Integrated kitchen Problem

DingDong

Bought a new house recently. Everything's grand so far except when I put the integrated dishwasher in, it has big gaps either side of it. I thought when I put the door on it might of covered the gaps but no joy. Are the spaces for dishwashers ment to be a standard sizes? and is this a normal?

knighted

gap or the ope should be 600mm -if any bigger you are going to have problems unless you have bought a slimline dishwasher 450mm ?

DingDong

No it not a slim dishwasher. I'll check the width of the space later. Haven't move in yet so can't check it at the moment.
Thanks Knighted

DingDong

Well measure the gap and it 630mm for the dishwasher opening and 620mm for the washing machine. Did they make a mistake when putting the kitchen together or is it normal to make it this big?

Carpenter

600 ope is what it should be so if I were you get an infill to make up the 30mm

DingDong

Would it be up to the people who installed the kitchen/builder to sort it.
Thanks

fm

you could get a new door made 625mm wide instead of your standard int d washer door which is 595mm wide

DingDong

The door I just put on cost me 80 quid, don't fancy forking out for another one fm

knighted

the unit wasnt made specifically for the integrated appliance then -
an infill piece is not ideal as it leads to a lot of problems ,it can be done but its not up to standard ,and you can rule out putting a bigger door on ,again problems -look at your dishwasher installation manual and they will give you the ideal or recommended measurements of the cabinet to house thier particular product -
i would call the builder and see how he could rectify this as if he told you the gap was for an integrated appliance then its up to him to supply it to the correct measurements -

if you had to buy your own door for your integrated appliance i would assume that the ope left was not specifically for an integrated appliance as the kitchen fitters would have left one for you ,is the plinth or kickboard running across the bottom of the ope ?

pissed

I dont know the layout of your kitchen but another option if possible would be to unscrew the units from the worktop, remove the kickborad, screw up the legs a small bit and if possible move the units either side of the dishwasher inwards 15mm each or if only one unit can be moved then move it in 30mm. The gap can be made up easily with two strips of 15mm which can be bought pre edged or you can edge it yourself. This will reduce your dishwasher space to the recommended 600mm.


Dont forget to screw the legs back down to the floor once done and check for level. Depending on what way the kickboards were attached you may need to adjust the small brackets at the back of them to suit the new position of the unit legs.

Carpenter

knighted wrote: »

the unit wasnt made specifically for the integrated appliance then -
an infill piece is not ideal as it leads to a lot of problems ,it can be done but its not up to standard ,and you can rule out putting a bigger door on ,again problems -look at your dishwasher installation manual and they will give you the ideal or recommended measurements of the cabinet to house thier particular product -
i would call the builder and see how he could rectify this as if he told you the gap was for an integrated appliance then its up to him to supply it to the correct measurements -

if you had to buy your own door for your integrated appliance i would assume that the ope left was not specifically for an integrated appliance as the kitchen fitters would have left one for you ,is the plinth or kickboard running across the bottom of the ope ?

Hi
I know its not perfect but he would get away with it and would cost him very little also the ope should be 600mm for an integrated appliance or not
and what problems would a infill give him 1 by 30mm or 2 by 15mm

DingDong

I rang up the Kitchen installers and their coming out to take a look. It probably wasn't made for an integrate unit but like Carpenter said I would expect it to be a standard size either way. Even when I was ordering the doors from the kitchen place they never mentioned about the kitchen not being suitable for the doors. I also had to buy a new kickboard from them. Worse comes to worse I can go with the infill option.
Cheers for all the help

knighted

if you had to buy the kickboard then it wasnt meant for integrated originally

to answer other posters ,by putting infill pieces to the front of the ope is fine in theory for asthetics ,but with integrated appliances they must be screwed to the cabinet at the front where you are suggesting putting the infill pieces ,but the problem arises inside the cabinet ,the appliance should fill the cavity front back and sides and raised to touch the top of the ope -

the reason for this is simple ,if you look at your integrated dishwasher you will notice there is no counter weights or concrete block like in your washing machine or freestanding dishwasher ,

this is why the ope for a dishwasher should be 600mm as standard so the appliance can fill the cabinet snugly ,hence providing stability for the built in (not pushed in) appliance -when the water is thrashing around the machine it can unbalance it and is the biggest cause of breakdowns-they are made this way for a reason and when kitchen manufacturers and carpenters leave bigger gaps and go the infill route ,it is because they are not informed on the technical side of appliances

i have come across many brand new kitchens and the installers usually say it will be grand ,which it might be for a year or two ,but its not correct and goes against the manufacturers guidelines

fm

knighted wrote: »

if you had to buy the kickboard then it wasnt meant for integrated originally

to answer other posters ,by putting infill pieces to the front of the ope is fine in theory for asthetics ,but with integrated appliances they must be screwed to the cabinet at the front where you are suggesting putting the infill pieces ,but the problem arises inside the cabinet ,the appliance should fill the cavity front back and sides and raised to touch the top of the ope -

the reason for this is simple ,if you look at your integrated dishwasher you will notice there is no counter weights or concrete block like in your washing machine or freestanding dishwasher ,

this is why the ope for a dishwasher should be 600mm as standard so the appliance can fill the cabinet snugly ,hence providing stability for the built in (not pushed in) appliance -when the water is thrashing around the machine it can unbalance it and is the biggest cause of breakdowns-they are made this way for a reason and when kitchen manufacturers and carpenters leave bigger gaps and go the infill route ,it is because they are not informed on the technical side of appliances

i have come across many brand new kitchens and the installers usually say it will be grand ,which it might be for a year or two ,but its not correct and goes against the manufacturers guidelines

first of all the d washer gets screwed to the wtop above it or in the case of granite there should be ply there so you can fix to that.the main fixings for d washers is always up,some d washers can be fixed to the units each side but not all.if you put afiller each side you either fix the d washer to them or put a piece behind each filler( if the fillers are flush with doors)and fix it to them.


i presume in this case the fitter knew it wasnt an int d washer so the space he allowed didnt matter.if he was thinking ahead he should have made it 600 wide as it looks better and maybe an int appliance might be used in the future

knighted

fm wrote: »

first of all the d washer gets screwed to the wtop above it or in the case of granite there should be ply there so you can fix to that.the main fixings for d washers is always up,some d washers can be fixed to the units each side but not all.if you put afiller each side you either fix the d washer to them or put a piece behind each filler( if the fillers are flush with doors)and fix it to them.


i presume in this case the fitter knew it wasnt an int d washer so the space he allowed didnt matter.if he was thinking ahead he should have made it 600 wide as it looks better and maybe an int appliance might be used in the future[/QUOTE

again if you look all d/w can be fixed to the side (just reverse and bend the top fixings ),never put ply under the granite as the steam will rot or warp it(silver steam break supplied with a lot can be applied to normal counter top to stop warping) and maybe i didnt explain it well enough when i told you about the counter balance problem if the cavity is not filled by the appliance-(the big concrete block thats found in washing machines and dishwashers is absent in the integrated dishwasher for a reason )

anyway im not going to post on this topic again as its turning into battle of the kitchen fitters versus engineers

good luck

DingDong

Well the Kitchen place came out today and said they will sort it out for me Friday. Not sure how as I wasn't the person who met up with them. They also said it should of been 600mm and it was a mistake to be any bigger.