DIYbanter - View Single Post - Schreiber Units

wrote:
In my kitchen there are some Schreiber Kitchen Units. I am thinking
of replacing door and drawer fronts. Are such units a standard size;
are the hinge locations a standard; I am told that you can only get
Schreiber replacements from MFI - is this so?

Basically will it be straightforward to do the replacements - what are
the pitfalls - am not a diy expert as such ;-)

I've just spent 2 days replacing door/drawer fronts for a customer. I also
had to replace the worktops which had cutouts for sinks & hob units, so not
all of that time was door/drawer replacement.

They ordered the door/drawer fronts from Screwfix. I called Sxrewfix
technical dept to ask if the hinge holes were to some kind of 'industry
standard' spacing - and they had no idea whatsoever.

Drawer fronts were dead simple, Just screws and spacers to get the alignment
right as the drawers in this case were 4 sided 'boxes'. However, in my
kitchen at home the drawers are three sided 'boxes' with the fronts held on
by cam lock fittings. This would have needed either brackets or a
considerable amount of accurate hole drilling - a huge amount of extra time.

The Screwfix doors were pre drilled for the hinge holes. They didn't line
up with the existing hinge spacing. In this case I was lucky, It worked out
that the carcass part of the hinges just needed to be swivelled up or down.

In other words, the top euroscrew on the top hinge plate had to be removed,
allowing the hinge bracket to swing down, and a new hole drilled. The top
euroscrew on the bottom hinge plate had to be removed, allowing the hinge to
swing up and a new hole to be drilled. Could have been a lot worse.

There are suppliers on the web (Google for details) who will supply
door/drawer fronts pre drilled exactly to match the existing door hinge
spacing - in future I would definately use them - huge time saver.

Most kitchen door/drawer fronts are standard sizes, but the internet
suppliers will make any size you want. In this recent case, a panel under a
built in oven was the length of a drawer front, but too wide. Not a problem
if you have a table saw and can rip it to width.

Take a look at the link on my 'Carpentry' page to Didcot Drawers for more
info.

--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257