Kitchen Services Relocation Questions Checklist

Open the cupboard under the sink and photograph everything inside it, including pipework, valves and any appliance connections.

This single photograph answers a surprising number of the questions a designer or installer would otherwise have to visit to ask.

Note where the waste pipe appears to leave the room, including which wall it passes through and roughly how high it sits.

Waste runs are the single most common reason a sink cannot move as freely as an owner expects, so this is worth recording carefully.

Record where the internal stopcock is and whether it is inside the kitchen, in an adjoining room or somewhere less convenient.

Its position affects how work is staged and whether the household loses water supply beyond the kitchen while work happens.

Note the position only. Turning, testing or working on supplies is for a suitably qualified trade to arrange.

Photograph the position of every socket, switch, isolator and any appliance connection point on the kitchen walls.

Existing electrical positions shape what a new layout can do cheaply and what would need more substantial work.

If the kitchen has a fuel supply of any kind, note where it enters the room and where any isolation point is, without touching either.

Anything involving a fuel supply narrows who can carry out the work and affects the order of the whole job.

Fuel supplies are exclusively for appropriately registered trades. There is no owner task here beyond noting what is visible.

Note whether any heating appliance, cylinder or controls sit in the kitchen, and photograph their position and surroundings.

These frequently constrain layout more than anything else in the room, and they are easy to leave out of an early description.

Note what you know about the floor construction, and mark it as something you were told rather than something you established.

Whether pipework can run within a floor is a professional question, but knowing what the owner believes is a useful starting point.

Write down what is on the other side of each kitchen wall, including any bathroom, utility or external space.

What sits beyond a wall often determines whether a run can be taken that way, and only the owner can describe it without a visit.

Note any pipe runs that are visible in the kitchen or in adjoining spaces, including anything boxed in or running at skirting level.

Boxed-in runs are frequently forgotten in early descriptions and then reappear as a constraint once the design is well advanced.

Record the current position of every appliance that needs water, waste or a dedicated supply, and note which are staying.

Appliances that stay in place are usually the cheapest fixed points to design around, and worth identifying as such.

Photograph the outside of any external kitchen wall, noting vents, pipes and anything else emerging from it.

What appears on the outside face often explains what is happening inside, and an installer will want to see it.

Note where any meters serving the property sit and whether the kitchen work would need access to them.

Meter access is easy to forget when planning a layout and awkward to resolve once cabinetry has been installed in front of it.

Record anything about the services that has changed or been worked on recently, and note who told you.

Recent work often explains what an installer finds, and knowing about it in advance saves investigation time on site.

Ask what would limit how far the sink could move from where it is now, and what would need to be established to answer that.

Framing it as a limit question rather than a yes-or-no gets a more useful answer and often reveals a middle option.

Whether a waste run can be reconfigured is determined on site by a suitably qualified trade, never from a photograph alone.

Ask what moving the hob would involve, and whether the answer changes depending on the type of hob eventually chosen.

The appliance decision and the services decision are linked, and asking them together avoids designing around the wrong assumption.

Requirements for any fuel-burning appliance are set by the registered trade and the manufacturer, and vary by location.

Ask whether the existing electrical provision in the room is suitable for what you intend to add, and what would establish that.

This is one of the most common late surprises in a kitchen project and one of the easiest to raise early.

Whether existing provision can carry additional demand is assessed by a qualified electrician, not inferred from age or appearance.

Ask what would have to be opened up, lifted or chased to achieve the layout you want, and what that means for other rooms.

Relocation work often extends beyond the kitchen, and understanding the spread early prevents an unwelcome discovery mid job.

Ask whether there is a layout close to the one you want that avoids the most disruptive move, and what it would give up.

A good installer or designer usually has an alternative in mind, and inviting it explicitly tends to produce it.

Ask which trade carries out each part of the services work and who arranges them, since this varies between suppliers and builders.

Knowing who is responsible for what is the difference between a coordinated job and a gap nobody owned.

Ask at which points water, power or any fuel supply would be interrupted, and whether the interruption affects the whole property.

This determines what the household needs to arrange, and it is a question that is much better asked before work starts than during it.

Ask which decisions must be final before the stage at which pipework and cables are positioned and then covered up.

There is a point after which changing a position becomes disproportionately disruptive, and knowing where it falls protects everyone.

Record what the household would do for washing up and cooking while the services are being moved, and raise it as a question.

Temporary arrangements are almost always the owner's responsibility, and planning them beats improvising them.

Note where trades would need access beyond the kitchen itself, including any adjoining room, loft or external face.

Access requirements outside the kitchen are frequently unmentioned until the day, and they affect furniture and protection.

Ask who is responsible for making good the surfaces disturbed by services work, including in rooms outside the kitchen.

Making good is one of the most common scope gaps between a kitchen supplier, a builder and a services trade.

Ask whether the services trades and the kitchen fitters would be on site at the same time or in separate visits.

Separate visits usually mean a longer overall job with quieter gaps, and knowing which pattern applies helps the household plan.

Ask who protects flooring and finishes in the rooms trades pass through, and note the answer.

Damage on the route to the kitchen is a common dispute, and it is trivially avoided by agreeing responsibility beforehand.

Confirm in writing that the sink position shown on the drawing is the one everyone is working to, and note the date.

Sink position is fixed by both cabinetry and services, so it is the single most valuable position to have confirmed in writing.

Confirm that the appliance list used for the services layout is the final one, including anything replaced late in the process.

A late appliance change is one of the most common causes of services work having to be revisited after it was thought finished.

Keep the drawing showing agreed positions for sockets, switches, isolators and connection points, and note who approved it.

Recording who approved it is what makes it possible to resolve a later disagreement without relying on memory.

Ask what happens if a position turns out to be impossible once work has started, and how a change would be recorded.

Agreeing the process for handling a surprise is far easier before one happens than in the middle of one.

Note which certificates, notifications or records you should expect at the end, and ask who provides each one.

Asking at the start is the reliable way to receive them at the end rather than chasing them months afterwards.

What documentation applies is set locally and by the registered trade carrying out the work. Confirm it directly with them.

Confirm that any cut outs in the worktop match the final appliance and sink choices before the surface is templated.

A template is taken from the installed cabinetry, so a late change at that point affects the surface as well as the services.

Record which version of the drawing everyone is working from, and make sure the trades all hold the same one.

Two trades working from different revisions of the same drawing is one of the most avoidable causes of misplaced services.

Assemble the photographs into one set with a short note for each saying what it shows and which wall it is on.

An unlabelled set of photographs is far less useful than a small labelled one, and labelling takes very little time.

Write down what you want to achieve with the layout rather than the services solution you imagine would deliver it.

Describing the outcome lets the professional propose the route, which is usually better than the one an owner would have specified.

Mark clearly which parts of your record are things you were told rather than things you observed yourself.

Separating observation from hearsay is genuinely useful to a professional and protects you if the hearsay turns out wrong.

Keep the list of questions this checklist raised and take it to the site visit rather than relying on remembering them.

Site visits move quickly, and an owner with a written list gets noticeably better answers than one working from memory.

Record that none of your observations settle anything, and that every conclusion in this area comes from the trade doing the work.

Writing this down for yourself keeps the record useful without letting it drift into being treated as a specification.

Share the same record with every party involved rather than describing it separately to each of them.

Describing a room verbally three times produces three slightly different understandings of it, which is how gaps appear.

Keep the photographs and notes after the work is finished, since they show what sits behind the finished surfaces.

A record of what is behind a wall is genuinely valuable years later, and nobody else will have kept it for you.