"Only human beings can move me to despair, but only human beings can remove me from despair&quo...
"Only human beings can move me to despair, but only human beings can remove me from despair" - Elie Wiesel
Member since:27.05.2002
Reviews:45
Members who trust:25
** Choosing the supplier **
Back in January, we took the plunge and started hunting for the new kitchen we had been dreaming of. I had received bad reports from two sources on B&Q's ability to deliver anything as a complete item, so naturally they weren't our first choice. So why, you must be asking yourselves, did we end up choosing them to supply our kitchen? Well the simple truth is cost. Magnet kitchens were just far beyond our budget and MFI's quote came in at about twice as much; plus they came across too much like scary salesmen. So I came to the conclusion that if was just a question of a small and expected delay, then the money saved would be worth the inconvenience.
B&Q offer two main types of kitchen. The 'SELECT' range has a smaller choice, but is the higher quality and the 'it' range is the cheaper option. Worktops range in quality from laminate to stone and solid wood. Prices also range accordingly from £40-£1150 depending on your wants and needs.
The way B&Q's kitchens work is probably the closest thing you can get to bespoke in a flat pack. You choose the carcasses/cabinets first which are standardised across the range; then pick your doors and drawer fronts; choose a work top (of course you would probably need the better quality 'SELECT' carcasses/cabinets for the heavy stone worktops); then choose your extra fittings: handles, door/drawer buffers etc.
B&Q also do fitted kitchen appliances and often have offers on appliance packs. We chose a Belling gas hob, electric oven and cooker hood pack at quite a discount on buying separate. We did not necessarily need a cooker hood, but it worked out cheaper to have it with the pack than to buy the oven and hob separately.
Then all you need to do is have B&Q's kitchen designer design your kitchen to how you want it. The layout is your choice, but the designer can offer advice if wanted and will point out any potential problems.
You aren't forced to buy everything you need from B&Q; in fact a lot of the cupboard racks and spice holders we found cheaper in Ikea. Shop around and do whatever works for you.
** Quote and ordering **
The staff at our local B&Q store were very nice and not at all like sales people. They booked a convenient time for someone to come around,
measure up, design and quote on a kitchen design we liked; and all with no obligation to buy. Not something MFI offered; you had to take your own measurements in to them. The kitchen designer then left us with a quote and the assurance that you could chop and change the fittings and doors before ordering. He also let us know that an order could be changed as long as it wasn't too close to the delivery date and that any extra bits that you ended up not using could be taken back to the store for a refund. We did in fact take a few excess items back and had no trouble getting a refund.
To cut costs further, we made a change before we ordered. We opted for standard drawers instead of the premium as we felt the quality of the standard drawers were still much better than our current drawers (even the bottom of the drawers were thick chipboard rather than flimsy hardboard) and the price difference was just too great to justify the premium drawers. The premium 300mm drawer cost £23 compared to just £9 for the standard equivalent. Incidentally a prestige soft close drawer is also available at £4 more than the premium equivalent.
Ordering was simple, the kitchen area staff member made the changes requested on our original quote and we were advised to expect a 5 week wait. Now this was on 23rd January, so imagine our surprise when we received a phone call a few days later giving us a delivery date for 3rd February. Wonderful, so far all was going better than expected.
Things with B&Q home delivery started out very promising. The main bulk of the kitchen arrived as planned on 3rd February minus the plinths, pelmets and cornicing, for which delivery would be re-arranged once they were in stock. We already knew to expect parts to be delayed, so that was no surprise and they were all parts that only went on at the end anyway. So the trend continues; some friends have also recently had a kitchen delivered from B&Q and that too came minus two doors. The bulk of the kitchen arrived at the end of May, but they have to wait until July for the final two doors.
I had a letter from B&Q stating that any items not delivered had to be reported within 3 days and any damaged items reported in 28 days. So naturally we first checked that we had everything we should have. No problems there; but 4 days later we discovered a door had some damage and not knowing where to report this, I took it to the store. This led me to discover just how uneducated the counter staff were in dealing with kitchen enquiries. First I had to wait while one staff member tried to figure out what to do with me and finally I got sent to the inquiries desk. Then the other member of staff tried to insist that I should have reported it within 3 days, despite my informing her that I had it in writing as 28 days. She then figured out that I needed to contact Home Deliveries.
So back to the phone to B&Q Home Deliveries. By this point the B&Q warehouse had apparently had a fire and any current stock had to be re-ordered. So I was told that the replacement for the damaged door would be added to the order for the parts we were still awaiting. She added that we shouldn't expect delivery until May, was that okay? My reply was something along the lines of "do I have a choice in the matter?"
At this point I would like to mention that nothing was said about how B&Q would retrieve the damaged door, so I assumed that it would be collected when the new one was delivered. However, as it turned out they sent another delivery/collection company to collect it and never informed me. Naturally this company didn't catch me in the first time and caught me on my way out the second time. I mention this episode as one example of the lack of communication I came across with Home Deliveries.
Meantime I damaged a door myself and bought another which was added to the order still waiting for delivery. Then two and a half months after the initial delivery, slightly sooner than expected (19th April) the plinths, pelmets, cornicing and the extra door I'd ordered arrived, but no replacement for the original damaged one was evident. The delivery driver said that it may be on a different order as they can't add to an existing order. I wondered how that could be when the other door had been added to the existing order.
So I was back on the phone to Home Deliveries, which is luckily a free phone number, as every time I phoned they were experiencing large call volumes and kept me waiting. I have to say that I was quite amazed by what their excuse was. According to the computer someone had called me and I had told them I no longer needed the door. When I denied receiving any such call, I was told that according to the computer I was then called 5 more times and had said that I no longer required this door. I pity the person they were calling, 6 calls to ask the same question! Is that not tantamount to nuisance calling? Anyway, the only new delivery date the girl could offer me was five weeks away, so when I told her it wasn't good enough and started venting she fetched a supervisor who patronisingly asked whether I was sure I still wanted this door. Would I have been on the phone demanding to know where it was if I didn't? The supervisor managed to make a slightly better 'emergency' delivery for a week and a half. Thank heavens they don't man the 999 lines!
To cut a long story short, I waited in for a delivery that didn't arrive due to another lapse in communication within the company. I had to chase up again for another delivery date even though they had promised to contact me and the errant door finally arrived another week and a half after that (12th May).
I wrote a formal complaint letter and my initial reply was a quick apology and a promise to investigate the matter, however "Due to a major incident the response to your complaint may take up to 28 days". 20 days later I received what I believe is a standard response letter which is likely printed off to anyone making a complaint. And it took 20 days to print it off!? It addressed none of the issues raised and referred to a "visit to B&Q" and not B&Q Home Deliveries which is who my complaint is actually about.
** Installing the kitchen **
With our order sheet we got a floor plan which showed us where all the cupboards were to fit. It may sound like common sense knowledge, but it certainly helps avoid confusion.
If you are used to flat pack furniture and find it easy to assemble, then putting the cupboards together is a doddle. If, however, flat pack assembly is beyond your means then you may need to get someone else to do it. Assembling the cabinets can be done by one person, but fitting them to the walls (particularly the wall cabinets) is a two man job.
Every item comes with instructions and plenty of screws, dowels, hinges and other bits needed for fitting them together. We found fitting the kitchen a straight forward, albeit time consuming, job. A bit of creativity was needed to build out a standard wall cupboard to fit over the boiler and we discovered that the marks for one of the drawer fronts was slightly off making it look slightly off when assembled.
There were a couple of niggles. The base cupboards have plastic legs which you attach, unfortunately these have a tendency to come off when you are trying to move the cupboards into position. Usually they just pop out of the slots, which is generally just annoying; but one time the actual leg broke. Added to this, when it comes to attaching the plinths you are provided with some pathetically flimsy clips, the base of which you fix to the plinth and then slide the clip part in. The clip keeps sliding out though and once you get the plinth on without them sliding out or breaking, then you find you have to carve grooves out in the plinth to fit around the plastic legs properly.
Probably the hardest part to fit in the kitchen was the work top. We borrowed a router and jig to make the fixing holes underneath the work top to get that nice invisible join (you will also need a biscuit jointer for this type of joint). However, we found that the sides of the cupboards were in the exact place where we needed to get under and screw the two pieces together. This caused a few problems as did the fact that we have a more or less square kitchen mean we had three pieces to put together and work into position. There is a simpler way to do the corners and that is to put a metal joining strip in, which is frankly unsightly. Any exposed edges of the worktop can be covered by a strip of worktop coloured laminate using contact adhesive or a more expensive end cap. Colour filler is also provided for the joins, edges and any small chips you may get from saw cuts.
On the subject of saw cuts, I would advise the use of a decent circular saw with reasonably fine teeth for cutting the work top. We didn't have too many problems personally, but our friends bought a cheap saw and have some rather nasty chips on the end of their worktop. It was even worse when they tried to use it on the plinths.
** 'it' kitchen quality **
It probably won't surprise you that on our budget, we chose an 'it' kitchen. I'm not going to tell you that I expected high quality on a kitchen for this price. We even went for the cheapest doors they had. The units themselves were chipboard and the laminate on them was quite thin; certainly thinner than on our previous kitchen. It is very easy to chip and damage them, particularly on the edges where the laminate edges meet. We were without a door for some time on one of our base units (explanation to come) and it was impossible to consistently keep my toddlers from climbing on the open ledge. Needless to say the ledge doesn't look as good as it used to. Funnily enough, though, those cheap doors that we chose were, in my opinion, of better quality than the cupboards to which they were attached. I couldn't help but feel a little for those people who shelled out more money for the better quality solid wood doors, only to have the same low quality cupboards as us with our cheap doors.
I also didn't feel that the wall cupboards had been designed very well, as when it comes to fitting the pelmets and cornicing we had raised side panels to work round. For some reason the sides of the cupboards overlap the top and bottom of the unit by a couple of millimetres and this means that you have a small gap running along the front because each end is raised. It also means you have to either pad out the fixing blocks or off set them slightly to avoid tilting the cornice or pelmet. My father had the same problem with his kitchen as well.
Overall, though, I am not surprised by the quality of the kitchen we had for the price we paid and I would give the thumbs up to the B&Q own brand slate look worktop at just £40 a piece.
** Final Thoughts **
B&Q kitchens have so much promise, but I get the feeling that they think that the fact they undercut most other kitchen suppliers means that they can get away with treating their customers second rate. People will keep coming back to them, simply because they can't afford to go elsewhere, even thought they have probably heard what they're like. Yes, it's unlikely they will get repeat custom, but how often does the average person change their kitchen? They lure you in beautifully then once there is no turning back etiquette goes out the window.
For me the B&Q Home Deliveries charade was a deal breaker. Don't get me wrong, am still happy to use the store, but I would not purchase anything from them that required home delivery and I would not recommend them for kitchens unless you can get them in stock.
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Great review but sounds like a bit of a nightmare for you! x
angelatawn 18.06.2006 21:49
sounds like a nightmare. we had an mfi kitchen a few years ago now and i was really happy with it, but i didn't realise that they were so expensive now. angela x
Silverback 18.06.2006 21:34
Sounds like a nightmare - I'll put up with my shabby old kitchen for a while yet, if this is what lies in wait. Paul
Advantages: Very modular design, easy to combine units and fixtures together Disadvantages: Let down by the inability of the companies to work together!
Dave_E 16.12.2008 (16.12.2008)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of B&Q Flatpack Kitchens
Jun 18th, 2006
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