I am going to have a new kitchen in my flat, so arranged for some companies to come and give me a quote. They spent a few hours with me and in the end produced a total cost, but did not provide me with a breakdown of this - is this normal practice, or should I be able to request a detailed per item quote?

Speaking personally, the last time I had a kitchen installed I had my supplier give me the cost of all the items seperately. This may have been because I bought the kitchen for DIY fit - perhaps for a "fully installed" kitchen they dont't break down the cost - afterall I suppose its unlikely you would only do "bits" of the kitchen. Still it would be useful to know forinstance the "appliances" costs in a kitchen - it maybe that one iten or two would make a big difference to overall cost. It maybe that these items are not "essential" and then you could have the choice to "include" or "exclude"

I would ask your potential suppliers for a complete breakdown if you think this is important to you.

good luck

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Good advice is often annoying--bad advice never is.--French proverb

Sally, all I can say is that I would give you a breakdown if you required it. But most of the larger companies will not under any circumstance!! Quite simply because they would not like you to find out why there kitchen costs ?5000 and mine ?2000 and both from the same manufacturer!!

Chris

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"I just hope we can be free and open to each other, as we all have different ideas and will often disagree, but hopefully stay friends.

There should be no reason for hiding breakdown costs but personally if a customer disapproves with the cost of, eg appliances, and wishes for a cheaper alternative then I would disassociate myself from the responsibility of supplying them.
There is a huge difference in quality of all kitchen components and essentially you do get what you pay for, providing you are satisfied with the integrity of the retailer.
Sadly, this is not true of many.
Supplying quality goods, be they appliances, doors, units, worktops etc, may substantially increase the cost of your kitchen, but it will provide a greater longevity and offer a superior after sales service to that of inferior products.
By substantiating the costs of supplying quality products, a retailer is informing his customer of a commitment to their complete satisfaction and not offering cheap alternatives that will last a few months.

Tim

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