Kitchen Extension company - does it pay to employ an all in one specialist?

People who like to retain control over their kitchen extension schemes tend to avoid specialist kitchen extension companies and employ their own house extension designers or architects instead. However, some people just want an easy life and like the thought of employing a dedicated kitchen extension company for the simplicity of just dealing with one entity from inception through design and onto the build on site. But does the home owners expectations live up to the reality?

Well firstly there are in fact very few specialist kitchen extension companies. To simply focus on just one aspect of residential home design would be too restrictive for most house extension builders. Those that do will build other home extension works if required such as a first floor bedroom over.

Some of these kitchen extension companies are national operators and I always worry about that aspect of the business model. I am a great believer in local accountability. National kitchen extension companies usually have a series of staff and operators and many homeowners feel like that they are simply being passed from pillar to post during the process with no consistency of face.

Many of these national kitchen extension companies end up employing unknown tradesman some of whom are not local. Now you have to ask why would any trade want to incur added time and expenses of travelling when the norm is that any good and recommended tradesman only works locally simply because their services are in demand.

The risk is that there is a lot of opportunities for a national kitchen extension company losing control of your house extension simply due to the layers of different staff and the distances involved. My advise would be to only use a local kitchen extension company that can offer a pro-active design service as well and your own due diligence checks on their status, previous clients and workmanship has been verified.