Kitchen Cabinets "Sinking" under weight of granite benchtop

Hi, all!

We recently had a new Ikea kitchen installed by a professional builder and a granite benchtop installed by a stonemason.

A few days after install of the benchtop I noticed a gap had appeared between two of the cupboards, and the end of one lot of drawers is now "stepped" indicating it has swayed to the side. on the other side the benchtop appears to have raised at the end. (see pics)

Being an Ikea kitchen, its fixed to a rail running across the back wall and each cabinet stands on four Ikea plastic screw legs which all appear intact bar one, which is at the front of the main gap and has not broken but has popped out of its recieving holes in the cabinet base. The adjoining cabinet walls are screwed to each other. I bought some screwjacks from Bunnings and have put them under the gap to try and prevent any further sinking (you can see one in the pic).

The builder tried to clamp it back together with some light clamps but it didn't work. He advised he's going to try to lever it up, pack it and then reclamp and rescrew.

The backsplash (stainless) will go in soon and I'm concerned about potential movement of the benchtop during any repair process. Im also concerned about how simple (or otherwise) this will be to repair.

Has anyone come across this kind of thing before? Can you provide any advice or insight as to what I should discuss with my builder?


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Thanks in advance!

This is one of the big reasons I don't use plastic feet. I believe they don't provide enough support for heavy stone bench tops. We use full ladder style kickboards made from plywood, to silly plastic feet at all.

You need to first take as much weight off/out of the cabinets as you can. Remove all the drawers, oven and anything stored inside. I would then try using sa cissor car jack with a piece of timber on top of it to raise the cabinets back up and then support the cabinet underneath properly.

Make sure you only jack on the ends/joins of the cabinets.

I have to agree. There is a lot of weight in a stone benchtop and the plastic feet are a lightweight solution.
Ladder kicks as per in the photos CEK provides in this thread...
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=74488

Stewie

Whilst I agree with CEK that a timber plinth is the strongest method for installing kitchens, the adjustable legs are more than adequate. They are extremely strong in compression, they just don't take lateral loads well. As long as there are enough used and then the installation is done properly there is no issue with their use.

The problem will be that the kitchen wasn't installed properly to start of with. With adjustable legs its very easy to level up the back as the carcass is fixed off but not level up the front correctly. If I'm using adjustable legs I use a laser level to get all corners levelled. If you don't, once the weight of the tops goes on the carcass will move and twist. Pretty much what you see here.

It's not helped by the fact that IKEA kitchens don't have solid backs, this makes them far easier to twist if the install isn't spot on.

Have you put a level on the bench top to see where the bench top drops or is out? The builder will have to do what CEK has said to get it back right.