Please don't hate, but help educate me
Current house is 21 yrs old, from the info above my existing standard hinges and slides are below the current standards. What is the allure? I just replaced a few existing cupboard hinges because they didn't fully close, replacement hinges cost me about $3 and 5 mins time each. What am I missing out on? I do have one "junk drawer" that has been slammed over my kids' growth to adulthood and had to be enforced due to it being cheaply made, but what would I gain by upgrading?
orfisch;
Top of the morning to you, I trust that wherever in the world this finds you, it finds you well.
Speaking broadly and my goodness I am terribly cognizant of how slippery a slope that can be, but until one gets exposed to what the general public might be capable of, it's tough to wrap one's head around a whole bunch of stuff. Please understand I do not mean that to be derogatory in any sense of the word.
For instance when we were farming, my brother and myself could run tractors and equipment with minimal issues while the cousin we farmed with had more breakdowns.
When I got into the cabinet industry machines, tolerances and producing an acceptable end product made sense to me and so help me it just does not come naturally to a whole lot of folks. Sometimes it can be taught, but for instance you will never teach me to hold a tune in a pair of big buckets, no matter how motivated we might both be.
In the same way, when we offered a lifetime warranty on our kitchens - which we did - when we'd go into some places after 20 years they looked basically new yet. Conversely I recall going into a local contractor's house after less than 2 years and the whole house looked at least 10 years old. Everything showed wear, it was wild how much too. I told the boss the entire family must have tiger claws or something?
So then if we overload a drawer which is built from PBC- particle board core - melamine and then we slam it with just a bit more than normal enthusiasm it will loosen up the screws holding the tracks in the PBC cabinet box.
There are usually extra screw holes not used and a careful person can repair PBC melamine with wood glue or epoxy and some sawdust, but it takes some time.
We could use plywood for the boxes and real wood for the drawers, but in places like Hawaii for instance where it might rain half the day, every day, plywood isn't the solution one would think.
As well, plywood manufacturers do not make it with as consistent a thickness as PBC melamine can be - we had a spec of +/- 1/10mm thickness for melamine and they hit that consistently. If the box material is varied in thickness, the overall size of a run of boxes can be troublesome at best and lead to boxes being cut down and new doors made at worst.
Anyways sorry for the long explanation, but some people's cabinets will last much longer with soft close and some people will never ever see the difference in cost.
The trick in life is to know one's weaknesses and purchase accordingly isn't it?
Hope that made sense and all the best.
Dwayne
