Readikits - Planning hints.

I recently put together a small kitchen using Laminex Readikit cabinets. While I am happy with the quality of the product, I was a bit surprised by the lack of proper assembly instructions.


Laminex went to the trouble and expense of creating a DVD with installation guidelines, and while this is good it falls well short of what is needed. Each cabinet pack comes with what is called the "Assembly Instruction Guide" but this is actually only a one page list of the components in the pack, and the dimensions of the required door(s). The strange thing is that the DVD actually shows printed instructions being used while the cabinets are being assembled, but instructions like those shown on the DVD are not provided and don't seem to be available on request.


One chapter of the DVD shows an "ordinary" base cabinet being assembled. Wall cabinets, drawer cabinets, and in particular corner cabinets, are all different in various ways, and assembly of these is not covered by the DVD. You can waste a huge amount of time trying to work out what needs to be done, or worse, trying to correct mistakes that could have been avoided if decent instructions were available.


Here are some hints and tips I put together, with some assistance from emptybucketman, who also recently worked on a Readikit kitchen. Due to the size, I had to split this into two parts, planning and assembly.


Planning.


Firstly, there are some facts about the Readikit cabinets which are good to know at the planning stage.


It took me a while to realise that there are two different ranges of Readikit cabinets. As I understand it now, the one range is called "Readikit Modular", where cabinets are only available in standard sizes, and where there is a fairly limited range of stock doors. The other range is called "Readikits Trade Essentials", where there is a greater range of standard sizes, and no stock doors. The Trade Essentials units are also available in custom sizes for a modest extra cost.


There seem to be some other differences in the way the two ranges are packaged and sold. For example, the Trade Essentials base cabinets come with a suitable number of adjustable feet, while for the Modular range the feet are sold separately.


When I was planning my kitchen, I was misinformed about the height of the adjustable feet. I noticed that the guide for the Trade Essentials range said that the minimum height of the feet was 110mm, while the guide for the Modular range said that the minimum height was 100mm. A difference of only 10mm happened to be enough in my case to determine whether the cabinets could be 770mm high or only 720mm high (I had to get the benchtop to align with some existing tiles). Because of the conflicting information, I specifically asked whether the minimum height of the feet I would receive would be 110mm or 100mm. The answer I got was110mm, but when I actually received my units, I found that the minimum height of the feet was 100mm, so the cabinets could have been 770mm high after all.


The way the Readikit cabinets are constructed, the back panel is not flush with the ends of the side panels, but is offset sightly toward the front of the cabinet, so with the side panels hard against the wall there is a gap between the wall and the back panel. This is a good idea because it reduces the chance that wall irregularities will be a problem and also gives some scope for trimming a little off the the back edge of side, top, or bottom panels. For the normal cabinets this gap is about 4mm, while for the corner cabinets, where there is more chance that the walls could be out of whack, the gap is 16mm. When I was investigating available cabinets, I saw other makes where the corner cabinets at least are made like this, but I saw nothing mentioning this in the Readikit guides. Had I known that the Readikit cabinets were constructed in this way, I would have been less worried about how I would cope with the far from perfect walls I was confronted with. If you know this, you will also be less likely to have a heart attack when your cabinets arrive, and you notice that the back panels for any corner cabinets are smaller than you expect.

Assembly hints -
http://www.renovateforum.com/f80/rea...61/#post776035


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