Kitchen and Bathroom Fitters in Whyteleafe (CR3)
The recurring problem in a Whyteleafe kitchen is the external wall. Much of the older housing here is solid brick with no cavity, so the wall behind your units runs cold, and a kitchen fitted straight onto it will find that out for you.
The cold wall behind the units
A solid brick external wall holds the outside temperature far more readily than a cavity wall does, and a kitchen is a room that produces a great deal of moisture.
Put units and a run of worktop tight against a cold solid wall and you create exactly the conditions for condensation behind them — which appears eventually as black mould on the back of a cupboard or a musty smell nobody can place. It is dealt with at the preparation stage, by insulating the wall properly where the layout allows and by making sure the room can ventilate. That work is invisible in the finished kitchen and it is the difference between one that stays sound and one that does not.
Opening up an Edwardian or interwar layout
The other half of the job here is the plan. These houses were built with the kitchen as a separate working room at the back, and combining it with the room next door is usually what people actually want. That is a structural job first — a beam sized properly, the opening formed and made good, and floors levelled across two rooms that were built up differently. Bathrooms in the same houses raise the same wall question, with the added issue that a bathroom on an external solid wall is the room most likely to show condensation if it is not handled.
The trades in the right order
A kitchen is several trades in sequence and most trouble comes from sequencing.
Our own team does the building work and we bring in and manage the specialists, so each turns up when the job is ready for them.
More in Whyteleafe
Everything we do in Whyteleafe is on the Whyteleafe area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the bathrooms & kitchens page.
Common questions
Q.01Why does my kitchen wall feel cold and damp?
On a solid-wall house it is usually the wall itself rather than a leak. It can be improved when the kitchen is being done, which is by far the cheapest time to do it.
Q.02Can you insulate the wall while fitting the kitchen?
Where the layout allows, yes, and it is worth doing then rather than later. We will tell you at survey what it costs and what space it takes off the room.
Q.03Can the wall between kitchen and dining room come out?
Usually, but it needs the beam sized and the opening formed properly. We survey it first and price the structural work separately.
Q.04Do you do bathrooms as well?
Yes, and the same wall question applies — a bathroom on a solid external wall is the room most likely to show condensation if it is not dealt with.
Q.05Can I add an en suite on an outside wall?
Yes, though on a solid-wall Whyteleafe house that wall runs cold, and a small room full of steam against a cold solid wall is where condensation shows first. It is dealt with by insulating where the layout allows and ventilating properly, and it is far cheaper done as part of the job.
Thinking about bathrooms & kitchens in Whyteleafe?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.