Door and Drawer Alignment
At Kitchenfix, one of our specialities is door and drawer alignment.
After a while your cabinet doors and drawers may go out alignment for many reasons. Most often, the reason is improper installation or low quality hinges or slides. Modern cabinet hinges from reputable manufacturers are tested for thousands of cycles. Hinges by Blum, Grass or Salice can give you years of use, provided installation was done correctly, with the proper fasteners installed according the manufacturers' specifications.
We frequently find the wrong types of screws used which causes the hinge to loosen over time. In addition we commonly see drawer slides – also known as "gliders" – installed crooked with protruding screws that interfere with the proper operation of the drawer.
Cabinet door hinges have multiple adjustments are are surprisingly complex. The adjustment is limited so it is important that installation was done in a precise manner, otherwise no amount of adjustment will work to align the doors. Only a few brands and styles of drawer slides have adjustment — some have no adjustment whatsoever. Some have up down and some advanced drawer slides have left right adjustment as well as forward and rear tilt. As a general rule, after a few years of use, all drawer slides and cabinet door hinges will have to be replaced, unless they are from of the reputable European brands — Blum, Grass or Salice.
Another important factor is the installation of the cabinets themselves. If they are not installed level and plumb the doors may alway look out of alignment. Usually, if we replace some or all of the hinges as required and possible drawer slides, we can achieve almost perfect alignment of all the doors vertically and horizontally, with equal spacing distance between each.