Help! Worktop Join

[Sambo]

We have recently bought a new kitchen from a large national kitchen, bathroom and DIY retailer. We are disappointed with the way they joined the worktop but are being told "that's the only way it could have been done". We don't believe them and need independent professional opinions! Is this the best way to have joined the worktop? See photo below.

Thanks!

[steviejoiner74]

It's not been done correctly,it's very untidy and the joint should've been done horizontally as you look at the picture and with a router and a wortop jig.
Do you have more photos of the entire kitchen.

[royaloakcarpentry]

If the worktop is square edged it doesn't need a router and jig, it gets butt jointed.

Cutting around the pier is poor on the front and left as you view the pic. Right hand side does need an expansion gap, though.

As said, pics would be good although it can't be any worse than the **** I had to sort out a few months back.

[ayjay]

It's not been done correctly,it's very untidy and the joint should've been done horizontally as you look at the picture and with a router and a wortop jig.
Do you have more photos of the entire kitchen.

We don't know what lengths the fitters were working with, it might have been the only way.

I'd consider a butt joint to be normal for a wood worktop, it's not necessary to use masons mitre, imo.

[Inky Pete]

For square edged wooden worktops a butt joint is more usual than a masons mitre such as you'd see on a laminate with a post-formed edge. They've just done a variation on it to cope with the pillar.

If they'd taken the right hand piece shown in the picture straight back to the far wall then you'd have had a very thin sliver of worktop to the left of the pillar which could have been in danger of snapping off and wouldn't have been possible to secure flush to the other piece. So what they've done is mitre the left hand piece from the corner of the pillar to it's front edge and mitre the left hand piece to match.

They could possibly have run the left hand piece all the way along the far wall with a cutout for the pillar and butt the left piece up to that - but whether that's possible would depend on worktop lengths and where the sink is (if the join had run across the left piece it may have been closer than the recommended distance to the sink and in danger of future water damage) as well as how the units are supporting the worktops underneath.

I agree that it looks a bit odd where the woodgrains meet though.

edit - beaten to it by the experts, but at least 2 out of 3 seem to agree with me!

Are the splashbacks going to be tiled or something to cover the gaps around the pillar?

[steviejoiner74]

It looks as if it has a small chamfer on the worktop(could be wrong) so that's why I'd still do a masons mitre.
(10mm on solid tops)

[Sambo]

Thanks for the quick replies guys!

I've attached another photo. So you can see there's one small island and one 4m run of units. The wood provided was solid oak (full stave), one of which was a 4m length. Both pieces were ample so there was enough to cope with mitred joints.

To avoid the slight angle, we think it would have been better to position the island 20mm further to the right (viewing the original pic). Or do a mitre? We've only ever seen kitchens with either straight butts or mitres, not some other variation. Wanted professional view though.

[royaloakcarpentry]

20mm further over, hard to tell from pic. Might be better option for join with the kitchen exactly as is, again though, hard to tell from pic.

One of those......if I was fitting, you would have been given options as to which way you wanted it done. Kitchen as is and join running to the right hand edge of pier would have looked ok.

I bet they haven't put multiple coats of oil on the underside, or top? If the surface is slightly rough after final oiling, rub down lightly with wire wool, although any decent fitter will do so anyway.

Could be picture angle but the radius on the ends of island part worktop look to be wrong in comparison to unit.

[Sambo]

They used the doors to draw the curve. Is this right?

[royaloakcarpentry]

If you don't have a jig with various curves on it then drawing around the door to make a jig would work.

Could have been worse......kitchen I had to try and sort a few months back the w*****s had just drawn a radius and cut it with a jigsaw pmsl. That was the best part of the kitchen attempt too and the project manager running the refurb of the downstairs didn't even kick them off the job.

[ayjay]

If you don't have a jig with various curves on it then drawing around the door to make a jig would work.

You'd need to increase the radius by the amount of the overhang.

[royaloakcarpentry]

The door is the start point though.

[Loosenup]

so many if's and but's on this .. the fitter should have talked to customer and give options . there seems to be a space for an appliance so variation of length is possible ,, but , ( and there it is ) this could make the gap around the appliance too big which could look worse than the joint .. In the situation shown here i would have done a mason on it to line up with edge of pillar .. some installation instruction will say that an 8 mm gap all round is needed for expansion, so if a fitter is not used to wood then they will do this .. if there are tiles or upstands to be fitted then there is no issue , but more and more we are getting asked for just tops with painted walls , and this is a problem where expansion gaps are required . I would always install to MI's as then no comebacks if anything goes awry.

[Colour Republic]

We have recently bought a new kitchen from a large national kitchen, bathroom and DIY retailer. We are disappointed with the way they joined the worktop but are being told "that's the only way it could have been done". We don't believe them and need independent professional opinions! Is this the best way to have joined the worktop? See photo below.

Thanks!

It's not 'the only way it could be done' but it could be with the kitchen you have chosen and the materials that were ordered by the designer.

As a general rule of thumb, large national DIY chains offer kitchens that can be very rigid in the way they are fitted due to the restrictive nature of the components available in each range.

For example...

Decor end panels for base units from DIY chains are often 600mm deep. So it means the base units have to sit flat against the wall and leaves no room for scribing the panel to the wall. Where as most independent kitchen dealers supply decor panels which are 650mm deep, this allows scribing of the panel and also allows you to pack a base unit off the wall by up to 50mm if needed.

This could have taken up the 20mm you say you need as the whole kitchen could have been shifted 20mm to the right by doing so

Another way to make up that 20mm is by having variable corner posts. Again independent kitchen dealers offer vari corner posts which are cut on site to make a corner post to suit your needs, so if the post needs to be 40mmx40mm, 60mmx60mm, 82mmx70mm... whatever you need in order to take up the slack in a kitchen design in order to overcome awkward areas. DIY kitchens come with set sized corner posts, often 45mmx45mm, this means there is only one way to get round a corner and it has to be at that measurement.

So as I say it's not strictly true that the way it has been done is the 'only way' but it may well be given what the fitter has to work with.

DIY kitchens are made to be simple so they can be fitted by a DIY'er if needs be, but they have limitations because of that.

A mason mitre is another option but keep in mind that the DIY chain may give their fitters strict instructions not to use a masons mitre on timber worktops because there is a greater risk of the joint opening than if it was a simple butt joint which is the preferred method