Thread: draw runners - Hettich/blum/grass

Good Morning qwertyu

Six or seven years ago, preparatory to doing a total kitchen rebuild, I built an eighteen drawer storage unit for my shed and tried virtually every type of drawer runner that I could secure. I evaluated them carefully over the next month, and my opinion has not changed over the ensuing seven years.

My opinion as to the best three drawer runners, in terms of perceived quality, smoothness of operation and reliability, in order were:

1. Blum Tandem Undermount drawer slides (ie concealed mounts, melamine drawer sides),
2. Hettich Innertech drawer sides with Quadro runners (painted or stainless sides),
3. Blum tandembox drawer slides (stainless or painted drawer sides),

[Very marginal differences in quality between these three. For my kitchen I went with Blum Tandembox because SWMBO insisted on stainless and I got a better deal on Blum over Hettich.]

As far as the ratings of the various brands are concerned, my opinion is still as follows:

1. Blum and Hettich are virtually indistinguishable and at the top of the pile,
2. The marginally lower quality of the other major brands is not reflected in price differentials,
3. The powder coated stuff sold by Big-Chains is junk and grossly overpriced.

I got the best deal from Bradley Wilson, but you must shop around.

All runners should be full-extension and soft-close.


Cheers

Graeme

I'm currently chipping away at research for a kitchen rebuild.

If you are doing stuff with Blum hardware (I can't speak for the other companies), they welcome you to give them a call and make a booking, and you are then able to visit their showroom where they have all their products installed and available for testing. They'll have a staff member there to give you a guided tour, and answer any questions you may have. I found the experience invaluable in deciding which products we'd be likely to use.

Blum, as far as I know, don't sell direct - their kit is available from Lincoln Sentry and Wilson Bradley. Also a smaller supplier called Elraco based in SA have some of their items, and are significantly cheaper than either of the major distributors.

I would echo Graeme's comments, Blum is top of the pile IMO. If you are after Grass, check www.trademasterjoinery.com.au as they have mostly Grass stuff, and are very cheap.

I would also echo Graeme's comments that the powder coated slides from big box stores are complete crap.

Thanks guys. I might visit blum and have a look.

Seeing as neither of you guys suggested Grass, I'll stick with either Blum or Hettich since I have first hand experience in using them.

I checked out trade master joinery - they dont seem to have any grass stuff. have some blum hinges and thats it. their draw slides are generic by the looks of it.

Originally Posted by Midnight Man

.....If you are doing stuff with Blum hardware (I can't speak for the other companies), they welcome you to give them a call and make a booking, and you are then able to visit their showroom where they have all their products installed and available for testing. They'll have a staff member there to give you a guided tour, and answer any questions you may have. I found the experience invaluable in deciding which products we'd be likely to use.
.......

Good Point MM

I had similar experiences with representatives of Blum, Hettich and Gras - invaluable. Both in experiencing the range and functionality of the goods, and how well the staff knew their products!

An interesting aside; I was picking up a large order (for me) at Wilson Bradley and coincidentally was there at the same time as a Traveller from Blum who had a very strong Germanic accent. The discussion:
Traveller - You like ze Blum productz?
Me - Yes, very good German engineering.
Traveller - Ve ist not German; ve ist Austrian!


Cheers

Graeme

I fitted my kitchen drawers and shed workbench drawers with King soft-closers from Bunnings. Blum were too exy for me at the time but I expected that if the most used drawers showed signs of wear then I'd replace them with Blum. Over two years later they are all still working like new.