Before the kitchen fitter arrives: the order of trades

Most kitchens that end up wrong were not fitted badly. They were fitted correctly around services that were set in the wrong places weeks earlier, by trades who were working without a kitchen drawing because nobody had one yet. In a shell property this is the normal failure. The walls go up, the electrician runs sockets at the heights he always uses, the tiler tiles, and only then does a showroom come to measure — at which point the sink unit cannot go where the waste is, the hood socket is 40 cm off centre, and the worktop sockets sit behind the hob.

The fix is sequence, not skill.

The order

1. Agree the kitchen layout. Not the doors, not the handles — the positions. Where the sink goes, where the hob goes, which appliances are integrated, how tall the run is.
2. Set first-fix electrics, plumbing and gas to that layout. Measured from the units, not from habit.
3. Plaster, tile and floor.
4. Final measure, in the finished room.
5. Fit.

Diotti, an Italian modular kitchen maker, puts the same point two ways: the best time to take final measurements is when building work is finished, but measuring during works is what lets you move service positions before the finishes go on. Both measures have a job. The early one protects the first fix. The late one protects the order.

A typical maker specification

The numbers below are Diotti's planning guidance — a maker's specification, not Maltese regulation. Use them to brief your trades only until your own supplier's drawings exist, then use those instead. Diotti also states that installation of fixtures must be done by a qualified professional, and that all planning, installation or modification of fixtures should be done by a professional technician.

Three restrictions sit alongside those heights. Do not run the oven, fridge and dishwasher off the same socket. Worktop sockets should not be above tall units, beside the sink, or behind the hob. And if the gas connection is not in line with the appliance, the permitted run depends on the material: flexible rubber hose up to 150 cm, flexible steel up to 200 cm, or rigid copper of any length.

The flue figure is the one that catches people, because it is tied to the height of the kitchen composition. Modular kitchens come in 216 or 240 cm heights. Decide which before anyone cores a hole.

Who may legally touch the electrics

Electrical installation work in Malta requires a REWS authorisation. Authorisation A is needed to install, alter, extend and certify single-phase electrical installations. Authorisation B covers single-phase and three-phase installations rated up to 300 amps per phase. Applications go through the REWS schemes portal.

The Chamber of Engineers notes that warranted electrical engineers can hold a REWS authorisation for the installation, alteration, extension and certification of single-phase and three-phase installations, and points to the official REWS Electrical Installations Authorised Providers page. That list is the place to check that the person doing your first fix is authorised — before the chases are cut, not after.

Certification is part of what an Authorisation A or B holder is permitted to do. Our sources do not name a certificate or a form, so do not accept a document description from anyone on our authority; ask the authorised person what they issue.

Plaster, tile, floor — and why 10 mm matters

Floor tiles are 10 to 12 mm thick, and that thickness has to be allowed for when heights are set. A 45 cm water supply measured from a bare slab is not 45 cm from the finished floor, and a plinth cut to the wrong datum shows for the life of the kitchen.

Wall tiles behave the same way horizontally. If you are measuring the room before tiling, allow about 10 to 12 mm per side. Diotti's view on extent is that wall tiling is ideally full wall, with a minimum run of 80 to 160 cm — worth settling early, because the splashback decision changes where tiling stops relative to wall units.

The final measure

This is a survey, not a formality. Measure wall widths at several heights, because walls are never perfectly plumb. Check corners for square using the diagonal method. Check ceiling height at several points, so beams are found before the tall units are ordered. Record the positions of water, gas, sockets and the fume outlet as built, and record obstructions: door jambs, pocket doors, boilers, radiators, and skirting higher than 10 cm.

If you are buying in Sicily — a ferry away, and often cheaper for the same Italian brands — the final measure still has to happen in your Maltese property, and the drawings have to come back to whoever does the first fix. VAT within the EU is paid once, in the country of purchase. For Gozo, every delivery is a ferry crossing, which is worth raising with the showroom before you commit to a layout that needs a return visit.

What first fix costs on our rate card

The kitchens.mt calculator prices first fix as a shell trade, charged per square metre of the whole property's floor area — not of the kitchen. It sits inside a whole-property budget, not a kitchen-only one.

For context, the same rate card prices kitchen units at 2419.09, 4782.73, 8525.27 and 15203.45 euro per linear metre across those tiers, with a minimum of 3 linear metres, and five-appliance baskets at 1095, 2495, 3511 and 6381 euro.

All of it is indicative. The showroom quote is the figure.

The one-line version

Nobody can place a socket correctly for a kitchen that has not been designed. Get the layout agreed first, hand the drawing to an authorised electrician and your plumber before they start, allow for the tiles, and measure the room again when it is finished.