Space Plugs

Questions about fitting kitchens in here please

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Colour Republic
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Space Plugs

Post by Colour Republic »

Ok thought I’d a post on how useful these little Space Plug gizmos are....

This is the first of 2 examples I’ll post up.

The end result of this task relates to corner fillets. Handless 'J' profile doors are very popular at the minute and when it comes to corner fillets it always looks nicer to carry that profile in to the corner. The way to do this is to buy spare doors and cut them down to make your own. Normally a 150mm or 300mm door depending on how large the fillet needs to be.

Here is an example of doing that.

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As mentioned this is by cutting down a door to form the corner. However it does require the use of a good rail saw which can be expensive for some. You create the 'j' profile by cutting mitres

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Then gluing the pieces together.

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Now here is a kitchen we're doing as part of a full flat refurb.

Before
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A lot of thought has gone in to this kitchen and a lot of dimensions in the room have been engineered. For example the boxing around the soil stack was rebuilt so it allowed us to gain vital extra depth to a wall unit we planned to put in front of it. We only gained just under 30mm but that was the difference between being able to use that unit for bottles of sauces /oils and not. This unit is actually quite important, not only to be usable but also for the aesthetics of the room and carrying on a bank of units you'll see later.

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We also installed a pocket door at one end of the kitchen. The placement of which allowed us once again to engineer the dimensions of the room. This time the end results was to allow us to perfectly fit kitchen units along the length of the room and not have to use filler panels to close up any unwanted gaps

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So with the room built, ceilings lowered for LED asymmetrical side firing down lights and ceiling speakers, plastered and decorated (ignore the colour as I changed it slightly because it wasn't quite right for what I wanted) we are ready to start fitting the kitchen.

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Here is the kitchen in its current state. Waiting for quartz worktops and coloured glass splash backs which will be painted to match the wall colour.

Now whilst we could engineer the length of the room, it wasn't so easy to do this with the width of the room as it was only out by 8mm from perfect. Now when I say perfect this relates to the corner fillets which will go in. That 8mm extra width is the difference between using pre-formed off the shelf corner fillets or having to make our own once again.

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We had always planned to make our own to overcome this 8mm gap. However we didn't need to because by using space plugs it allowed us once again to engineer exactly where the front of the units would fall.

So one side of the kitchen was brought out by 3mm...

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and the other side was brought out by 5mm...

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The beauty of the space plugs is that with each turn of the thread you can fine tune your packing out. No messing around trying 2mm then 3mm, placing an extra 1mm on top etc etc. Just turn the space plug and it pushes it out for you. A lot quicker! What’s more if one side of the unit needs packing out by 4mm and the other 5mm, again it's quick and easy to do so. A big time saver without a doubt.

Now as mentioned we could have overcome this 8mm gap by making our own corner fillet and would still look great, but the space plugs saved us time by allowing us to use a preformed corner fillet and get on with other tasks.


The above is just one example of how they help you but the other benefit is that you're not messing around trying to fit small 'L' brackets in tight corners and although we had solid brick walls in this kitchen, had they have been stud walls we could have moved the placement of the space plugs to make sure we were fixing to studs and not cavities.




Give me 20 mins and I’ll post how they helped us in the bathroom too :salute:
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by Colour Republic »

Now Cliff had kindly sent out some Space Plug samples to us some months back and this was always the project where I wanted to test them out. As well as the kitchen fitting side with Space Plugs I always had it in the back of my mind other areas they could be used.

This is how the en-suite stood. We had once again engineered the room so it was square and our bath fitted perfectly in the corner
Next on the agenda was placing a shower valve in the wall...

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The issue with concealed shower valves is that they need careful placement in a wall so the the front plate sits nicely on the tile face once completed. As you'll notice the void where the valve need placing is too deep and it needs packing out.

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I only need to come off the wall a little, but I need something sturdy to fix to, in this case we used some timber board. However not only have we got to pack this board out, we also have the issue with the old wall not being square to the one we have just built. i.e. our wall is pefectly square with the side wall, the old one wasn't. This means one side of the board needs packing out more than the other...

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This picture shows how one side needed more adjustment

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With the valve fixed in place we're good

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Next up was the fixed shower head arm. Again this needed a backing board for perfect placement and to get a firm fixing for the fixed elbow. So once again Space Plugs were used for that.

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Certainly a lot easier than cutting down timber off stands or using packers.

Plastic packers are sooooo last year!

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Here's how the bathroom looks today...

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So once again a big thumbs up for Space Plugs a big time saver :thumbleft: :thumbleft:
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by Wes »

Excellent write up CR!! The advantages of the space plugs are clear :thumbright:
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by steviejoiner74 »

:withstupid: hope that they take off and are stocked in the likes of howdens and builders merchants. I look forward to using the sample pack sent free of charge on the next kitchen I fit.
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by DIY_Johnny »

love reading these posts. Pictures always great to see. I had same issue with shower valves but still managed to get the depth incorrect.

With the space plugs, is there a can that they will loosen oven the years (i.e. reducing in depth)?
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by Colour Republic »

DIY_Johnny wrote: With the space plugs, is there a can that they will loosen oven the years (i.e. reducing in depth)?
It's not something I was worried about in the slightest. I suppose that is a risk if you don't do the screws up tight enough and pinch the space plugs, i.e. you leave play in it so over time vibrations cause them to move. The screws don't have to be any tighter than normal but I suppose if you wanted belt and braces you could use a small amount of loctite on the thread.

Personally I wouldn't bother unless I thought for some reason they would be under constant vibration :thumbleft:
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by Colour Republic »

Edit to add which loctite I mean

http://www.loctite.co.uk/threadlocking-4476.htm

That's just jogged my memory... Thinking about it, I used a bigger versions of these space plugs 15 years ago when I use to install Raised Access flooring. They were much bigger, anything from 100mm to 1000mm+ and are called floor props. Those are metal and used to.... well raise floors :lol: but we'd use loctite on the threads because they were under constant vibration from people walking across the floor.
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by joinerjohn »

Got my samples of Space Plugs, this morning and have a project in mind for them. Seems such a simple idea, you wonder why no one had thought of it before. :wink: :wink:

CR, you sure your not on Cliff's payroll ? :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by Colour Republic »

Not yet but if I carry on I'm hoping he'll give me shares in the firm and I too can retire to my yacht on the med!

I know these posts are plugging these things (excuse the pun) but its only because I've been so impressed with them, looking forward to seeing how the guys use their samples.

I'll shut the hell up now :lol:
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by ayjay »

Colour Republic wrote:
I know these posts are plugging these things (excuse the pun) but its only because I've been so impressed with them, looking forward to seeing how the guys use their samples.
If it's new, and works, and makes life easier, it deserves a plug.

I've used something similar on door frames, a metal sleeve with a coarse thread in the frame which can be wound out of the back of the frame to help plumb it up, fixing screw goes through the centre once it's right. (Sorry, not hip enough to know the name, but they did get a mention on here recently).
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by big-all »

Colour Republic wrote:Not yet but if I carry on I'm hoping he'll give me shares in the firm and I too can retire to my yacht on the med!

I know these posts are plugging these things (excuse the pun) but its only because I've been so impressed with them, looking forward to seeing how the guys use their samples.

I'll shut the hell up now :lol:
absolutely my thoughts
i could never be as excited as cliff :huray: :huray: :huray:
even if i didnt know anything about cliff i would still shout the praises
as i said elsewhere when cliff asked if we thought including space plugs with the fitting kit for units i said i can see the sales pitch an orange band emblazoned with "space plugs include " would be the only packs you choose
a sales pitch " orange more valuable than gold "
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by DIY_Johnny »

Colour Republic wrote:
DIY_Johnny wrote: With the space plugs, is there a can that they will loosen oven the years (i.e. reducing in depth)?
It's not something I was worried about in the slightest. I suppose that is a risk if you don't do the screws up tight enough and pinch the space plugs, i.e. you leave play in it so over time vibrations cause them to move. The screws don't have to be any tighter than normal but I suppose if you wanted belt and braces you could use a small amount of loctite on the thread.

Personally I wouldn't bother unless I thought for some reason they would be under constant vibration :thumbleft:

Ahh of course they have a screw running through them. I just remembered when I had to redo my bath seal it was because the screwed legs underneath the bath had shorted on itself over the years.
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by DIY_Johnny »

just another question from me if I may?

Why would you use metal framework for the wall, rather than wood? Is it just for speed or any other reason?
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by royaloakcarpentry »

Metal track and stud Versus Timber:

Metal is cheaper when combining labour and material costs.

Less of an intrusion on room dimensions.

Quicker for trades to run services through and therefore sees a reduction in labour costs for plumbers and electricians.

That is just for starters and so already a no brainer as to why it is used in certain situations.

Similar could be said for a properly installed MF ceiling system as opposed to timber.
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Re: Space Plugs

Post by joinerjohn »

DIY_Johnny wrote:just another question from me if I may?

Why would you use metal framework for the wall, rather than wood? Is it just for speed or any other reason?
It's certainly a lot quicker than making a frame out of timber, and you can make these frames up in rooms where space (to make a timber frame) would be limited (ever tried making a full width and height stud partition in a room 6ft by 6ft by 8ft tall ?? ) :wink: :wink: :wink:
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