Trade Style Prices, Landlord Spec: DIY Kitchens in Treforest

For a let property the argument for this supplier is straightforward. You get a pre built carcass rather than a flat pack one, which is stronger and stands up better to a kitchen that sees more use in three years than a family kitchen sees in ten, and you get it without paying for a showroom. Put the money you save into hinges that survive being slammed, a hard wearing worktop that can be replaced cheaply if a tenant damages it, and an extractor that genuinely vents outside so the room does not sit damp. Cutting the spec on hinges and worktop is the false economy landlords regret two tenancies later.

Timing is the part that catches people out on an online order. Student tenancies around the campus mostly turn over across the summer, so the practical window is between one set of tenants leaving and the next arriving, and both the delivery and the fitting week have to land inside it. A single large drop of bulky boxes into a house with no garage is not something you want sitting there while the property is occupied, so we work backwards from your changeover date and tell you when the order needs placing. Give us the dates early, because that window fills up fast across the whole area.

The rooms themselves are late Victorian valley terrace, which means a narrow back kitchen, a chimney breast eating into the run and a floor that falls away towards the rear. Rear outshuts and later single skin extensions are common and are usually the coldest and dampest part of the house, so what is behind the old units is worth looking at before the new ones go on, and chipboard carcasses fitted against a wet wall will not last a tenancy cycle. We flag it at the survey where the signs show and again when the room is stripped. Everything comes with a fixed written price, coordinated Gas Safe and electrical work, strip out and disposal of the old kitchen, and a workmanship guarantee.

What is included

• DIY Kitchens specialists
• Full assembly service
• Worktop templating
• Complete project management

Fitting DIY Kitchens kitchens

DIY Kitchens is an online supplier, so there is no showroom visit and no designer standing in your kitchen. That puts more weight on getting the measurements and the order right up front, which is where a survey before ordering pays for itself. Units arrive rigid and pre-built, so once they are on site the fit moves quickly.