Choosing a fitted kitchen is daunting. Here is the way through it.

The order a kitchen purchase runs in

A fitted kitchen purchase moves through the same stages whether the plan is a flat-pack range fitted by your own tradesperson or a supply-and-fit kitchen ordered through a showroom. Knowing which stage you're at tells you which figures to check and which questions to put to a supplier before any money changes hands.

1. 1

   Measuring the room and deciding the appliances

   The room's dimensions and the appliances you plan to fit set every figure that follows: the cabinet sizes on offer, the gap left for a fridge or dishwasher, and the space needed above the hob for extraction. Appliance instructions give a niche range in millimetres for width, depth and height, and that range needs checking against the cabinet and worktop dimensions before anything is ordered.

   Take the niche figures from the appliance's own instructions, because they vary between models even within the same brand.

   Flat-pack, fitted by your own tradesperson

   You or whoever you employ takes the measurements and orders the cabinets to size, so the accuracy of this stage rests with that survey.

   Supply-and-fit from a retailer or maker

   A surveyor from the supplier usually measures the room before the order is confirmed, though it's worth checking whether that visit is included in the quoted price.

2. 2

   Comparing carcass build and specification across ranges

   A carcass, the structural box of a cabinet, is built from board of a stated thickness, most commonly 16mm in mass-market flat-pack ranges and 18mm in rigid and trade ranges, with the back panel and hinge type set by the maker rather than by any single standard. Placing these figures against a stated guarantee shows what's actually underneath the finish. The ordered guide to buying a fitted kitchen sets out where this comparison sits against the rest of the purchase and what to check at each range.

3. 3

   Checking who you'd be buying from

   A kitchen order is a large, one-off purchase, and the checks that separate a reliable supplier from a shaky one can all be looked up before signing: trading status at Companies House, a written guarantee and its conditions, membership of a trade body such as KBSA or BIFIS, and how any deposit is protected if the business stops trading before the kitchen is delivered. A supplier checklist runs through each of these checks and where to confirm them.

4. 4

   Getting quotes you can actually compare

   Two quotes only compare properly if both suppliers priced the same specification from the same information, so the same room measurements, appliance list and range choice need to go to each of them. A guide to getting kitchen quotes sets out how many quotes to get and what to send each supplier so the figures that come back sit against each other line by line.

   A quote that lists a total with no product codes against each unit is harder to hold a supplier to later.

5. 5

   Reading the contract before you sign

   The contract sets the deposit, the delivery and fitting dates, and what happens if either side wants to change the order once it's placed. Buyers also carry statutory protection under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, covering faulty goods and, for orders placed away from a supplier's premises such as at home or online, a cancellation period before work starts.

   Faulty units or a fault in the fitting work

   The remedy differs depending on whether the fault sits in the goods or in the installation, so it helps to know which one you're dealing with before raising it with the supplier.

   A dispute the supplier won't resolve

   Citizens Advice and Trading Standards are the bodies to contact once a supplier stops responding or won't put something right.

6. 6

   First fix, the units going in, then second fix

   First fix is the plumbing and electrical work done before the cabinets arrive, laying pipes and cables into the service void, the gap behind the cabinet where they run. The carcasses go in next, and if the worktop is stone, the fabricator templates it, taking an exact template of the finished opening, only once the carcasses are installed and level, which adds time to the programme. Second fix follows: connecting appliances, fitting sockets and switches, and finishing the plinths and end panels.

   Gas and electrical work in a kitchen refit sits under its own building control rules, and it's worth knowing which parts of the job a general fitter can do and which need a registered tradesperson.

7. 7

   Snagging the finished kitchen

   Snagging is the walk-through where you and the fitter list anything that isn't right, such as a misaligned door or a gap at a plinth join, so it's on record before the fitter leaves the job. Working through the list against the original quote and specification is easier while the product codes and paperwork from earlier in the process are still to hand.

A kitchen bought to replace a worktop or a single run of units moves through fewer of these stages, and a landlord fitting several identical kitchens across a let property may compress them further.