So, I was all set to head off to Edmonton and order the kitchen tomorrow, until talking to my Dad, who has raised a few questions about the sink unit.... given the lack of clearance for pipework behind Ikea units, how solid (if at all) would a unit be without its back on? It'd be fixed to the wall and I could put a few battens (batons?) to hold it together. Otherwise, how do you accommodate the undersink plumbing?

Given the non-standard plumbing apparently provided with sinks, I think I'll buy a sink & tap somewhere else - does that sound like a good plan?

*sigh* so near and yet so far......!

Sorry to hi-jack this thread but it's one that appears quite frequently. Does anybody actually now why Ikea units are like this. What do they do in Sweden that is different to the UK?

Hi, this is a quirk of Ikea - really useful if you have flat walls with no pipes, as the extra space is great, but a pain if you have a pipe run.

What I did was put extra strapping into the rear of the unit and created a false back which was about 3 inches further into the cupboard. If you put in plenty of strapping it'll be plenty strong enough - especially when it's bolted to adjoining units and the worktop. I wasn't good enough to get a perfect line around the edges of the false back, so just used some caulk to trim the edge - looked fine.

If I were to do it again, I'd use a standard UK sink, I found the Ikea fitting's to be fiddly and not as secure as I would have liked.

As for why they do this, I can only assume that Swedish plumbing comes out of the floor rather than out of the wall - the diagrams for the sink fittings seemed to indicate this.

Beyond this quirk, I'd recommend them to anyone, great quality, good range and cheap.

Ta