Flatpack VS Rigid kitchen

[caslin]

Im looking to put in a new kitchen. I can get the carcasses and doors flatpacked from screwfix for about £700 . These carcasess are 15mm, but the rigid units are 18mm but will cost me £1300 including the doors. Is there that much difference between flatpack and rigid units and is 3mm that important?

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Moderator's note:

I have deleted your duplicate post. Please have a look at http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19448

I have pasted below Scrit's reply on the other one.

Mod Rupert
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Is there much difference? Probably a lot. 18mm carcasses are much more rigid than 15mm ones and tend to suffer less screw pull-out. Also pre-assembled rigid carcasses use dowel and glue construction which again makes for a better quality carcass. from the point of view of fitting the Screwfix carcasses I've seen are just another low-cost carcass, as opposed to, say a Howdens 18mm carcass which are considerably better quality with thicker backs, better quality feet, cleaner drillings, etc. No comparison. Where are the 18mm carcasses from, BTW? There may not be a £600 difference, but the Screwfix kitchens are what gets referred to as "builders specials"

Scrit

 

[FredFlintstone]

Caslin,

My B&Q flat pack units are 18mm (although they haven't arrived yet because B&Q are useless at delivery).

IMHO, there really isn't a huge different between flatpack and rigid other than rigid requires a day to build. The only benefit of flatpack that I can think of is that with flatpack units, where a side panel is to be exposed, the standard white foil panel can be replaced with a panel colour matched to the doors. With a rigid kitchen, the end panel has to be fixed over the end panel, giving an additional 18mm width to the unit and from the front, an obvious addition which doesn't look right because it's not flush with the door.

Regards

Fred

 

[Scrit]

My B&Q flat pack units are 18mm (although they haven't arrived yet because B&Q are useless at delivery).

And when they do arrive they'll be missing stuff as well...... They are reasonably rigid if you glue the dowels (they use a mixture of dowels and cam fittings), but they're still not as good in quality terms as the Howdens pre-assembled carcasses with slight differences in drilling positions, etc and the L-shaped corner units have joints across the middle of the shelves making them weaker than a 1-piece shelf. I reckon the best quality carcasses should have 2 or 3mm thick PVC or ABS edge banding on them rather than melamine which chips too easily - not too many manufacturers doing that, though.

The only benefit of flatpack that I can think of is that with flatpack units, where a side panel is to be exposed, the standard white foil panel can be replaced with a panel colour matched to the doors.

A couple of the carcass manufacturers I know will actually allow you to specify a decor side panel in place of a standard one. Personally I think it looks odd when you open a cherry carcass (on the outside) and find 3 inside surfaces in beech and the fourth in cherry.

Scrit

 

[Paul_Thomas]

Rather a late addition to this post but I have recently purchased a 18mm MFI flatpack kitchen.
I have assembled all of the carcasses with glue along all joins as well as in the dowel holes. I made sure they were square before the glue was dry and they are very rigid.
I even fully glued the backs on and the shelves to the back with additional nails in from the rear.

I am also finding that the flexibility of making up my own units and being able to put the fixed shelf in a different position or making the unit a little narrower far outweighs the time taken to assemble it.