Builder starting small extension, will I regret it

[studders]

Trouble is I bought this worktop several years ago, the kitchen has taken rather longer than I planned :lol: , so I doubt I could get anymore even if I could afford to. It's only 10mm short so it's gonna get errr.... bodged

 

[Triggaaar]

When I ordered my kitchen I ordered 3 lengths of worktop.

I only actually need 2 lengths, but knowing my luck lately...

I am pretty sure to need the third :roll:

You definitely won't need 3 lengths. You'd only need 3 if you had bought 2.

 

[Oldman]

The boss of the "specialist plastering" company that did the work visited this morning first thing, he took one look at the window wall and said its all got to come off, totally unacceptable. The plasterer will be sacked.

I suggested at as they hadnt managed to get it right twice already, what chance of third time lucky!

He said he is the boss and he will come and do the job himself, I told him I was considering instructing another plasterer but he assures me it will be done right this time.

I am caught a bit between the devil and deep blue, if he strips and redoes the job its free of cost, I just have to put up with all the mess and delays before painting.
If I dont let him then he wont give any money back so another plasterer would be full cost to me again, the mess and time problem still exists.

So I dont have much choice really, they will be here today stripping off the 2 lots of plaster....

I will keep you all informed, cause I know your riveted waiting for the next instalment...or layer.

 

[RogerS]

Are all your electric cables behind that plaster? If they go at it gung-ho then chances are you'll need to do some rewiring especially if they sever or nick the cables. You could perhaps printout the picture of the cable runs that you posted here. That might help but I have to confess I'm not optimistic. If it were me I'd be inclined to remove the plaster over the wires myself.

Floor protection. They will say that they will put down dust sheets etc. and that they will protect your newly tiled floor. They will not. Plastering is a wet and messy business - you know this. The company (at their expense) should put down Tyvek or something similar in the breathable roofing membrane (plastic is too slippery and dangerous - but, hey, if they break a leg it's
not your problem). Then butt joint sheets of hardboard - rough side up - duck tape the joints. Then your floor will be protected.

(Jeez...this new Aple keyboard is rubbish)

 

[Oldman]

Roger I have already chalked the wall with all my cable runs and if the guy chasing off the plaster looks like he has less than mensa entry IQ I will take over the chasing near my cables.

I have put down my own tarp and like the last time they plastered they will bring another for over that.
I have almost gone past the point of caring about the floor tiles, I will let them know before they start that they will be paying for any damage to be put right by my tiler.

](*,)

 

[Oldman]

Well the guy turned up to strip the wall, put down a tarp, ply sheeting and cloths.
The plaster came off reasonably easily, some real big differences in thickness, top of the wall was around 18mm and bottom was 38mm.
Interestingly the hardwall didnt stick to my plastic cable capping so with them being careful to chop back close to my chalk marks there was no disturbance to the cabling.

The wall was carefully hardwalled and will be multifinished today.

 

[Jake]

That looks much better - well done to you for getting them to do it right, and credit to them for sorting it out rather than running away or being difficult about it.

 

[Oldman]

The plasterer came back this afternoon and put the finish coat on the wall, it looks an awful lot better now.

Looks like I will need to fit coving now though as where the 2nd bodge up was so thick its left a not too smooth edge on the ceiling where it was stripped back, same was on the 2 walls that edge this replaced one but I was able to damp the plaster and use a scraper on those to get it a little better. Ceiling coat was so thin I was in danger of making it worse so I didnt try too hard there.
Ran a stanley blade around the window reveal to trim off the tape from the window.
Reveal is spirit level proof now and the wall is straight at worktop level :wink:

Have to wait a week now before painting, so I can get the hot & cold run around, gas pipe in and do some filling round the electrical backboxes.
Kitchen units are due 14th Dec.

 

[houtslager]

well done to the boss of the company for putting it all right, been there myself [ with a plumber] to my detriment and wallet.

people are people and cock ups occure when they have a "bad day "

looking good for 2nd fix then

hs

 

[Oldman]

Time for an update to this saga ;-)

The plaster around the first fix socket back boxes was in a pretty poor state so I needed to make good around them, I found a double and single box "Electrical Backbox Plastering Guide" kit on ebay that I thought worth a try, it works really well leaving a nice clean shape to fix to.

After time to let the plaster dry some it was wiped down with a damp cloth and on with white matt emulsion thinned 40% with water, 2 coats, 2nd with less water and then a final proper coat on all but one wall and ceiling having filled where needed most.
Wife chose a colour for the feature wall, crown english fire matt emulsion. Suprisingly had I been more careful it would have covered in one coat, but as I had not been a second coat was needed.

Now its electrics 2nd fix time and I have done all the wall sockets, isolation switches, fcu's & cooker outlet. The spot rails are up and I just need to fit the replacement 6ft fitting in place of the hanging tube in the pics and its then ready for final circuit tests and connecting at the consumer unit.

The kitchen units all turned up yesterday (homebase) seems from the packaging that they may come from Germany.

I still have to plumb in hot and cold water right round the walls from the old kitchen and have to get a gas supply for the hob in place.
Plus I need to alter the still in place temp waste pipework feeding the old kitchen sink and wash machine or delay fitting the last unit until the new sink etc is in place and working.

Not looking good for "ready for Xmas" but it shouldnt now be too long after before its at least usable.

 

[Oldman]

Merry Xmas all, no the kitchen isnt finished...

Dont buy kitchen units from Homebase, unless you want to build them blind. The instruction sheets with each carcass are generic to cover a multitude of differing uses and fail in the main to help you if you ordered anything other than a basic unit with 1 shelf.

The kitchens are actually supplied by Interior Solutions who are an offshoot of Magnet. The doors are ok and made in Italy I'm told, though I bet they really get made in Halifax by Gower?
They all seem to be owned by Nobia who have offshoots throughout Europe under differing names.

The sales people in my local Homebase though polite took little notice of my feedback about instructions that dont suit individual units.
I had several items including a 3mtr worktop (supplied just covered in a single thin sheet of polythene) arrive damaged.
You have just 7 days to check what has arrived is all there and undamaged so if like me your busy on other stuff and wont get it all built in the 7 days you must open every box, inspect and repackage all before the 7 days are up or they wont entertain any claims.

I reported 4 damaged items and 3 days later I have yet to hear if and when the replacements will arrive.

The Homebase helpline actually is Interior solutions and they too were unresponsive to feedback re the bad instructions and bad packaging of worktops.

I'm glad it was only a cheap kitchen I bought as if it was costing 2k or more I would have been pretty dissapointed all round.

The carcasses are 16mm chip (not very dense) the doors are 20mm and the back panels are 3mm hardboard. I used glue on the dowels when assembling the base units as I really didnt think the sloppy fitting back was going to add much to the overall rigidity. OK so they will be ok when screwed to the wall and have a worktop on them, perhaps I expected too much.

The 2118mm double oven unit had just 1 chip cross brace in the middle which I couldnt use anyway as the oven uses the whole depth to the wall so I had to make 2 timber cross braces to fit above and below the oven space as I'm sure it would have collapsed when I tried to lift it upright otherwise.

No mention whatsoever in the instructions of anything other than 4 plastic cups and screws to hold the oven shelf in place. My oven is so heavy I wouldnt dream of mounting it on just these 4 tiny screws. I shall be putting 2 bracing strips under this shelf to add support.
I wonder if they have ever been taken to court by customers who had ovens fall through the shelf when just following the instruction supplied.

Rant over....

Now some questions, its been 30yrs since I last installed a kitchen and things have changed some.

Base unit height is supposed to be set at 870mm with 910mm being the height after worktop instal.
The below unit plinth space is 166/7mm when the units are set to this height, the plinth itself is covered chip and is 166mm tall and its got nasty looking metal clips with it that are supposed to stab into the top edge of the chip and be a tight fit on the underside of the base units to keep it in place. Looks to me like the plinth would all need to be trimmed by 10mm to use this method as the spring clips take up 10mm.
Anyone used this sort of fix before?
I'm tempted to dump this method and go for the screw on the back of plinth clips that clip round the plastic legs.

I've also deviated from the original design to try and bring the units right up to the corners to save having filler bits to take up the slack, this means having wider corner parts where the corner unit goes. Hope that bit works ok as it now means I have to work from both outer ends towards the middle (corner) rather than starting in the corner which is usual...

 

[RogerS]

Merry Xmas. Sorry to hear your trials are not yet over but you'll get there.

Mmmm..didn't like to say anything when you mentioned Homebase as i too had problems with Interior Solutions. The Solutions is a bit of a misnomer.

That's why my first port of call (three kitchens in the last 4 years) has been Magnet as I've always got exemplary after-sales support from Ian at my local branch.

 

[bob321]

the worktops are packed as standard :x

looking good so far :wink:






bob321

 

[Oldman]

Well I have been busy fitting these base units and got to the end of the bases where I have a tall oven housing unit. This has a seperate extra wood grain effect end panel both sides.
How do you guys who have been there before me fit these?

As the chip is only 15mm thick it doesnt give much of a grip for screws, do you use wood glue or impact adhesive as well as screws.

I have 3 of these end panels to fit on wall units too, same thing, how to fit leaving the face without screw heads showing.

Almost embarrassed to ask but I dont want to mess up the job at this late stage.

 

[promhandicam]

I would just put 4 - 6 screws through from the inside of the unit into the decor panel. You can usually hide the front ones behind the hinge plates and the ones at the back won't be seen. I've never bothered with any adhesive and never had a problem. Just make sure you double check the length of screw you use to make sure that it doesn't go all the way through.

Steve

 

[Oldman]

Thanks for the reply Steve, just thought it best to check.

 

[Oldman]

Well its getting there slow but sure. Quite a lot still to do, here's a couple of grainy pics I just took.

The 6" bend on the hood looks like a ships vent shaft, need to buy/borrow a 152mm core drill for that as my largest is 127mm.

The black sheet on the left is a spashback for behind the hob to match the shiney black simulated granite worktop.
The oven housing has to come out yet to trim that end panel off the floor, I'm hoping a router will give a clean finish to the bottom of that and keep the front edge intact.
On top of the 3 wall units is my new worktop jig so I can attempt to cut mitres on the out of square corner

I have to make a filler for the corner where the black sheet is, I went off plan slightly by moving all the units up away from the corner so they butted up against the corners at the far ends which meant I was able for fit a drawer in the corner unit without it hitting the handle on the other drawer.
The gap is for the dishwasher, I have a matching door for that somewhere.
That bit of worktop is just for a workbench, I have a stainless sink going about there.
Hopefully end of the month should see it finished.

 

[Max Power]

Looking really good, love the background colour. I would just cut the left gable on the oven housing with a saw to allow the plinth to run straight through. What width is the gap at the corner?

 

[Oldman]

Thanks Alan, I was cutting that bottom of the end panel flush with the bottom of the units so the plinth continues on past it and was going to do the end finisher panel (not yet fitted) L shaped at the bottom so the plinth finishes against it. I have some edging tape for the plinth to tidy that end.

The gap is going to be around 20mm after fitting the finisher panel, I will need to fit a bit of quadrant or something there to tidy the end gap. The plasterers let me down on that end by not making the wall straight to vertical so the gap varies and where they pastered over the old window lintel the bead they fitted sticks out further than the side wall plaster so I had to leave a gap there as the top of the finisher panel would have been up hard on the bead but still leave a gap down to the floor.

Still have to figure what to do with the hood chimney as the ceiling is nowhere near square where its supposed to butt up to it. Trimming the stainless isnt easy as it shows any snip marks, might be easier to cut it into the plaster!

I have delayed the cut and fit operations on that tall oven unit as it has yet to come out again for a safety measure with my not very confident first attempt at masons mitres.
That run is around 2.5mtrs and so is the other side over the sink area, so my idea was to fit the sink side worktop in place, cut the female joint on that in the corner where the drills are laying, then cut the male on a full length of worktop so I get to have several tries if I get it wrong (corner not square) and once Im happy with the joint I will cut off the other end and refit the tall unit.

 

[Max Power]

Certainly sounds like your in control, don't worry about the worktop joints, its a fairly straight forward operation, try to do a practice one first though.
I wish I lived nearer I would have come around to give you a hand