Two quotations for the same kitchen can differ by forty per cent and both be honest. Six questions tell you which one you are looking at.
We are often shown a competing quotation and asked why ours is higher. Sometimes the honest answer is that theirs is a better deal. More often the two documents describe different kitchens, and the difference is in things nobody thinks to ask about. Here are the six questions worth asking whoever is quoting you, including us.
How thick are the carcasses. Eighteen millimetre board is the standard for a reason: a twelve millimetre carcass will not hold a hinge screw under a heavy door for ten years, and it flexes when a drawer is pulled. Twelve millimetre carcasses are common in this country and they take about eleven per cent off the material cost of a kitchen.
Is the back housed or pinned. A back panel housed into a groove makes the carcass rigid and square for its whole life. A back pinned to the rear edge does very little, and it is how a run of units ends up out of line two years later. You can see this by looking at the back of any unit in a workshop, which is why we invite people in.
What is under the sink. This is the big one in this climate. A sink base in commercial plywood fails in about two years and one in MDF fails the first time a fitting weeps. Marine plywood in the sink unit and any unit against a wet wall adds a few hundred rufiyaa to a kitchen and decides whether the bottom of it exists in year five.
Are soft close hinges and full extension runners included or an upgrade. On a kitchen of forty doors and drawers, the difference between good hardware and the cheapest available is around two thousand rufiyaa, and it is also the entire difference in how the kitchen feels to use every day.
Who measures, and when. If the answer is that they will work from your drawing, or that they will measure before the tiling, the quotation is for a kitchen that will need packing and filling on site. Ask when the survey happens.
And who fits it. A workshop that subcontracts fitting has no one on site who knows why a unit was built the way it was. When a wall turns out nineteen millimetres out of square, which it will, a fitter who built the job solves it and a fitter who did not telephones somebody to complain.
None of those questions is about taste and all of them change the price. Ask them of every quotation and the cheap one will either become obviously good value or obviously cheap for a reason.
