ryder72

As it happens Siematic have been bought out by a Chinese investor in the last couple of weeks. They were against the wall.

Sorry thats not correct. Nolte is HUGE and will buy out Siematic many times over. Nolte is a entry-mid market product in line with Hacker, Schuller, Brigitte and Rotpunkt. Siematic is top end competing with Poggenpohl, Leicht etc. Bulthaup and another notch or two higher. Leicht offers everything Siematic does for a lot less money.

A Ha... This has both.

I didnt think Alno did oven housings with the rails in them. How about this (not Alno)?

Alignment of wall units with top of tall units.

Its a strange one. The top drawer has a recess about it but what about the rest?

Try the house builder. Their customer service doesnt exist. Its probably in a warehouse somewhere under the administrators control but getting to it wont be easy

Who exactly confirmed this delivery date? The norm would be that a delivery week is confirmed from Germany and then delivery arrives to the UK in that week. It may be that the door was never delivered to Alno here the order remains unfulfilled. Did you buy from an Alno retailer, Intoto franchise or a factory shop?

Handleless in kitchen termonilogy really means recessed handles where channels are rebated into the carcase and metal trims inserted. Doors close on these trims. The recess that is formed is effectively your 'handle' so it could be argued that it is a bit of a misnomer. Handless kitchens require different carcase construction and door sizing to work so not every company can do it. English companies that mostly make up carcases and buy in off the peg doors have got around it my either putting magnetic push latch or spring activated drawers and removed conventional handles and called it handleless which IMO is just a daft idea. The other option is doors with grooves on the top of the door, also not very clever as there is no grip available on appliance doors. Handleless is not for everyone, especially is one suffers from arthritis. For a well made handleless kitchen, you will have to look at the Europeans, particularly German or Italian kitchens. Not many of them do curved units. This is a typically British thing and the best argument I have ever heard against curved units is from a German manufacturer - Tetra Pak designed a square container for fluids that can take any shape for efficiency and you want to buy cylindrical containers for rigid objects. So aesthetics apart, the case for curved units is weak. They are horrendously expensive as well. Remember, only a fraction (typically 35-40%) of your kitchen price will be furniture so when you compare one supplier to another, you need to look at the relative differences between the furniture costs.

started on the ground floor? Been there. Done that.

That is an easy answer. Charge £25 quid for something that costs then a fiver to buy and pretend that they make it easy to plumb up. Agree with @Nickfromwales McAlpine make good stuff. Use it.

AFAIK there were only 2 business models there- - Factory owned shops which in most cases were limited companies in their own rights but fully owned by Alno UK. These went into liquidation but entirely likely that the administrators have sold the companies on to a new buyer. Your contract ultimately lies with Alno in this case as you cannot be expected as an end customer to know the entire business structure so for all intents and purposes you are dealing with the Alno - Franchise shops which would be independent businesses, either limited companies or partnerships or self employed and your contract should be with that business. What appears to have happened here is a mix of the two and seems very strange and I would be seeking advise. If you dont mind, please PM me the shop you bought from and I will see if I can dig up more information.

A lot depends on who you bought from. If it was a factory owned shop your contract will be with Alno UK possibly through one of its subsidiary companies. If part of Alno UK has been sold that may have been with out without the liabilities so there may be a transfer of liability. Regardsless, you should get full protection under Section 75 of Consumer credit act as long as the purchase was an amount of £100-30000. If you bought through a franchiseee then your contract is with them and they may not be insolvent but still unable to supply the kitchen. In that case its a bit more complicated as you may not get the kitchen you ordered. Whether you are happy to let them sort out a replacement for you or not is your decision but it is my guess (and inside knowledge) that a number of franchisees arent on the best financial footing at the moment.

There are 2 ways to fit a sink to stone. 1. Cradle it in the carcase or on a timber frame slightly rebated to ensure top face is flush with the top end of the units. The worktop is then lowered on and siliconed in. 2. Fit sink in place with clips. This only really works with worktop thicker than 20mm. Slits are cut in the worktops and pressure clips fitted into place and then silicone the sink in. Very few fabricators like to do this as there is very limited space available in front of and behind the sink to allow this to happen. 3. Fit screwed lugs. Again suitable only for 20mm+ worktops. Holes drilled in the worktop and plastic lugs fitted in with resin based adhesive. Clips are then screwed into these lugs that push the sink to the worktop. Again access issues means this is almost never done. I think OP has the 3rd solution in place. The hole wont (cant) have threads so its not going to be an easy job to do. The solution would be to procure a set of clips and set about messing out at impossible angles inside the sink cabinet.

I think your supplier may be right about the Siemens Studioline oven but I would be a bit less optimistic about the time it will take him to get one. Fundamentally BSH group used to supply product to the franchisees through Alno UK which is no longer trading. Consequently your franchisee may have to get his own account with BSH and this is a slow process. Your bigger problem is the missing doors. It may be nigh on impossible for your supplier to source this. The German industry is very different to the British one where British manufacturers all work on a 720mm carcase system with every kitchen, almost without exception made up of standardised front sizes. While on one hand this means they are easy to source, on the other hand, there is no flexibility. Alno would have had its own sizing on the doors and a door manufacturer somewhere would have specifically made doors for Alno. The material may be easier to track down but getting the same door size not quite so easy. I have seen the door you have had and unfortunately its not something I can help you with - we dont have anything like that in our range. Your best bet is to track another German supplier and see if they have the same front in their range. You can certainly try your card supplier for Section 75 but given that the cost of the door may be a few hundred pounds in a kitchen worth 20 or 30k, it may be difficult to make much headway. Good luck nevertheless

Likewise. The clips securing the dust container on the upright just wore loose. Replaced under warranty. The mechanism that direct suction from hose to brush head disintegrated while vacuuming. The brush head has now got very deep grooves in it from wear. Surely some sort of harder plastic is called for here. Or maybe some sacrificial easily replaced bushes rather than the whole mechanism is called for here. My Miele with the same feature is nearly 3 times older and even the rubber drive belts are original and going strong. All of this points to just poor quality components. Someone I know who works in facilities had 10 airblades installed in their offices. 6 had developed problems inside a year. Speaks very poorly of British (Malaysian) manufacturing. I am torn between spending £38 on a replacement brush head for the vacuum cleaner or just scrapping it and looking at one of the bagless Miele machines.

Having had a Miele for over 15 years, Dyson for 5 and a Henry at work. I found the Miele to clean very well and is very robust and still going strong. The only downside is that the dustbags fill up and it loses suction. The Dyson cleans very well but seems to be built from recycled supermarket chilled food plastic cartons. The build quality is shocking and its pretty much fallen apart in 5 years. Shocking for a premium product. Building a vacuum cleaner from robust materials isnt rocket science. If Dyson want to fly the flag for British manufacturing they have to do better. Henry - Tough as nails. Keeps going. Not the best at cleaning but for the price its hard to fault. Its used in a commercial environment so less that good cleaning is OK but I am not sure I would have one at home. Based on the above, I would buy Miele again.

That appears to be a slot for a 450mm compact oven. Within reason it should be a straight swap.

Slightly technical but try this - https://catalog.geberit.com/public/chapter.aspx?cat=GB_GB-en_1&ch=CH3_100902 You need the 82cm Kappa or Omega frames. The cistern is integral. You will then need a Kappa or Omega flushplate depending on the frame you pick. Generally the 82cm frames are dearer as are the flushplates due to much smaller volumes. AFAIK it it possible to set up the cistern to be top flushing to avoid the seat bashing into the plate or having to close it to flush

If you could PM me your details, I will look into the warranty for you. I know someone in KBSA through whom the warranty is set up. He might be able to help.

@Chalks Do you know if your got one of the Insurance backed guarantee things with your purchase. Intoto used to make a song and dance about it. I never thought it was worth the paper it was written on but this would be a good time to check what it's worth.

So sorry to hear about this mate. Always put atleast £100 on a card and you are protected. If you have paid by debit card, you may still have some recourse. Check with your bank. As I understand it, you can notify the insolvency practitioners of your purchase. There should be signage on their doors with information. If you cant find it, I will get it off the local Intoto studio and send it to you. PM me. You will become a creditor to the company but what you may some of your money back but this could take months or even years. The German kitchen industry suffers from overcapacity and the writing has been on the wall for Alno for some years. Dont shy away from German kitchens. There are still a lot of very very solid companies out there. If you need more info PM me.

Bosch/Neff/Siemens do just one option on the undercounter fridge with icebox. They are the same product and very quiet/efficient. You wont go wrong with it. Get whichever you find to be least expensive.

Thanks. I have been dealing with BSH for longer and I have no recollection of any BSH appliances that had beyond normal quality issues. It may however be the case that both buy in some product from a common factory. As far as I know, the only BSH products bought in now are limited models of extraction, vacuum & warming drawers, coffee makers, some gas hobs, teppanyaki hobs and the base spec microwaves and steam ovens.

Contract manufacturing is common in this industry especially for low volume products such as vacuum drawers, specialist products such as down drafts or when a certain price point needs achieved when manufacturing it yourself is not viable. This cannot be avoided but I know of no instances where BSH have bought in anything from Hotpoint. Any evidence to support this would be welcome. Today BSH make a number of products in Turkey which is neither Germany nor EU for cost reasons but I don't know if that is relevant. Broadly speaking the products are still reasonably good quality and backed up by the BSH brand name.