Replacing appliances in your kitchen

Your kitchen is still fine. Only the dishwasher leaks, the oven has stopped working, or the fridge makes a noise at night. One appliance out, one in. Sounds like half an hour of work.

In practice this is the job that goes wrong most often, and almost never on the connection. It goes wrong on the size. A twelve-year-old kitchen was built around the appliances of twelve years ago, and those sizes have shifted.

Three sizes that are not the same

Everyone measures the width of the appliance. That is the wrong measurement. There are three:

• The niche size. The space between the cabinet sides, measured on the inside. This is the one that counts.
• The appliance size. What the manufacturer puts on the box. Always smaller than the niche, with a margin that differs per brand.
• The front size. The panel you see. It follows your kitchen fronts, not the appliance.

A new dishwasher that is "60 wide" does not automatically fit a 60 opening. And your old front almost never fits a new machine: the fixing holes are somewhere else and the height is off.

Where it gets stuck, per appliance

The dishwasher

The bottleneck is the height, not the width. Under your worktop there is a fixed space: subtract the worktop thickness and the leg height, and what remains is what you have. With a three-centimetre stone worktop, sometimes too little remains for a modern machine. Those are adjustable, but not endlessly. The second bottleneck is the door. Old integrated machines often had a fixed front, modern ones usually use a sliding door. Different system, and your old panel does not simply fit.

The oven

Ovens have got deeper. An old oven cabinet is sometimes 55 centimetres deep and the new oven wants 56. Then the back panel comes out, if there is room for that. Second point: the socket belongs in the cabinet next to the oven, where you can reach it, not behind the oven. If it is behind the oven now, it moves.

The fridge

This is the hardest. Built-in fridges come in a handful of fixed niche heights, and your cabinet was built for one of them. If that height is no longer made, no appliance will fit. There are also two ways to mount the door. With a sliding door the front moves along a rail. With door-on-door the front is fixed to the fridge door. The two are not interchangeable. If the new appliance only supports the other one, your front hits the wall cabinet or leaves a gap.

The hob

The cut-out in the worktop is almost never the right size. Induction hobs are often deeper than the gas hobs they replace, and they need room for ventilation underneath. If there is a drawer or an oven below, that space has to be there. Cutting is possible in wood and laminate. In natural stone, ceramic and composite not always, and not close to an edge or joint. Switching from gas? See gas to induction.

The cooker hood

Here the problem is not the size but where the duct is. If your new hood is built differently, its connection comes out at a different height from the duct that is already there.

How to measure before you order

Send us those measurements plus the type number of the appliance you have in mind. We tell you whether it fits before you order. That saves a return.

What to do when it just does not fit

There is usually a solution, and it usually costs something:

• Adjust the cabinet. Move a side panel, lower a shelf, take out the back panel.
• Go one size smaller with a filler panel. Not pretty, but it works. A 45 in a 60 niche shows.
• Enlarge the cut-out. In wood and laminate on site, in stone only after we have checked it.
• Choose a different appliance. With fridges this is often cheaper than rebuilding the cabinet.

What we do not do

We do not build in an appliance that, according to its own installation diagram, needs more free space than the cabinet offers. An oven or induction hob that cannot get rid of its warm air burns out its own electronics. Then it is not the cabinet that breaks, it is the appliance you just paid for. If we cannot make it fit, we tell you, and the appliance goes back unopened.

Buy the appliance wherever you like. We connect it for the same price.

What it costs

As a private customer you pay the amount including 21% VAT. In doubt between two appliances? Book a free consultation before you order. That is the only moment advice still saves you money. All rates are on our price page.

Questions