Howdens - Balham

"Thanks Chris. Great service!"

"We choose Howdens based on recommendations but sadly they don't live up to their name. We ordered Lamona extractor in June and sadly up to know were not able to get this product to work. The luck of communication and a good will to sort this out is obysmal. Due to internal policy about the engineers looking for the fault we were refused refund or replacement. We already had three visits from their engineers who can not establish the reason for the extractor not working. This is all very frustrating as still have not working extractor. This company totally wasted my time and money."

"Get an appointment with Natassia; my first piece of advice. I researched many places to get a kitchen redone, and felt the most confident with Howdens for their price, value, service and design. We ended up with the Hockley range and it's beautiful. This was my first time doing such a major home project, and Natassia expertly guided me through the process. The bonus is that she's super fast, very responsive, and has excellent taste! I trusted her judgment on important areas where I was unsure - from worktop selection, layout of cabinet style, finishes on taps, to appliance selection (between AEG and Bosch). She truly has impeccable taste and I'm thrilled with the design. I've had a very smooth, seamless experience with Howdens Balham so I'd definitely consider just an appointment to inform your choices."

"CHECK YOUR DESIGNS THOROUGHLY AS THE HOWDENS KITCHEN DESIGNERS ARE CARELESS: Getting a new kitchen built is never an easy task. Sadly, Howdens Balham did not make this task any easier. Our kitchen builder was fantastic. Howdens Balham however are an embarrassment to the Howdens’ brand. Their designer made multiple errors in his design for our kitchen. When questioned he dismissed our worries as something superficial. The kitchen designer ordered the completely wrong cupboards, sinks and utilities on numerous occasions and did not alter vital design plans to the builder despite saying that he will. Although Howdens Balham reordered the correct items and delivered them this did cause significant delay and distress to the build. If it were not for our builder being so diligent questioning every item and page of the plan then he would have fitted items and set them in place resulting in our new kitchen having to be ripped out. Howdens Balham obviously deny all responsibility and note that they are a trade only organization and not a design organization. This is despite Howdens offering a design set up on their website and part of their “sale”. We attended 4 kitchen design meetings at Howdens Balham yet their manager insists that they do not offer kitchen designs and can not be held accountable for their errors. Ultimately, Howdens Balham kitchen designer’s errors caused significant delays and subsequent costs to our kitchen. If you want the same for your kitchen then I thoroughly recommend them!"

"Overall, I'd say the service was average. Our kitchen designer was fine, but certainly didn't offer any out of the box solutions for our tricky kitchen. After install, we definitely noticed a few things that don't work with respect to design and would have expected our designer to point these out to us. For instance, tell us standard plates don't always fit into 300mm wide cupboards! or remind us that we should be putting a pull-out larder in an open space (not a corner) so that we can access it from both sides. these seem obvious now, but not in the moment of kitchen design and would have expected an 'expert' to guide us on the best layout and cupboards for our needs and kitchen layout. The quality of the kitchen seems fine - certainly on par with magnet, wren, benchmarx (maybe even ikea too!?). The delivery was quick, as well (2 days) --- certainly a benefit from ordering from howden's over ikea or magnet, which usually take 2-3weeks lead time. There were extra units added mistakenly to the order for some reason and therefore confused our builder when they arrived, which caused further back and forth. Ultimately they were collected and refunded. But there was added hassle because of this error. The staff are lovely. Everyone was very nice and helpful. Which helped when there were issues. But overall - if you are looking for recommendations on how to put together the best designed kitchen - i wouldn't recommend howden's for this. they'll design what you tell them, but that's about it."