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Kitchen Cabinets | What is the best kitchen guarantee available?
Everybody
wants to be happy with their brand new fully fitted kitchen.
Everybody
wants to be in a position where they’re gazing at their new kitchen cabinets in
wide-eyed glee, very happy indeed - not even thinking about the guarantee.
Unfortunately
some guarantees aren’t worth the paper that they’re written on. They don't mean
anything at all.
In
the past, some kitchen companies have offered a guarantee for 25 years. When
analyzing the small print it did however culminate in meaning
that as soon as the kitchen flat-pack arrived at your house, the guarantee
itself proved to be as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I’m sure that some of you would like a chocolate teapot, but that isn’t the
point! Too many people think about a kitchen cabinets guarantee before purchase
and not enough people think about ensuring that they’re happy with the kitchen
once it’s fitted.
Too
many people aren’t happy with their new kitchen. Small things are wrong with
it. The plinth isn’t fitted on properly. Doors are squint. You phone up the
kitchen company and they’ll phone you back when they have a fitter available.
One finally comes back to your house – not the same fitter as before. He doesn’t
have the right equipment with him to sort out your problem – he promises to
come back later. He doesn’t. You phone back the kitchen cabinets company. They
won’t have any more fitters in your area for the next couple of weeks.
Great guarantee.
Don’t
waste your time concerning yourself with the length of the guarantee.
A guarantee doesn’t matter if the job is done properly to begin with. If you have
taken the time to make yourself of all the other Kitchen Secrets, you’ll have a
great knowledge of the domestic kitchen cabinets industry. You’ll be in charge
of when to buy and when to not. If that’s the case then you won’t have made a
reactive decision and suddenly purchased something you might regret in the
future.
As
soon as you receive delivery of your new kitchen you will be asked to sign that
you have received it in satisfactory condition.
A a lot of kitchen companies will ask you to accept delivery of the kitchen by
yourself. Without the fitters. Don’t sign until you are happy with everything.
It doesn’t matter if the delivery driver is left sitting in his van for half an
hour. You have to check to see that the quality of the product is the same as
the quality shown to you by the kitchen designer. You need to check the doors,
the worktops and the handles.
A
lot of companies also expect another part of the balance payable upon
delivery. You need to decide whether this is fair or not.
With
regards to the guarantee, what you need to do is isolate everything down to the
fitting.
If
you’re happy with the delivery of your appliances and furniture, then you know
that the only thing that could go drastically wrong is the fitting of your
kitchen. This is why you need to stay on the right side of
your fitters. They have total control over whether your final product will be a
success or failure. (refer to Kitchen Secret 20)
However,
apart from looking after the kitchen cabinets fitters yourself, the only
significant ‘lever’ that you have over the kitchen company is the value of your
outstanding balance due. We’re not talking about having self-employed fitters
and you paying them directly after the kitchen is fitted – we’re talking about
actual cash due to the kitchen company. If you’ve already paid the kitchen
company much more than half of the cash due to them, their incentive to correct
any problems diminishes. You need to keep that ‘lever’ as significant as
possible.
There
is one other way of improving your guarantee and it relates to Kitchen Secret
19. If you have chosen to purchase your kitchen via the finance package offered
by the kitchen company, you will probably have paid a small deposit. Should
this be the case, then the finance company tends to ‘back up’ the guarantee
offered by the kitchen company. This does offer increased ‘peace of mind’ as
they would act as an independent body within a dispute and also maintain the
guarantee after kitchen company liquidation. However, as we have emphasized
already, the best guarantee that you have is to check, double-check and check
again yourselves that you are happy with everything. Don’t rely on
anyone else.
