Kitchen fitting for a kitchen you have already bought

A fitter's price normally covers assembling flat-pack carcasses where needed, fixing base and wall units level and square, fitting doors, drawers, handles, plinths and cornice, cutting and fixing laminate or timber worktops, fitting the sink and integrated appliances into their housings, and adjusting everything at the end.

Other work is often excluded unless you ask for it: stripping out the old kitchen and taking it away, moving plumbing or waste, electrical work, gas connections, plastering, tiling, flooring and decorating. Stone or quartz worktops are usually templated and fitted by the worktop maker, not by the fitter. Get a written list of inclusions so you know which other trades you need and in what order.

• strip-out and disposal of the old kitchen
• assembly of flat-pack units, if they are not rigid
• worktop cutting, jointing and sealing, including sink and hob cut-outs
• plumbing of sink, dishwasher and washing machine
• who does the electrical work and who connects any gas appliance
• tiling, flooring and making good after removal of the old units
• the day rate or fixed price for extra work

Check every box on delivery against the order, before the fitter's first day, and report shortages and damage to the supplier straight away. A fitter who finds a missing corner unit on day two may have to leave and return, and that lost time is often charged to you.

Give the fitter the full drawings, appliance manuals and the manufacturer's fitting instructions. Make sure the room is ready: old units out if you are doing that yourself, first-fix plumbing and electrics done, walls plastered and dry, and the floor finished if it runs under the units.

Only an engineer on the Gas Safe Register, qualified for cookers and hobs, may disconnect or connect a gas appliance in someone's home when employed to do so. Ask whether your fitter holds that registration or will bring in someone who does, and check the engineer's card on the day.

Electrical work in a kitchen is not in a special location, but a new circuit, such as one for an induction hob or oven, and a new consumer unit are notifiable in England. Fitting a built-in oven on an existing cooker circuit is not. Adding sockets to an existing circuit outside a special location is also not notifiable, but it must still be done safely and tested. You should receive a certificate for notifiable work from a registered electrician, or Building Control sign-off.

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the supplier is responsible for goods that are faulty or not as described, and the fitter for carrying out the work with reasonable care and skill. If a door warps, that is usually a goods problem; if the doors do not line up because the carcasses were fixed out of level, that is workmanship. Photographs of deliveries and of the work at each stage make these conversations easier.

Agree how payment is staged. A deposit, a payment when units and worktops are in, and the balance after snagging is common. Avoid paying the full fitting price up front.

Source: legislation.gov.uk

Wall units hung on plasterboard with the wrong fixings, worktop joints not sealed, cut edges around the sink left bare, appliance ventilation gaps blocked by plinths, and integrated dishwashers left unfixed to the worktop are all mistakes that show up months later. Ask the fitter how they fix to your wall type and how they seal worktop cut-outs.

Tell us what you have bought, whether it is flat-pack or rigid, what the fitter should cover and when delivery is due. Once you confirm your phone number and email, kitchen fitters in your area see the job without your contact details, and exactly one can buy it. It is then removed from the list. We email you the fitter's name, address and phone number before your details are shared. It costs you nothing, there is no guarantee a fitter takes it, and unsold requests are withdrawn after 21 days. Offrano confirms that the buyer is a registered business, nothing more.