which soft close door hinges. and on which side of the door?

[3549950]

Evening all,

We're building an extension at the moment, and after falling off my chair when I looked at how much the 'hoochy-coochy sit down with the designer all delivered and fitted' kitchen was going to cost, I've decided to go for the Wickes 'take away' range (had a great chap who explained the differences in quality, and I'm comfortable with the choice)

But I'm writing with respect to the soft close door buffers. In the hoochy coochy kitchen, these appear to be a 'square' kinda buffer, fitted next to the hinge. However on the more 'modest' (ahem) range, these appear to be the rounder 'barrel' type, which don't look quite as good. Also, as they are on the 'open' end of the carcass, they have a bigger job to do as the door at that point is travelling at greater speed. Potential 'not that soft' close!

So the question - is it possible to fit the cheaper barrel kind (that they're supplied with) on the hinge side? Would they work? Or is there a good supplier of the more premium kind that anyone could recommend?

Thanks in advance!

ddm*

 

[DAZB]

There are loads on certain auction sites like this one :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SOFT-CLOS...ial_Cabinets_Cupboards_MJ&hash=item27c394c3ca

A lot cheaper than people think and no need to pay showroom prices.

 

[foxhole]

The barrel type work fine as they were designed.

 

[crank39]

The barrel type work fine as they were designed.

I may be mistaken but im sure there are threads on here regarding the barrel/plunger type soft closers, something along the lines of them leaking after a time, even the so called higher quality ebay ones were still failing.

I assume the other style the OP is talking about are the 'Blum' ones that clip onto the hinge, speaking to some kitchen fitters i know they all swear by Blum.

I recently bought and fitted a kitchen at home from magnet trade, they threw in Blum soft closers on all the doors and drawers and after mixing the delivery date up they even chucked in a nice wine cooler too.

Always been impressed with magnet

 

[joinerjohn]

Crank,, Last Magnet kitchen I fitted was a nightmare. Designer had a flyover shelf above the cooker hood and on the plans had allowed a 760mm gap between the wall units, then had supplied a 720mm clad on end panel to make the shelf from. (just a tad short there) A tall wall unit and 300mm tall bridging unit to box in a boiler. They omitted the bridging unit off the order (but sent to door for it) I queried the bridging unit with them only to be told none were in stock and there would be a 6 week lead time to supply another. When this arrived, they hadn't supplied the special hinges to fix the door on with. 2 x 600 base units short. 4 x 600 doors short and the cornice/plinth actually came in at 30mm longer than the total required length. The base plinth lengths supplied were only just long enough. (without any allowance for waste or saw cuts)
A real comedy of errors. I think I spent more time down at Ascot Drive and the Meteor Centre than I did actually fitting the kitchen.
The woman at the Meteor Centre was about as useful as a chocolate teapot on the phone, and when I went down there to ask if the kitchen designer was available I was told he was on holiday for 3 weeks. When I went back again, he was off sick apparently.
What should have been about 7 or 8 days work turned into about 8 weeks (with the waiting for missing items).
To their credit, they managed to supply about 20 pairs of Blum hinges and soft closers over though (which are now holding some of my kitchen doors on)

 

[crank39]

One saving grace is at least you didn't have to build the carcasses first, i know its not hard but it can be time consuming when all you want to do is crack on and fit the things. As for ascot drive, i've always only dealt with Gary, he's not on the kitchen side but in trade but he seems to know kitchens backwards and inside out.

The only balls up was the woman kitchen designer booked delivery in for the 24th dec 2010, i duely took a week off wok leading upto and including xmas, ripped the kitchen out ready for the 24th delivery and no one came, i had 2 copper pipes poking out my kitchen floor till magnet opened on the 4th jan, needless to say i wasn't too happy, kitchen was delivered next day 7 am sharp, with free wine cooler

 

[foxhole]

The barrel type work fine as they were designed.

I may be mistaken but im sure there are threads on here regarding the barrel/plunger type soft closers, something along the lines of them leaking after a time, even the so called higher quality ebay ones were still failing.

I assume the other style the OP is talking about are the 'Blum' ones that clip onto the hinge, speaking to some kitchen fitters i know they all swear by Blum.

I recently bought and fitted a kitchen at home from magnet trade, they threw in Blum soft closers on all the doors and drawers and after mixing the delivery date up they even chucked in a nice wine cooler too.

Always been impressed with magnet

He is not going to get Blum hinges with cheap Wickes units.

 

[Jasonb]

Get the Blums with thehttp://www.blum.com/gb/en/01/20/12/index.php]built in softclose [/url]rather than the clip on units. The advantage is you can switch the softclose on & off on each one which is good for small doors as the damping can be too much.

Also check what the basic Wickes carcases are 15 or 18mm as it makes a difference to the mounting plates.

In answer to the original question you can get different strength blum plungers depending on if you want to mount near the hinge or on the handle side

J

 

[joinerjohn]

This is the link Jason wanted folks,,, Panic over.

http://www.blum.com/gb/en/01/20/12/index.php

 

[3549950]

Thanks to all posters, I appreciate your support as ever.

I think we'll be looking at the Blum ones as suggested. They're not hyper expensive, and the they should go on well.

The project is going to be put together over a little bit of time, so we'll have the time to see what works and what doesn't. But as has been said, Blum looks like the way forward!

Thanks for your support as ever!

ddm*