Plumbing and electrics in the kitchen

Behind every kitchen is work you never see again. Water, drains, gas, circuits. A kitchen stands or falls on it, and it is also the part quotes tend to be vague about.

Six out of ten quotes we write for private customers contain the same line: moving the pipes within the kitchen area. It is the item that comes up most often, and often the biggest one too. So here is what it includes.

The standard package

This package is for the usual situation. Your new kitchen has a different layout, so the tap, drain and sockets have to move with it. We open the wall, run water and drains to the new spot, lay the cables for the electrics and put six sockets back above the worktop. Then the channels are closed and everything is pressure-tested.

Does only one point move, just the sink for example? Then you do not pay for the whole package. Expect around € 496,10 including VAT.

Items that come on top

As a private customer you pay the amount including 21% VAT. All our rates are on the price page.

Drilling and chasing: the wall decides

In a plasterboard wall a pipe goes in easily. In concrete or sand-lime brick we have to cut and chase, with heavier tools and more time. That surcharge is € 423,50 including VAT, and it is on nine out of ten plumbing jobs we do. Knock on the wall behind your sink: if it sounds hollow, it is probably plasterboard.

Circuits and the fuse box

Dishwasher, oven, microwave, fridge, induction hob: that is five connections that do not belong together on one circuit. Two or three extra circuits is the usual number for us, at € 139,15 each. If nothing more fits, the fuse box is replaced for € 1.445,95 – € 1.512,50 including VAT (up to ten circuits, more circuits priced to measure). If you choose that, the cooking circuit is already included. We do not charge it a second time.

The gas comes out

Switching to induction? Then the gas pipe is capped and pressure-tested, for € 211,75 including VAT. We always test it, because a capped pipe that has not been pressure-tested is not properly capped. The full route is on gas to induction.

Those last two are the items people forget most often. With us they are in the quote.

Why there is no price here for separate electrical work

In our own records, the separate item "moving electrics" ranges from a few tens of euros to well over seventeen thousand. That is a range, not a price. What it comes to for you depends on your meter cupboard, your walls and what was put in twenty years ago. We come and look.

We ask what is behind the wall first

Of the jobs we quote, roughly one in four runs over, and then by about a fifth of the amount. Almost never because of the main work: we price that well. It runs over on what only shows once the old kitchen is out. A pipe that is not where it should be, a circuit that was already full, tiles on plasterboard.

That is why we ask awkward questions up front. What kind of wall is it? Where is the meter cupboard? What was renovated before? If it still turns out worse, you hear it before we carry on. Not afterwards, on the invoice.

Questions