rude and is important to be sure that you’re hiring people that you can trust.
Understanding needs
It’s important to ensure that your team has and understands your needs. This is important because there’s several elements to fitting kitchens – from tiling to electricity and gas installations – it’s important to be sure that your installer is licenced to work with electricity or gas – and that their work in other areas is solid because your kitchen is considered a ‘high impact’ area of your home – it is used at least once a day, so needs to withstand traffic. For that reason you need to be sure that your floor and surface choice is going to last. A good installer will tell you whether the material will fade or become less durable over time. If you’re not sure whether this is the case you should ask, and your installer should be able to tell you.
Using your kitchen while installing
One of the biggest things that you’ll find while installing is that you still need to use your kitchen. Your downtime should be minimal – in part because your gas and electricity will need to be switched off – as will your water. If your installation is going to be over several days, you’ll need to work with your installer to discuss when each element will be installed and plan for the least disruption as possible.
Alternatively, you can stay with a friend or family while your kitchen is being installed.
