Kitchen renovation in Batumi built around your units and appliances

Before the first channel is cut: the kitchen design and the appliance list

We start a kitchen renovation in Batumi on paper. Sockets, water, drains and the hood duct go where the sink, dishwasher, hob and oven will be, and that is decided by the kitchen design drawing. It must show the width of each unit, the worktop height and the appliance models. The drawing is made by a furniture maker or a designer, and you can also order it as part of a design for a single room.

The models matter because appliances have different requirements. An integrated fridge needs its socket in the next unit: behind the carcass it can't be reached later. A dishwasher needs its own valve and a drain connection to the sink trap. For an oven in a tall housing unit the socket goes higher than for an oven under the hob. If you order a made-to-measure kitchen from us, it is designed together with the electrics and outlets. A design from another furniture maker we check against the apartment before work starts.

Electrics for kitchen appliances

In the evening the hob, oven, dishwasher and kettle are often on at the same time. One shared circuit can't carry that load, so the powerful appliances get their own circuits from the consumer unit with their own breakers, and the kitchen sockets are connected through an RCD (residual current device).

• hob: its own circuit in a heavier cable, with the connection point in the base unit under the hob;
• oven and dishwasher: their own circuits, with sockets in the next unit so the appliance can be pulled out and unplugged;
• the work area: a group of sockets 15–25 cm above the worktop, which at the usual worktop height is about 1050–1150 mm from the floor, not above the sink or the hob;
• a cable for the wall-cabinet lighting and a socket for the hood above the cabinets;
• sockets for the kettle, coffee machine and microwave wherever the design puts them.

We measure heights from the finished floor level, allowing for the screed and tiles. Measured from the bare slab, a socket above the worktop ends up lower by the full thickness of the future floor and may disappear behind the upstand. In a studio apartment we put the light over the worktop on its own switch by the kitchen: the kitchen can be seen from the bed there, and it is handier to switch it off separately from the main lights.

Cooker hood, duct and fresh air supply

A cooker hood extracts only as well as its duct allows. We use a diameter no smaller than the outlet on the hood itself and keep the run short, with two or three gentle bends instead of sharp corners. Where the duct enters the ventilation shaft we fit a non-return valve: without one, cold air and other people's smells come down the shaft in winter. The duct is hidden in a plasterboard ceiling, so the kitchen ceiling type is chosen before the rough work.

Before connecting the hood, we check the draught in the shaft. We don't connect a hood to a shared collector shaft that serves the kitchens of several floors: it would push smells into the neighbours' apartments. We connect it to a separate shaft, if there is one, and fit a grille with an extra opening so the kitchen is ventilated even when the hood is off.

In a closed-up apartment a hood works worse than its specifications promise: air has nowhere to come in, so the hood pulls it through the bathroom ventilation shaft, along with other people's smells. That is why we fit a fresh-air inlet valve in the kitchen or the next room. In a kitchen-living room with fixed floor-to-ceiling windows, we plan the air supply together with the air conditioning.

Water, drains and valves

Before running the pipes we look at the riser and the valves on the branches. In a resale apartment it is best to replace the steel section of the riser in the kitchen now, before the units cover it, and agree the day the water is off with the building. The sink is simplest left by the riser: every metre further away needs a fall in the pipe and eats into the height under it.

Each supply gets its own valve: the mixer, the dishwasher, the drinking water filter and a fridge with an ice maker. The valves go in the unit under the sink, within arm's reach of its door. We connect the dishwasher hose to the trap spigot above the water seal and loop it up under the worktop, so dirty water from the sink doesn't run back into the machine.

If the building has gas, we don't touch the gas pipe, the meter or the cooker connection: that isn't our work, and moving a gas point has to be discussed with the gas supply company in advance. Before plastering we cap the water and drain outlets and photograph their positions with a tape measure from the floor and the corner.

Splashback, walls and floor

The splashback covers the wall between the worktop and the wall units, usually to a height of 550–650 mm. We lay ceramic tiles before the units are installed and take them a few centimetres below the future worktop, so no bare wall is left at the joint. Glass or a single porcelain sheet goes up after the worktop, to its actual level, and the socket cut-outs are marked in advance. How the materials cope with water and grease is covered in the comparison of ceramic and porcelain tiles.

We fill the joints behind the hob and by the sink with epoxy grout. Cement grout soaks up grease, darkens and then won't wash clean. Walls outside the splashback get washable paint that stands up to a sponge.

For a kitchen floor, porcelain tiles and water-resistant SPC vinyl both work. Laminate by the sink and dishwasher risks swelling at the very first leak; there is more on this in our look at laminate and SPC vinyl. In a kitchen-living room we put the joint between the two floor coverings along a line set by the furniture, such as the edge of the island, and bring them level at the screed stage so that no threshold strip is needed.

How much a kitchen renovation costs in Batumi

Renovating a kitchen of about 10 m², without furniture, costs from 5,400 ₾, with the usual range up to 7,800 ₾. This covers labour and rough-work materials: strip-out, electrics and water to the design, wall levelling, screed, splashback and floor. The units, worktop and appliances are not included: the units are priced separately, per linear metre.

Within the estimate, the price is made up of individual items. Laying wall tiles costs from 66 ₾ per m², each new electrical point from 42 ₾ and each plumbing point from 96 ₾. A kitchen where the developer's outlets match the design is closer to the lower end. Moving the sink to the window, five or six new circuits from the consumer unit and a splashback in large porcelain tiles push the estimate towards the upper end.

The final cost is set after the site measurement and once the estimate is agreed, and the price of each stage is fixed in the contract.

Measuring for the units and fitting them

We book the final measurement for the units once the walls are level and the floor is down. While the kitchen is being made, the crew tiles the splashback, paints the walls and puts up the ceiling, so by the time the fitters arrive there is no wet or dusty work left in the kitchen.

Before installation we give the fitters the routing diagram from the handover file. The wall units are fixed to the wall that carries the cables to the sockets above the worktop, and without the diagram a drill can easily hit a cable. We connect the appliances after the units are in: we test each circuit under load, run the dishwasher through a trial cycle and check the joints under the sink for leaks.