Worktop nightmare

[MJNewton]

29 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

If 90% of new UK kitchens are installed between 900mm and 940mm then there is your definition of reasonable expectation.

 

Where did that statistic come from? Is it from the 87% of statistics that are made up to prove a point? ?

Edited January 29, 2022 by MJNewton

[epsilonGreedy]

5 minutes ago, MJNewton said:

Where did that statistic come from?

 

 

I was not quoting any statistic. I was illustrating the inherent contradiction in your advice namely that "in the absence of a specified height the OP's counters are ok unless outside reasonable expectation".

 

I little digging on this subject reveals that the normal range is 910 to 930 and this suggests a reasonable bound of 900 to 940. One fitter explained that a sloping floor is a reason for straying outside this range. Which brings me back to my original suspicion that the architect knows damn well the standard height of a counter and he also knows the OP and his wife are 1 to 2" taller than average, therefor the low counter as installed is a consequence of another influencing factor the architect has failed to disclose.

[MJNewton]

I think you're overthinking the series of events that led to the situation the OP is in. I know it's an unwritten rule of the Internet that we have to blame someone and make them accountable for the malice and/or sheer negligence behind every action they took but come on.

 

Speaking of the current situation, noting that the worktops are now in place, what do you think the chances are of successfully separating and removing/refitting the two worktops without damage? Furthermore, what are the chances of the architect stumping up the few grand to replace them should the worst happen? Would he also be paying for a new island worktop to ensure a batch matched finish of the whole installation? That's really not a road I'd want to be going down, particular when the option of a nice set of chunky cutting boards is on the worktop table.

 

Edited January 29, 2022 by MJNewton

[PeterW]

You won’t notice the 20mm or whatever, you will forever notice the slight chip or line in the stone where he’s made good when it is removed.

 

My current worktop is 890, tomorrow it will be 905.. will I notice ..?  Unlikely. 

[epsilonGreedy]

10 hours ago, MJNewton said:

I think you're overthinking the series of events that led to the situation the OP is in. I know it's an unwritten rule of the Internet that we have to blame someone and make them accountable for the malice and/or sheer negligence behind every action they took but come on.

 

 

Nothing to do with malice or sheer negligence, thus is just normal practice in housing building. It is routine for minor errors to covered up or bodged before the site foreman or BC notice. I find it very odd that an architect who feels professionally competent to sell an additional 1st and 2nd fix supervision service would not know that a workstop height of 887mm is unusually low particularly for tall users. Why did he specifically instruct the kitchen fitters that 887 was the desired worktop height?

 

I am posing that question to encourage @Adsibobto look more broadly at his kitchen "worktop nightmare". Does the screeded floor have a mound or gradient, is a window cill next to the worktop 3" too low in error.

 

I think the OP will just have to live with the height error but trying to convince the OP there are no grounds for a complaint does not help him reach the best decision.

[redtop]

Ours is 910. Slightly related, when I found out the height of the light switches I thought we would really notice, they are a lot lower than in older houses to comply with regs. After a day or 2 feels completely normal. So I doubt you would notice

[joe90]

Sorry @Adsibob but reading back over this my take is you did not specify what height you wanted the worktop, and it’s ended up 13mm lower than you expected? As others have said you won’t notice it after a bit, your other half has said it’s not a problem, although your architect will cover the cost do you want to risk any damage?, and your architect will withdraw goodwill. I think you are right you are OCD over this (and I am OCD, ask my missus!). Frankly if you had not measured it I doubt you would have noticed, time you take your high heels off ?.

[Bitpipe]

Similar but different story - we spent over £5k on a passive RK door with flush profile, fingerprint sensor, 180^o hinges, the works. Aperture was 1600mm so I wanted 1100mm 'statement'  door and just a thin section of glass for the remainder plus frame etc.

 

Checked, double checked and ordered.

 

When it arrived months later, the door was 900mm with wider glass - was fuming and checked the paperwork. I had screwed up and the final spec I had submitted online had somehow reset to the default of a 900mm door. 

 

I felt sick and was super pissed off for a week, even contemplated buying a whole new door. Reality then set in and I got over it, moved onto some other issue.

 

Within a few weeks I was perfectly happy with the door as it still looks great.

 

You do beat yourself up a lot over mistakes in a self build, whether your own fault or oversight, and the OCD kicks in all too often but you do get over it so don't be too hard on yourself. Just crack on and enjoy the house.

 

 

[SimonD]

My two pennies, or for whatever worth, is that it is fundamentally a question of ergonomics. For me, I love cooking and spending a lot of time preparing food on a surface that is too low usually results in back, shoulder and neck discomfort, pain and stiffness. Experience I gained from a number of years working in professional kitchens and then domestic kitchens. I would not accept this for the benefit of my own body.

 

I also have to say it's pretty poor and unprofessional of an architect to accept a major mistake, offer to repair that mistake, but then threaten the working relationship if you, as a client, who is paying a lot of coin for the service to suffer if you want it put right. Frankly, it's disgraceful behaviour and tantamount to blackmail.

[Dan F]

It's typically a function of the kitchen manufacturer carcass size, plinth height chosen, and the worktop you choose not something that is that easy to adjusted on-site.  So I woulnd't really put this onto the architect, even if he was there, as this height would have been defined before things got to site.

 

In our case 100mm+780mm+12mm = 892mm.  If we wanted higher then we would have needed a 150mm plinth or thicker worktop, but 892mm is perfect for us.  The germans tend to use 780mm carcasses, other kitchens we saw had 830mm carcass and we had to rule these out as it was going to make worktop height 920+

 

To make it higher you'd need to:

- Use a thicker worktop (but this had probably already been ordered?)

- Increase the plinth size and find a way to raise height of all units.  You might be limited by plinth sizes though e.g. if you go from 100mm to 150mm then worktop may become too high.  Unless they cut down plinths, but that's more work of course.

 

What ae your plinth, carcass, worktop heights?

Edited January 29, 2022 by Dan F

[Bitpipe]

Maybe just take your shoes off indoors (which we do as a rule anyway) - automatically gives you 10 mm

 

[MJNewton]

22 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

I felt sick and was super pissed off for a week, even contemplated buying a whole new door. Reality then set in and I got over it, moved onto some other issue.

 

Within a few weeks I was perfectly happy with the door as it still looks great.

 

You do beat yourself up a lot over mistakes in a self build, whether your own fault or oversight, and the OCD kicks in all too often but you do get over it so don't be too hard on yourself. Just crack on and enjoy the house.

 

Wow - that could've been me writing that. I've lost count of the number of times I've been through that very same process, and I look back now and think 'Why do I put myself through this?!'.

[Bitpipe]

Just now, MJNewton said:

 

Wow - that could've been me writing that. I've lost count of the number of times I've been through that very same process, and I look back now and think 'Why do I put myself through this?!'.

 

It happens in life outside the build - should have said this, should have done that etc.

 

To get philosophical for a moment, you can't change the past so little point worrying about it (spilt milk etc). But you can learn from it.

 

In this case, I'd suck it up but make it VERY clear to the architect that any future spec / measurement related decision needs explicit sign-off from you in writing (email / text if sufficient) to avoid any similar recurrence. 

 

 

[Adsibob]

22 minutes ago, Dan F said:

It's typically a function of the kitchen manufacturer carcass size, plinth height chosen, and the worktop you choose not something that is that easy to adjusted on-site.  So I woulnd't really put this onto the architect, even if he was there, as this height would have been defined before things got to site.

Just to clarify, it is not the builder’s fault. Builder asked architect what height we wanted everything, architect told him specifically to set the carcass legs so top of units is 856, so that when 30mm worktop gets installed top of worktop is 886. We’ve ended up with 887, so builder was out by 1mm lol. Most builders don’t take well to such accurate specs, but mine luckily takes it in his stride.
I’m really over it. It was a mistake, time to move on. As many here have said, we won’t notice after living in the place for a bit. Agree ergonomics is important, but only really for chopping, and for that I can cure the mistake with an extra fat chopping board. The island is really big, significantly bigger than our L, so we will do most kitchen work there anyway.

 

Edited January 29, 2022 by Adsibob

[Adsibob]

30 minutes ago, SimonD said:

I also have to say it's pretty poor and unprofessional of an architect to accept a major mistake, offer to repair that mistake, but then threaten the working relationship if you, as a client, who is paying a lot of coin for the service to suffer if you want it put right. Frankly, it's disgraceful behaviour and tantamount to blackmail.

Largely agree with this. Not quite blackmail, but morally pretty poor performance by him.

[Adsibob]

11 minutes ago, MJNewton said:

I've lost count of the number of times I've been through that very same process, and I look back now and think 'Why do I put myself through this?!'.

We are incredibly similar!

[epsilonGreedy]

I found my handheld laser today. My humble static caravan kitchen has 920mm high worktops.

[Mr Punter]

I worked for a big kitchen firm years ago.  Height of base units was 888, standard height to top of worktop was 918.  There were also 40mm worktops, so you could have 928.  A few firms sell different height units for the lanky and the short-arsed.

[Simplysimon]

get a chopping board similar to the one James Martin has, that'll bring the worktop height up past anything you were expecting. easier, cheaper and no falling out with architect

[joe90]

3 hours ago, Dan F said:

It's typically a function of the kitchen manufacturer carcass size, plinth height chosen, and the worktop you choose not something that is that easy to adjusted on-site.  So I woulnd't really put this onto the architect, even if he was there, as this height would have been defined before things got to site.

 

In our case 100mm+780mm+12mm = 892mm.  If we wanted higher then we would have needed a 150mm plinth or thicker worktop, but 892mm is perfect for us.  The germans tend to use 780mm carcasses, other kitchens we saw had 830mm carcass and we had to rule these out as it was going to make worktop height 920+

 

To make it higher you'd need to:

- Use a thicker worktop (but this had probably already been ordered?)

- Increase the plinth size and find a way to raise height of all units.  You might be limited by plinth sizes though e.g. if you go from 100mm to 150mm then worktop may become too high.  Unless they cut down plinths, but that's more work of course.

 

What ae your plinth, carcass, worktop heights?

Sorry @Dan F but I disagree, all kitchens (apart from bespoke) have adjustable legs that allow a lot of Leeway, max kickboard is usually 150mm and thickness of worktop will give the max height. I always asked my customers what height they wanted as the kick board can be cut down (as long as enough room is left fir machines ). IMO builder did well to get only 1mm out!

[ryder72]

Lets get to basics - 

 

Historically fitted kitchens across Europe has been 720mm carcase and 150mm plinth to make 870mm plus 38mm laminate worktops to make 908m, nominally 910mm. This sort of goes back to the 30's.

 

Modern European kitchens have moved to a different system to optimise manufacturing to a now more or less standard height of between 780-795mm with a smaller plinth of 100-120mm depending on the manufacturer. Only the most basic  European and all English kitchens stick to the 720mm+150mm system. Think about this giving you both a higher working height (average European is about an inch taller since 1930's) and using the plinth space for storage.

 

So the first question to ask is why did your kitchen end up at below even the 870mm height without worktops? Was the kitchen installed on the bare floor without taking the height increase of the floor  covering taken into account?

Once also need  to factor in worktop thicknesses. Historically laminate tops were 38mm but with modern materials this has gone down to 30mm, 20mm and even 12mm. This needs to be compensated while setting up the kitchen to ensure that the end worktop height is still ergonomically sound. Were any conversations had with the kitchen designers in this respect. OP and his other half are tall so I would recommend at the height of the worktop should be closer to the 925mm mark.

In summary there is no such thing as a standard height so leaving this to the architect is no good unless you had signed off on elevations showing specified heights. Also bear in mind that a kitchen should be set up to have a level worktop hence the feet are adjusted from the highest point in the kitchen to accommodate uneven floors. Its not unusual for a floor in a modern build to run out by 5-7m across 4-5m kitchen so your working height is going to be a specified height usually from the highest point unless otherwise agreed with the client.