I'm not a pro but I do know that it is possible to replace the cabinet without removing the counter or backsplash. The contractor will probably not want to do it, because it is slow and painstaking work, but it can be done.

cost of the cabinet and installation cost should be reimbursed. Consequential damages beyond that would be difficult to get. You might contact a custom cabinet company or craftsman to see if they could help. You may have a strong and reasonable case for reimbursement of the costs of getting the cabinet back to full functionality. It may end up a bit narrower in the inside if they incorporated/added new sides and reduced the width of the cabinet. Very unfortunate your GC missed it but I would not fault him/her unless it was obvious.

Got pictures? The description is kinda' hard to follow.

Anyway, I'd say there is a real good chance that the installer didn't know the cabinet was defective. It probably held together just fine for install but when you loaded it, lack of glue, misplaced fasteners, a defect in the material...and cabinet goes kaboom.

Does there happen to be a filler piece next to this cabinet? Or is the cab on the end of a run? I'm having a had time figuring out how the sidewall/ back corner had any space to separate...

photos?

Ok I'll post photo's tomorrow (I just moved in and haven't been able to find the cord) It would be hard to not notice the issues with the cabinet frankly. It's literally the back of the cabinet that has separated from the right side by about 1/4 inch. So if you stuck your head in a cabinet, and looked at the back, you would normally see three sides right? left, right and back, and all of these are connected to each other to form the box (with the face frame as well) The back and the right side are not connected, which makes the cabinet not square, and thus the shelves too short on one side in the back of the cabinet where the separation is taking place.

The cabinet is at the end of a run, with a side panel on it's left hand side. (door frame style). There are no fillers near it (I only have one in the kitchen). On it's right side is a corner lazy susan style cabinet. They butt up tight on their sides. The granite as only a 3/4 inch overhang. The granite guys were here today for another reason, and they said they absolutely would not recommend removing the cabinet because there is too little room to support the granite as the cabinet is removed.

Anyhoo, I'll post pics :) Thanks!

I am sorry this happened.

I think the cabinet at least needs to be repaired. I understand what you said about bracing the shelves, but I don't think that's not going to be enough as the cabinet falls further apart from joint stress. Shouldn't this be covered by a real or implied warranty?

I hear you on being tired of it all, but ideally, it should be replaced. You shouldn't have to spend the rest of time being uncertain about whether the cabinet is safe.

There's probably twenty ways a good carpenter could remediate that cabinet in place if you have to.

This is something your installer should have noticed and brought to your attention before he "locked it in place". Manufacturers's sometimes do have items that slip through quality control, and that's why having a good installer inpect everything first is essential.

So, I'd phone up your installer and ask him what he's gonna do to fix your problem. As has been said, it CAN be fixed---if you have an experienced installer. It won't be easy, but it won't involve removing half of your kitchen either. Call him and let HIM propose the solutions! It's HIS screwup.

Hmmm. How about if they replaced the shelves/pullouts with wider ones? Or put in a new panel on the inside thick enough to make the existing shelves fit. Then you could put the peg holes on this new panel and still be able to adjust your shelves?

This suxs, I feel for you. Maybe we can bury the hatchet and agree that I was right on about omega's quality (and/or quality assurance) and you were right about palin ;)

I think your idea of retrofitting in a sense the cabinet is the way to go, if you don't want to deal with a removal & reinstall (there are a bunch of issues that'll come along with that).

I'd like to see a picture.

Igloochic, I'm so sorry this happened. You've been so painstaking about every aspect of your renovation, and it's all come out so beautiful. I have no idea whose responsibility it is - probably shared between the manufacturer and the installer. Which probably makes it even harder to get resolved since each can point a finger at the other. I can see this being a major peeve for you, but it *may* be something you're going to have to live with given the difficulty of replacing the cabinet.

Or perhaps you should just take whatever compensation you can get for it and then hire a custom cabinetmaker to figure out what he/she can do with it to brace it and restore the pull-out functionality. (If you can find one that wants to take on such a small job... I'm sure it would be very expensive.)

Best of luck!! Let us know what happens...

I am so sorry to hear this. Like you need this right now in your life? Jeesh! I would have them reimburse you for the cab and the install and then they should pay for a master cabinet maker to come and fix the thing to your specifications! While they were at it, I would have that master carpenter also check the other cabinets to make sure they were installed and built to specs. Oh, and any MD costs associated with the thing collapsing on you, should be reimbursed. I am so sorry this happened!

There's got to be a way this can be fixed w/o the granite, etc.. having to be removed. I would insist they take care of this. It will drive you crazy for years, long after the compensation has been spent on something else. You spent so much time and gave so much attention to detail on this remodel, but as the customer you can't be expected to crawl under cabinets to make sure they are installed properly. I would show the GC he problem and ask him what he is going to do about it.

Have you asked your dealer and/or Omega what their solution is? I would make this THEIR problem, see what solution THEY can come up with, then decide if you feel it is adequate. I do believe in giving someone a fair chance to right a situation. If they don't, however, then go open up your gun case ;).

We are in the middle of a kitchen face lift, and we hired a cabinet maker to help us change around some of our existing cabinets, and change shelving, and he was able to do some very creative changes, even inside a cabinet (changing a pole style corner lazy susan to one with fixed shelves and kidney bean style rotating shelves- if that makes sense).

Anyway, my point is that from what we have experienced, a good carpenter can probably fix it with minimal structural changes to the outside. Good luck!

igloo: I think I get it, though I agree pix would help. You have three shelves, adjustable in height, supported by pins which push into holes on each side of the cab. Then you have pullouts which sit (and I presume are screwed down onto) these adjustable shelves. Is that right?

Now the right wall of the cab is angled so that the cab is wider at the back then the front? So the shelves now sit on the very end of the pins because they have to span an incorrectly long distance?

Not sure I fully get it, as I can't figure out what was supposed to keep the back of the shelf from lifting up off the pins when the slideout was fully extended? Pictures!

But...if my mental picture is correct then I do think there are solutions. The simplest thing is what you describe: I'd have them recut new shelves which are slightly trapezoidal rather than rectangular to completely fill the cabinet (not necessary to make it work but would avoid having a gap at the back), and then have them permanently mounted to the sides of the cab. I will make the argument that adjustable shelving sounds great but I'd guess that 99% of them are never adjusted again after the initial installation. With a few weeks of use you should have a pretty definitive idea of how you want them set. I think in a year you'll never think about it.

Just speculating, if you had the trapezoidal shelves made, you could also see if they could rout (route?) out grooves vertically to allow installation of those metal slotted strips which then use small metal clips to support the shelf. Would give you adjustability, especially since some of your holes have already been torn up.

Anyway, this is all guesswork until I can really see your setup. But, I bet this is fixable without too much hassle.

Hey Igloo,
I just read your post and I feel for you after all you have gone through both personally and with your builds.

I have Omega in my kitchen/fam rm re-do and I will say that I am so happy with the final product, though there were problems getting there. As you know, nothing is perfect. My carpenter is also of that belief. Consequently, he examined each and every cab before he (an OCD person, BTW), installed them. I did have to do some returns and re-dos but it was worth the wait.

Omega re-did anything that my carpenter did not consider "perfect" and not in a huge amount of time.

My point is, ask your carpenter if he studied the cab. Maybe he was in a hurry?

If the setup is like Clinrega described--drawers affixed to adjustable shelves supported by pins stuck in holes drilled in plywood--loading those pull-outs up with canned goods is just way too much stress on the cabinet. With the drawer pulled out & all of that weight pulled beyond & outside of the cabinet put a tremendous amount of stress on it--stress pulling downwards and outwards that could have levered the cabinet apart. So the carcass broke at it's weakest point, where the 1/4'' plywood was attached to the back of the cabinet.

Ok I can't answer everything here, but thanks all for the advice and support. Live Wire...it was an installer error. I suspect that his nephew installed this one.maybe not, but so far, he's not let stuff like this slip, so that further frustrated me. It could be as Ci-lantro said, that they aren't strong enough to support the load and the movement in the cabs came later....but I ordered this cabinet for this specific purpose, and each shelf is supposed to be rated to 100lbs, which is a heck of a lot more than five dozen can's of soup weigh.

Paulines...I had to laugh. Yes, I'll concede that I learned a hard lesson on Omega...I do like them in general...but there have been quality issues that I shouldn't have had to deal with considering the HUGE amount I spent on these cabinets. Add to that an installer who works by the hour..for more hours than any reasonable kitchen should take, and you get frustration :) And Paulines...hatchet burried :) But only 'cuz you also agreed about Palin :oP (If we were in person right now I'd buy you a drink and give you a hug).

Ok so clinresga...LOL could you please write up all my future descriptions? That was perfect. Now for the pics:

Ok so back of the cabinet, this is taken from the front, with the blum slide undone on the front side and pushed out of the way (in my attempt to repair). The opening in the back goes as wide as 5/8" where the shelf meets the back wall (hard to photograph until it collapsed on me...at which time I was too peeved to take a photo because
it fell on my broken wrist...which HURT!)

If you look on the top of this (which is the bottom of the shelf above) you can see how the shelf supports aren't able to catch enough of the shelf to hold it safely. In addition, they way that they hold the shelf when the drawer is fully extended is with a little plastic clip (all broken when they fell) which is no where near as deep as the new gap between the shelf and the support clip header:

The ideal placement of the shelf is on the peg right above it on the front of this pic. But now the hole has been stretched a bit, the peg won't stay in it and keep level:

I am emailing the cabinet sales person, and the GC (who is an excellent carpenter) to discuss this. My frustration lies in the fact that a) this shouldn't have happened...and b) the fix will probably delay the finish of this house to December, and honestly, at 20 grand a month...this kitchen installer is getting too much dough out of me! The money tree has aphids and they are not giving up!!

The backsplash is hand made tile, matched to my granite, and it's gorgeous...and would be a pain in the kiester to deal with if it has to come out. Not to mention my tile guy is out of state for the winter and I wouldn't trust anyone else with it because it's too freaking expensive and well...I've been through three tile guys LOL an only trust one of them!

I have a two year old...I hope to be pregnant again in a month or two, I have another house to start....I just can't take this job another few months (and I think given his current pace...the finished product of this kitchen, bar this cabinet repair, is out a couple of months). I don't care about the money...it's kind of the principal of the thing really, and probably a little bit of bitterness because I now have to wear a brace on my arm for a couple of weeks to heal again...that and my fear of what would have happened if this was my 2 year old pulling out the drawer...it could have been ugly!

Oh that gold L bracket...that was my attempt at stabilizing the shelf initially when the back clips gave way. I was trying to get them installed when I noticed the way the top shelf supports were hanging, and realized that it was going to take more than a simple support to deal with the issue here.

What would ya'll do??? I'm thinking giving up and finding a nice glass of wine? :oP

Igloo - I really feel for you. You're at the stage you wish it were all done and something else, and it IS big, just shoots you in the foot (or in this case your broken arm). Thank goodness you can dull the pain with a glass (or two) of good wine :)

In the meantime, the right side is up against another cabinet right? Then how did it move out so far? Makes me think the cabinets weren't butted up correctly either. Would it be possible to drill through the sides of both cabinets (this one and the susan one) and screw them together (for added support), ditch the shelves all together, and have full extension, non adjustable pull out draws made?

BTW, even though the shelves are rated to 100 lbs that is 100 lbs of straight down pressure. When you pull the drawer out, the center of gravity shifts and you end up with the front of the drawer being the heavy end of a teeter totter - the back of that shelf is gonna fly straight up. For safety's sake I'd pass on the adjustability.

It's pretty much what I envisioned. I'd say your priorities would be:
1) stabilize the right hand wall of the cab. It's really weird that it splayed out like that. When our cabs went in, the first thing was that the boxes, which had been built off-site, were installed. They were all 3/4'' plywood boxes, strong as can be, and each was freestanding and butted up against the next. Thus I'm mystified how your cab wall has "come loose." Has it actually pulled away from the cab top and back, or is the box intact but somehow built off-square? If the box has essentially broken, then there is a real long term structural issue as it's only going to move more over time. If the wall has pulled off the box and moved, then it should be possible to somehow brace and reinforce it back to original location. If it was just build out of square then that's a huge manufacturing issue but less worrisome structurally.

2) Once the box is repaired, if it's square then you're back to square one. If there is no way to fix the box to square, but it can be made structurally sound, then my suggestion of custom cut shelving exactly matching the dimensions of the trapezoidal box should still work. I would also definitely look at either permanently mounting the shelves (my strong preference, as I don't think any adjustable system will hold the shelves reliably enough to support a pull out with heavy cans) or a metal rack and clip system to replace the holes and pins system, which is inherently weak.

Wow. Messy. Keep us updated on progress. I'm particularly interested in how the box fell apart in the first place.

((Princess IglooChicken)) I hope you have gone to find a nice glass of wine and have tried to relax a bit. I like Livewire Oaks advice.
I bought a bottle of Vampire wine- you know I couldnt resist that label- so silly! at a little shop in Chestertown on Sunday it is perfect to drink to you and your bloodsucking $$$ installer!! LOL just kidding. nah thats what I will do after 5 today. It could help one of us! Shall I pop up there and share it?? Sue

Hi Igloo, I think live wire is right and this problem belongs to your installer. Clinresga brings up excellent points about what will have to be done to fix the problem. If the structural integrity of the "carcass" has been compromised, it needs to dealt with first.

A pullout, especially one intended for heavy items, is best hard-mounted; plastic pins and clips will be a constant weak point. If you are willing to give up the adjustability (and the carcass is sound), the easiest fix that I can think of is installing ledger boards to the sides and even the back of your cabinet onto which you can mount your shelves. I'm assuming (I can't tell from the picture) that your glides are mounted to the shelving rather than the cabinet since they are supposed to be adjustable.

What a pain! I hope your arm heals quickly.

Yes you should pop up Sue! I'll clear off the counters (which are full of canned goods now) and find some wine glasses to share :oP

Thanks all once again. I'm emailing the installer and the person who sold me the cabinets with pictures and now, with better possible solutions. The thing about the installer..see he's good, but slow, and my worry is if I put him on this, he'll never ever get to my master bathroom and finish my freaking kitchen (none of the trim is in place and the bay window seating isn't finished).

I would agree that the whole adjustable shelf thing for pullouts seems to be a flawed system, especially if you have inset doors as I do. And sadly, I have two of these same cabinets...so I wonder when the other one will fall apart?

Have you seen roll out shelves with the furring (sp?) strips on the sides? Medallion and Holiday both have this kind. I'll post some pix of the Holiday displays I have. We store granite slab samples inside it...very sturdy.

This might be a solution if you want to fix everything in place and not remove your granite/tile.

I'll look for a pic and post back here soon.

Thanks Kompy, I'd love to see that!

Igloo, stop worry about the kitchen, it will work out and call the babysitter, and GO GET PREGNANT! .

You can buy those plastic things at some Homeless Depot and Lowes and you can drill new holes a little above or below the damaged holes for the shelf if you need to (my husband drilled new holes in one cabinet as we didn't like where they were). But, Kompy is right about the weight - I have cookbooks in shelves and no issue with the weight for over a year. My though would be is to cut out the cabinet, order it without the legs/base, use the plastic ikea ones that are adjustable ones (I'd want a new cabinet if you are having this many problems) and reattach a new toeplate with some creativity depending on what the floor/cabinets next to it look like or your toeplate. That way it will give you the leverage to raise the cabinet in place, it will be lower when you slide it in and then it will raise up to the granite. Or, use shims or something else to raise it that is very sturdy or slide in the base as you can probably cut the base off, slide in the cabinet, then the base under that then use shims.

Found pix and thought I d/l them on to photobucket. Then a client came in to showroom...now I'm home and they're not there. I'll post them when I get to work tomorrow.

Let us know what your installer/GC/KD says about the problem.

pcjs you're a hoot :oP I'm trying!!! LOL This month we're going for sixtuplets :oP we'll see how it goes :oP

Now onto the cabs, kompy, thanks for taking the time to keep me in mind on this issue. I know you're awfully busy :) I'll check back for a pic tomorrow.

My KD emailed me after I sent her the pics with "OMG I can't believe this...I'm sending this to Omega and will work out the resolution with them". She might want to come by and see it as well for more pics, but this of course means I'll be living with this for a month or two while they work it out since it's a totally custom cabinet (and pc...we can't shim, etc., because it has a toe kick drawer that I'm not willing to give up).

Does anyone want to bet that my galldanged home will NOT be finished by Christmas? After all, it was supposed to be done two Christmases ago...so why get all gung ho now :oP

I went into the garage today and was looking at the trim pieces...give me a couple of days and I'll be installing the damn things myself!

Igloochicken what if you make them leave it until after the holidays so you can move in, it is just the one cabinet, si? Let them duke it out in the meantime. And then YOU get to say when they repair or replace. The timing will probably work out for after the holidays anyway. Heck it will look nice for Christmas at least. You can hide the canned veggies behind your onyx headboard - stack them for holding up the lights. heh heh.

Question before you start fixing things -- is that lazy susan cabinet square? It seems like that could cause some headaches down the road too if it is not. Is that cabinet level? If the floor below it and or the granite above it are not level, you could be adding other stresses on that box. Make sure you look at all the potential issues so you do only one fix.

Can they take out the shelves and put in a panel to fill the gap and reinforce the right side (and back)?

I went to look at my pantry rollouts. They are in a Woodmode cabinet and they install what's probably a 1x1 all the way down the side, front and back and the metal glides are attached to those. I have more dry goods in those pullouts, but they seem extremely solid. The need for clearance on the sides, even with frameless, means the pullouts have to come away from the sides and I don't see how pins could do the job. BTW, Woodmode uses metal shelf supports -- that might be stronger when you get the box fixed.

I'm sure you've got much more experienced minds than mine woirrking for you. Good luck, but I would not accept fixed shelves where I was supposed to have rollouts. Not the same function at all, and I would lose half the cans in there.

Good luck. It can be done, and it will get done. Just takle the time to figure out how to do it right.

Humm...sixtuplets... better start that addition now ... you'll never be leaving gardenweb (which is probably a good thing). Our few year redo has now changed to the 20 year plan, like our adoption plan - we just giggle at the look on the social workers face when she looks at the unfinished walls and other stuff....you get to a point where you stop caring but of course we don't have the excuse of paying people.

Now, forget the silly cabinet... work on baby (of course, its easy for me to say with all my cabinets in)!

In one of our cabinets (the one which faces the family room) we have what is basically an inset door, and this is what it looks like:

While we "lost" maybe two inches to hold the support for the roll-outs, we do have roll-outs and MAN are they sturdy! Let me take some detailed pictures for you (after dinner -- gotta eat!) but this was something done after the cabinet was built / installed. (Our cabinetmaker didn't realize how the surrounding wainscoting was going to be fabricated by the carpenters [I guess -- I never understood what happened] and this cabinet was always supposed to have roll-outs. So they pieced this together and it works great!)

Sue you made my mother crack up :) Yes, the canned food would be perfect behind the bed...we can haul it out every time I have to make soup for the little guy :oP Great idea you pest :oP

PC I"m trying....LOL We'll see.

lascatx...the question about squareness is an issue I'm concerned about. The granite and cabinet are both set level (I checked) and the granite does rest on the entire box so I don't currently see any gaping issues, but I do worry about the situation down below getting worse. I'm thinking that a fix much like Rm's is probably going to be our option, but if the cabinet isn't solid, that's just a bandage, and then, I do have another in the same situation, but it isn't showing wall board behind it yet. (Same tray shelves and pullouts)

I will say, after this I really wish that Woodmode would have been able to do our kitchen. They couldn't do all of the custom pieces I needed (mostly our bay window) so we went Omega. I regret it, which is sad to say given the price of these stupid cabinets. My mother has been complaining about the plastic supports since she arrived LOL I think I'm going to reorder metal ones from an after market source. I like the idea of more than a piece of plastic holding up my dishes.

I personally think the system is flawed. In a smaller cabinet, perhaps it might work, but when you pull the shelf out, it is front heavy if it's loaded. The two cabinets we have like this are about 50% of our storage, so being without them for a period of time is really an incovenience.

Well we'll see. I'm honestly at the end of my rope on this remodel.