When it comes to choosing a new door for your kitchen, there are a whole host of considerations that must be taken into account. For the average homeowner, buying a new kitchen door isn’t an every day experience. In fact, it’s probably not even an every decade experience. But that doesn’t mean the decision itself is an easy one, or one that should be taken in haste. Aside from the obvious aesthetic benefits of any particular door, the door you choose must also be effective at insulating from the cold - one of the door’s primary functions once it arrives. Additionally it must be able to fend off fire, rather than to quickly go up in flames, which usually means it will need to be of a thick wood and specially coated to cope.

Aside from that there are a host of other factors that need to be taken into account on what’s best for your kitchen, including the quality of the workmanship and installation on the door, as well as the weight and locking mechanism involved in any particular model.

Kitchen door quality is a somewhat abstract concept, and one that is almost purely subjective. What one man deems to be a quality fixture might not measure up to the demands of another, and quite a number of buyers simply won’t care either way. Nevertheless it’s important to have a checklist of your requirements when looking to buy a new door, which could include some of the following:

• Weight - heavier doors tend to be better quality and better at insulating, but they are also more difficult to open and can more quickly become stiff.
• Facade - what is the cladding like on the door? Is it plastic? Do you require a wooden facade, or just a simply carved door?
• Locking - does the door have a handle-through lock? Will you need to acquire a separate lock for the door, and will it be easy to fit?
• Hinging - depending on the weight of the door, you may need any number and quality of hinges to support it in the doorframe. The heavier the door, the better quality hinges you’ll need to buy, as a general rule.
• Fire Resistance - particularly important for internal doors, you want to make sure your door is fire resistant enough to prevent the spread of fire and to allow you to leave the property safely in the event of an emergency

Buying fitted kitchens is a popular alternative to building up your own bits and pieces, and the reason for that is that they often pre-match cabinets and work surfaces, and provide a cohesive and easily identifiable style to any room. Of course they also come with the added advantage that they are fitted for you, but be under no illusions of this being cheap labour. With fitted kitchens often running in to the thousands, even tens of thousands, it’s important to make sure you know what you’re buying, when you can expect installation, and what your remedies are should anything go wrong.

One of the most attractive points when buying a fitted kitchen is often the fact that the labour is supplied within the price. This can be a handy way to make sure your kitchen is installed correctly in your home and can give you the peace of mind to know that whilst you may be working or have other commitments, you’re kitchen is being taken care of by professionals.

Unfortunately the major downside is that this kind of labour is incredibly expensive. In fact, most fitted kitchens themselves would cost a fraction were it not for the labour, which is marked up by the kitchen retailer to provide a handsome profit. A more cost effective way to do a kitchen, if you have the time, skills and inclination is to do it yourself. Cabinets and work surfaces can all be bought from kitchenware retailers for much less than you would expect, and where you can physically put in the labour, you might just end up saving several thousand that would otherwise have gone into workman’s wages and the retailer’s margin.

Quality is an easy way for manufacturers to save money. It is often reported that fitted kitchens are made of cheap woods, or are thrown together with shoddy handles. Indeed the finish in the showroom may not be of the same quality as that you can expect in your home. That means it’s important to look beyond the initial idea of what your kitchen will look like to actually inspect the wood and workmanship in the showroom. Don’t be afraid to ask if this is likely to be reflective of the standard you can expect in your own home - after all, you will be spending a substantial amount of money, so you may as well get things just right.