The questions we get asked from America.
Appliances, duty, the container, who installs it and why there is a minimum. Answered the way we would answer them on the telephone.
These are the twelve we are asked most often from the United States. The answers are the ones we would give you on the telephone, which means some of them are not sales copy.
Will it fit American appliances?
Yes, because we draw to your appliances rather than to ours. American appliances are generally larger than English ones, and we work to American dimensions from the survey onward — appliance sizes, outlet heights, countertop overhangs — rather than adjusting for them at the end. In-frame work makes that a real piece of setting out: the frames are laid out around the appliance carcass and its service clearances before anything is machined, and the doors either side have to line through with the appliance doors rather than with each other. It is the reason we ask what you are buying before we draw, not after.
Who pays the duty?
We do, and it is inside the price you are quoted. British-made cabinetry enters the United States at a capped rate of duty — materially lower than cabinets imported from most other countries, and the gap widens in January 2027. There is nothing for you to settle at the port.
Does my kitchen share a container with other people’s?
No. It travels in its own sealed container. Shared freight is cheaper and we do not use it: a painted in-frame kitchen is crated to arrive as it left, and it does that far more reliably when nothing is loaded around it and the container is not opened between here and your house.
Who actually installs it?
Our own fitters fly over and install it, typically three to seven days on site. Not a local contractor working from our drawings. The people who cut the frames hang the doors, which is the only way the reveals survive the journey.
How long does the whole thing take?
Twenty to twenty-six weeks from the drawings being signed off to cooking in it, and three to seven days on site at the end of that. The crossing is the one part of the schedule that cannot be compressed, so the honest answer to “can you do it faster” is usually no.
What happens at the survey, and do I pay for it?
We survey in the United States in blocks, so timing matters more than it would at home — it is two days and a flight. The survey is charged, and credited in full against the order. You are buying a measured survey and a set of drawings that are yours, whatever you decide afterwards.
Is there a US office?
No, and we would rather tell you that than pretend. We are a British company in one building in Suffolk. You will deal with the workshop directly, Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm UK time — which is 3am to 12pm Eastern, so the practical window is a morning call for you.
What is the guarantee?
Ten years on our own work. A painted door in a house that swings between a hard winter and an August humidity will move more than one in Suffolk; we allow for that in the setting out. If something needs attention afterwards, it is the same nine people who made it who deal with it.
Why is the minimum so high?
Because the fixed costs of getting a kitchen from Suffolk to a US site — crating, an ocean container, customs, a survey flight and a fitting team on a plane — are much the same whether the kitchen is small or large. On a small kitchen that fixed cost swamps the price. Our English minimum is £35,000; our American one is not, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. If what you want is an excellent fitted kitchen, buy one in America. Come to us when you want something that is not available there.
Who makes the electrical connections?
Your electrician does. The supply is 120V and it is installed to local code by a licensed electrician you appoint, not by us. What we do is set the outlet and switch heights with that electrician at survey stage, and draw the cabinetry around them, so nothing has to be cut or moved once the joinery is standing.
How does the guarantee work three thousand miles from the bench?
The cover is the same wherever the kitchen is: ten years on our cabinetmaking, joinery and installation, and ten years on the finish against defect. Hardware carries its own maker’s guarantee, and we give you that paperwork and make the claim with you rather than sending you to a website. Every kitchen also gets an adjustment visit once the house has been through a heating season. How that visit is made for an American house — by us, or by a fitter we have trained and worked with near you — is written on the face of your quotation before you sign it, so you are not left to assume it.
What happens if the room is not ready when the container lands?
Tell us early and it is a scheduling matter rather than a problem. A container, a crossing and a team of cabinetmakers on an airplane are all straightforward to move six weeks out and difficult to move six days out. Construction slips on every job and we plan for it; what turns a slip into a problem is finding out about it late. Painted in-frame work in particular should not stand in a room that is still drying out, so we would rather wait than install into one.
Ask us the awkward one.
If the question you have is not here, it is probably the one worth asking. Write to the workshop and you will get a straight answer from a person, including the answer that we are not the right people for your project.
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Tell us about the room.
Where the house is, roughly when you would like to be cooking in it, and what you have in mind. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right people for it.
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