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“*** Beware** Do not go with John Lewis kitchen!”

written by on 22/12/2015

Very disappointed with recent JL kitchen installation and over all customer service. In August 2015 we had a fairly small and quite straight forward kitchen fitted. We selected the New York Skyline white kitchen. When it came time to fit the kitchen it came to light that JL kitchen designer had made measurement mistakes leading to us losing a storage cupboard. The install took a week. Each evening when I returned home from work I was greeted by a huge mess of saw dust, card board boxes, tools- so much for 'considerate' building. When the kitchen was finished two cupboard doors was damaged, an internal cupboard shelf was damaged, we were missing a door above the integral microwave, we were missing cutlery drawer fittings, the plinths did not fit correctly, the dishwasher door was catching the plinth, the draw below oven was fitted incorrectly, the plug sockets for appliances (toaster, kettle, etc) above up stand were in the wrong place and we had no window sill. Kitchen fitter wanted to fit window sill material (same as we used for counted tops) in 3 pieces. This was never discussed with us. I did not want this fitted in 3 sections - why would I pay all this money for a kitchen to have a window sill look like a jigsaw puzzle. This took weeks to agree on a solution which ended up costing another £500. During these weeks I sent a number of polite emails and did not received a reply until I escalated the matter to senior management. Mains water needed to be turned off when fitting wet appliances. When this was done, JL fitter broke the handle on water supply, did not make us aware, resulting in having no water supply for 2 days until my plumber could visit to fix the tap costing an additional £60. To complete the snagging of damaged doors, etc. new parts were required. We had three deliveries of the required parts and each time the delivered goods were wrong. When we finally had snagging completed we were left with an additional bill from our other builder to re-plaster wall where the sockets we fitted in the place because JL made such a mess of the wall. 4 months on from initial installation, we are now having problems with JL washing machine. It started making a 'knocking' noise during rinse and spin cycle. We caledl an engineer to inspect and there is nothing wrong with the machine, it has been poorly fitted. It should have stabiliser leg fitted to back wall and this has not been done. This has resulted in the counter becoming loose. The plinths were removed to gain access to washing machine and we discovered they had been glued in place, which we specifically requested they not be. They now do not fit back into place. I made JL aware of issues and it has taken 1.5 weeks for someone to get in contact. Fitters are closed until early January 2016 so I still do not have a final fitted JL kitchen installed 4 and a half months from initial start date. I totally regret going with JL kitchen. I should have gone with Howdens, had my local builder fit and I could have saved myself £3-£4k. Once they have your money, the customer service is terrible. JL should stick to selling bed linen and mens ties, not kitchens!