yes even the expensive Blum "Bluemotion" require extra effort. It is annoying at first.

I don't find I have to "yank" on mine. They require a tiny bit of effort to open, but no more than my old drawers with wood glides. Those were heavy all the way out and all the way in. The effort to shut those is a tremendous amount more than the tiny little push I have to give my Blum glides because they shut by themselves! I have only been using my new kitchen for a few months and don't even notice the little effort anymore. That said, your upcharge is huge, and only you can decide if its worth the extra expense.

I'd have to disagree with tubeman. We have true Blum blumotion slides in our kitchen, and cheap knockoffs in our bathroom. It's night and day. The cheapies are a huge PITA. They take a real shove to get them to open, very annoying, and also if you don't close them with enough velocity, often a push to get them to close. A total waste.

So when we did the kitchen we insisted on the real thing. What a difference. Like breezy says, the open with, to me, virtually no perceptible effort. And if they are given even the lightest push to close, they do so smoothly and totally quietly. Worth every penny.

We also have Blum soft close on the roughly 15 cabinet doors in the kitchen. They also are fabulous, no more slamming doors when the kids put away the dishes. Only issue is that occasionally the piston unit will fall off the hinge, but it's two seconds to snap it back over the hinge. Also worth every penny. Blum rules!

Our cabinetmaker said that the tension could be adjusted on the undermounts. I have never found the need to do that on mine, but he said that it could be done. I love them though. I would never have drawers without them!

I can't believe they want to charge you $150! Two cabinet makers wanted to charge me $20 per and $35 per drawer. My cabinetmaker included them in the cost, since he does them for all drawers and doors.

I agree with Clinresga. We also have the true Blumotion glides in our kitchen - it's barely any extra effort to use them. Opening is a very small effort more than regular glides and closing is less effort b/c you just have to close the drawers enough for the self- & soft-close to kick in.

That's a hefty upcharge - I could see $50 or so per drawer, but $150? Wow! Considering they are only $21 to $27 per drawer retail & not volume pricing (Blum Tandem with Blumotion glides (B562H) + locking mechanism), that's pretty steep. How much is your installer charging for regular glides? Are you sure it's per drawer and not per-cabinet with 3 drawers? Is your installer using Blumotion glides (one of the best)?

OR is the combined charge of $150/drawer the cost of the cabinet + drawers + glides --> for $350 for a 3-drawer drawer base. How wide are your drawers?

Are you committed to refacing? If not, you might check how much it would cost to get new cabinets...soft-close now comes standard in some lines or, if not standard, somewhere around $50/drawer upcharge. Often, refacing costs only a little bit less than new cabinets. It might be worth your while to look into it if you haven't already.

Soft-close door hardware is even less expensive if you buy & install it yourself ($4 per door or so). But, while installing the soft-close door hardware is easy, the drawer glides are not as easy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blum 562H Series Tandem Slide Full Extension (iwith & without soft-close)

Agree with everyone above, our undermounts do not take extra effort to open.

But $150 per drawer?!! That's highway robbery.

Get blum and you will be happy.

Ditto the recommendation for Blumotion slides.
Lynn

my read of this is that she is getting charged $150 for the soft close drawer glides, and for them to build her a new drawer box to attach them to.

assuming its dovetail wood drawer boxes its not crazy expensive, but still isn't cheap.

As Buehl said, have you priced out doing new cabinets? at $3400 for the drawers not counting the faces etc, it sounds like your refacing is very expensive, and new cabinets may be the same or cheaper.

Love my blumotion slides. Cabinet guy put them in at no charge. But we have done alot of work with him over the years, so may be little "thank you" on his part.

We really like our soft close. I think it does feel very different to open - it took my about a week to get used to it! More resistance, but I love that they never slam shut! With 3 young kids, that is a major bonus. Now, the cheapy regular drawers in the bathroom, seem so awful! We went cheap in the bathroom to try to save a bit of $, but I wish we hadn't...

Beth

I have Hettich and they too require very little effort to open. I do have to say that drawers that are loaded with heavy stuff do require a little more effort, but that has more to do with the weight of the drawer than the closing mechanism.

Highway robbery? Really? Have you priced a new drawer box, and one that's prepped for THOSE slides?
try doing it yourself and see what you charge. put yourself in their shoes and pretend you had to do it.

Oh, I read it wrong. Didn't realize they were retrofitting existing drawers, I assumed it was a new kitchen. Sorry ....

Correction....

...OR is the combined charge of $150/drawer the cost of the cabinet + drawers + glides --> for $450 for a 3-drawer drawer base.

As I asked b/f....is this for the entire cabinet or just the cost of the hardware for the drawers?

Does the $150/drawer include new drawer fronts? I'm asking b/c you probably already have a quote & and are paying for replacing those drawer fronts in your refacing contract...so they should NOT be included in the "new drawers" quote. And...usually drawer fronts & doors are the most expensive part of a cabinet.

The fact that there's no variation in price for size of cabinet leads me to wonder if it's the drawers + cabinet or the glides only for that price.