Replace the whole kitchen, or just the doors? How to tell what you actually need

There is a quiet gap between two very different jobs that get quoted as if they were the same one. On one side: a full rip-out and a brand-new fitted kitchen, £6,000 and up. On the other: the exact same carcasses you already own, with new doors, hinges and worktop, for a fraction of that. Knowing which one you actually need is worth more than any discount a fitter will offer you.

The part that wears out isn't the part that costs the most

The expensive, disruptive element of a kitchen is the carcasses — the boxes screwed to the wall and floor. They rarely fail. What fails is what you touch every day: door fronts, hinges, drawer runners, and the worktop. If your units are square, dry and solid, replacing only the fronts (a "kitchen facelift") gets you a new-looking kitchen for often a tenth of a full refit.

When a repair is genuinely the wrong call

• Water damage to the carcasses. Swollen, crumbling chipboard under the sink won't hold a new door. That's a replace.
• You're changing the layout. Moving the sink or the run of units means new carcasses anyway.
• Non-standard sizes from a bespoke install. If replacement doors have to be made to measure, the saving narrows.

The line to watch on the quote

A fitter paid to install a full kitchen has little reason to tell you the doors alone would have done. That's not dishonesty — it's what they were asked to price. So ask the question yourself, in writing: "Can these carcasses be reused with new fronts, and what would that cost instead?" A straight answer tells you two things at once — the real state of your units, and whether the person quoting is optimising for your budget or theirs.

Get that second number before you agree to anything. On BidsAndMore you can describe the kitchen once and ask several fitters to price both options — replace and reface — side by side. The comparison usually makes the decision for you.