Just realized those expensive Blum soft-closes are worth it after my cheap ones failed in 8 months

I put knockoff soft-close hinges on a kitchen I did last March in Columbus. Saved like $40 a box. Now the homeowner is calling me because half of them are either not closing right or making this awful grinding noise. Went back to look and the little piston things are just shot. Swapped one out with a real Blum today and it was night and day. Guess I learned my lesson about cutting corners. Anyone else get burned by off-brand hardware?

4 comments

4 Comments

caseythompson11d ago

Had a buddy who redid his whole kitchen backsplash and cabinets in his 90s ranch house in Dayton. He went with some off brand hinges from Amazon to save cash. Took him about six months before three of them snapped right at the little metal hinge pin. One cabinet door actually fell off and cracked his tile floor. He had to rip out that whole section of cabinets and redo it because the mounting holes were stripped out too.

grant47811d ago

Three of my uncles built custom cabinets for a living back in the 80s and 90s in Columbus and they always said the hinge is the most important part besides the wood itself. I get trying to save a buck, I really do, but cheap hinges are almost always made from pot metal that looks like steel until you put any real weight on it. That Dayton guy probably could've bought mid grade hinges from a local hardware store for like $2 more each and they would've lasted 20 years instead of 6 months. Plus, stripping out the mounting holes sounds like he used the wrong size screws or didn't pre drill which is a common mistake with those soft metal frames in 90s houses. I've seen it happen so many times where people save $50 on hinges and end up paying $500 to fix the damage.

shanef3411d ago

Ain't that always how it goes when you try to cut corners on the little stuff?

nancyg1411d ago

Oh, you aren't alone in that lesson. My own kitchen cabinets have cheap knockoffs from a big box store that started sticking and squeaking within the first year. The metal feels thin and flimsy compared to the real Blum hinges I put in for a client's remodel last spring. That grinding noise you mentioned is usually the piston wearing out because the tolerance is just off on those cheaper versions. Pre-drilling helps with stripped holes but doesn't fix the core problem of bad metal and poor fit.