Fitting the Plinths

Unless you are very observant or have fitted Wren plinths before, you will not be aware that the orientation of the legs at the front of the units is quite critical. The wren fitting instructions give no guidance on this, see photos. The problem is the top flange, which is about three quarters of the circumference, is approx 8mm greater in diameter than the remaining quarter but it is this smaller diameter that has to face the front of the unit because it is this diameter that matches the diameter of the foot and against which the plinth rests top and bottom. Now, like me, if you only discover this once all the cabinets are in place and bolted together with the worktops, you have a problem if you want the plinths to be vertical. I solved this by gluing a piece of 8mm moulding to the plinth at the front area to compensate. The clips holding the plinth in place cope OK with this dimensional differential. the other problem is that these plinths are often a bit bent when delivered so they won't stay in place. This can be overcome using a plinth lock where necessary.

Base Unit Leg Position Issue
We have a narrow 150mm wide base unit (870 x 150 x 570 Infinity Plus) in which the support legs are 10mm or so further forward than all the other units and is something I didn't notice nor expect when fitting these base units. This naturally makes fitting the plinth a bit problematical. The holes in the base for the support pillars were obviously not drilled in the correct place or the base panel was fitted the wrong way round at Wren. I sent Wren Customer Services photos and asked their advice on how to deal with this problem. Replacing the base units was really not an option as it was installed and fixed in place with the other units and worktop.
The first reply I got from Wren was "this looks like a fitting error as the fitter should know not to fit the legs so far forward. Do you have images to prove the holes were drilled incorrectly as without this we have no evidence of the error"

Clearly a silly reply since I had already sent the images so I responded "regarding your reply to the problem I discovered with the 150mm base unit, your reply says the fitter has put the legs in the wrong place. Could you look at the attached photos (re-sent) and tell me how this is possible. The legs are fitted in the pre-drilled factory holes. If you look at both photos you will see that the rear legs are 10mm too far forward as well.....but that's not a problem per se. My guess is that the base panel on the unit was fitted back to front...ie a factory error. The facts support that so you might as well admit it. I'm not looking for a replacement unit since it is all assembled and would be a majot operation to refit. However, what I had hoped for was some guidance on how to deal with the problem when fitting the plinth since you will have met this before so don't try and blame it on someone else again."

The reply I then got from Customer Services was "I have spoken with the Planning Team  for more guidance on the issue with the legs and plinth. They have advised the only way around this is to scollop the plinth at the back, so cut it to enable it to fit to the legs, your fitter will know what they mean by this. Hopefully that should solve the issue faced”.

So it would seem that there is a manufacturing error with this narrow unit so I routed out the plinth to suit…well done Wren, got there in the end.

The Real World

When visiting a Wren showroom, all the displays look very impressive and well assembled. However, remember that in the showroom the floors are flat and the walls are perfectly square  In the real world in a kitchen the wall are not true and the floor is probably not perfectly flat. So when assembling the units, remember that the carcasses are not rigid and will distort very easily to conform to floor and wall irregularities. So you need to be very careful and allow for these misalignment to ensure the units are true and square, otherwise doors and built-in appliances will not fit properly.

Careless Handling

Having more or less completed the kitchen build, the one thing that has been apparent all the way along is the number of dents and 'paint' chips I have encountered on the doors, end panels and in-fill strips. This is not a delivery issue since the units are very well packaged and there is no evidence of any damage on the packaging. Therefore the problem must be at the factory, they are not taking care of the finished items prior to packaging. Having said that, Customer Services were quite quick in arranging replacement items. In a lot of cases such as the end panels and fill-in items, I was able to get around the damage if I spotted it beforehand but the really annoying dent was in one of the worktop edges which was not obvious until it was fitted. We are going currently living with that but not happy about it.
Several years ago we ordered a kitchen from Schreiber at MFI. This had no dents or issues at all, the units were very well built.......seems like we have gone backwards with quality. Maybe the Wren Quality Control Department (if they have one that is ) should sharpen up a bit.

Sink and Tap

Because we have unbalanced hot and cold water supply pressures we ordered a low pressure tap from Wren, specifically informing our designer that we did not want a ceramic disc type. However, their Phoebe tap was the only low pressure one they had but when it turned up, guess what, it was a quarter turn ceramic disc type instead of the multi-tun cartridge type you would normally expect. It's not perfect, there is vertually no flow adjustment and it dribbles for ages after the tap is turned off.

The sink is another matter, hard as hell. I bought a new 34mm hole cutter for the tap hole and the sink virtually removed all the cutting teeth after only going through 6mm of sink thickness. There was some smoke towards the end but we got through.

Worktops

My biggest concern about fitting my own kitchen was dealing with the worktop jointing since this would be the first time I had attempted this.. As it happens it went really well and the joints are very neat. I chose a 10mm offset for routing the ends and with a Makita router the job proved very straightforward. However, it is very important to research the technique and obey basis rules. We chose Galaxy Night Gloss laminate but there is some directionality in the 'pattern' which does show up the joints under some lighting conditions.

Shelf

As part of the kitchen package we purchased a separate shelf. When it was delivered it had Howdens name all over the packaging. It is not unusual for inter-company trading so it would be interesting to know the extent of the business link. the reason why I say this is that Wren Kitchens take a lot of flack on-line about the quality and workmanship of their units and Howdens are supposed to be star quality. However take a look at the end of the Howdens shelf.....not so brilliant is it?

Corner Units

We have a 'U' shaped end to our kitchen so we purchased 2 'magic' corner units which came with their own corner posts that had to be constructed and fitted. I was bit apprehensive about fitting the corner post having seen the instructions in the general Wren installation guide. However, to my surprise the corner post were both supplied correctly cut to size and the units fitted perfectly into the allotted space. These 'magic' corner units come with a lot of pre-fitted metalwork and are very heavy. The standard Wren method to fix the legs on is to turn the cabinet upside down but this is somewhat impossible because of the weight so my method was to jack up the cabinets and work from underneath to fix the legs on.

Adjustments

We have a pull-out tower, a bin unit and 'magic' corners, none of which came with any adjustment instructions but these were subsequently provided by Customer Services after my request. For some reason, on all these units the doors were too high, too low or on the wonk, I guess as a result of the production line not taking a lot of care. No matter how square and level the units were, doors needed adjustments and in 2 cases I had to resort to spacers to get good alignment. In one case a screw was stripped holding one door on which I had to replace when I found it. I think the Wren inspectors should pay a lot more attention to detail. Aligning cabinet doors anyway is a pain but it makes it even worse when the units are sent out with doors badly fitted.

Ding in Worktop

We have completed one side of our Wren kitchen with no major problems but after assembling the worktop in position, our final activity was to remove the protective plastic coating and there, slap bang in front of the hob was a small ding in the stainless edge banding. This was definitely a Wren  factory fault since when the worktop arrived it was well protected and no impact marks on the packaging at all. We were very careful not to handle the worktop at all on the edge banding so I am certain we didn't do it. Fortunately the ding is small and we will probably have to live with it but we know it's there and we didn't do it. The picture of the ding is taken from underneath the worktop and shows the small indentation in the stainless banding.

Light under Wall Units

We purchased a 3 pack of surface mounted coll white LED lights for below one set of wall cupboards ( we would have had 2 sets but the price at £49 seemed a rip-off). These light were actually supplied by Sycamore Lighting Ltd., of Swillington, W Yorkshire so presumably Wren applied some mark up. The lights supplied were a bit odd as there were 2 screws with each light but nothing to screw on to and the back of the lights were quite sticky with the remains of some residual adhesive so clearly the lights had been re-worked before we got them. 3M self-adhesive pads were provided for attaching the lights to our units and they seem to work, they haven't fallen off yet.