Kitchen fitting: what your fitter needs from you before day one

A kitchen fit runs to a sequence, and every trade in it is waiting on the one before. Here is what stops it stalling.

The full delivery, checked

Kitchens arrive in a lot of boxes and something is missing more often than not. An end panel or a single cornice length will hold up the finish. Checking the delivery against the plan before the old kitchen comes out costs an hour and saves days.

Appliances on site, not on order

Integrated appliances determine the housings around them. If the oven has not arrived, the housing cannot be finished, and if the model changes the housing may have to be rebuilt. Have them there.

Decisions that cannot wait

Where the sink and hob go, because moving either means first-fix plumbing and electrics before the units go in. Whether the flooring goes down before or after the units. Handles, because the doors are drilled for them.

Worktops come last, always

Stone and solid surface are templated after the units are level and fixed, never before. Templating early is the single most common reason a worktop does not fit, and it is an expensive thing to get wrong.

Who is doing the certified work

Gas, electrics and the final plumbing connections are signed off by the people who hold those certificates. Knowing who they are and when they are coming is what turns a kitchen fit from three weeks into two.