Chief toe kicks are incorrect

[WHirsch]

It's been years (decades actually ) since I had any involvement in cabinet production. Back in the days of small production shops and simpler machinery, the 4" toe kick height was standard. With the advent of the 32mm system and digitally controlled production equipment, it makes sense (read dollars) to change the standard. By reducing the box height to 30", which is the same height as the standard wall cabinet, one setup for the panel saw or CNC router is eliminated in a production situation, and all cabinet jambs can be cut in a single run. My guess is that's why this has changed.

[tlsapp]

It' s a matter of preference- some builders (I'm one of them) prefer to place the cabinets before the finished floor. A 31" cabinet box, a 4 1/2" toekick, a 1 1/4" countertop, minus a 1/2" floor with its glue and underlayment will be finish out around 36" or just over.

I worked in cabinet shops for many years, and rather than change all your setups for box and door heights, it's simpler to change the toekick to make minor height adjustments.
A good custom shop will ask you "Which are you installing first, floor or cabinets?", and make the necessary adjustments to the toekick.

[dshall]

Our house part of a development of 300 units and built in '79, came with 8" toe kicks at bathroom vanities to possibly save on cabinet cost.

At a savings of maybe 100.00/cab unit with 3 baths per house which would be a savings of $90,000 dollar savings to the builder for this development.

Now assume he does 3 of these developments a year, and he works for another 20 years, that would be a savings of $5.4 million for him.

Oh how I love capitalism.

[dshall]

Wow dshall, what is with the double spacing, your posts are looking like Lew's.

[Dave Pitman]

It's been years (decades actually ) since I had any involvement in cabinet production. Back in the days of small production shops and simpler machinery, the 4" toe kick height was standard. With the advent of the 32mm system and digitally controlled production equipment, it makes sense (read dollars) to change the standard. By reducing the box height to 30", which is the same height as the standard wall cabinet, one setup for the panel saw or CNC router is eliminated in a production situation, and all cabinet jambs can be cut in a single run. My guess is that's why this has changed.

Me thinks you are on to it big time Warren!

[lbuttery]

Wow dshall, what is with the double spacing, your posts are looking like Lew's.


Scott:

resistence is futile

Lew

[jmedgar]

Not just toe kicks. Many of the default settings in Chief are weird. Doors, for example. The setback to the center of the knob is a uniform 3". Why is anybody's guess. The standard is 2-3/4" for exterior doors, 2-3/8" for interior doors. The default for door hinges is "invisible". When was the last time you saw a door with invisible hinges?

Toe kick height is, IMHO, the least of the problems with toe kicks. You cannot set the texture separately from that of the cabinet, so toe kicks always end up with the wood grain running vertical rather than horizontal. I have never seen a factory cabinet toe kick with vertical grain. Its a PITA when you want the toe kick to be a different texture -- stainless steel, for example.

A lot of these little nuisance problems would take virtually no effort to fix, but they have been around forever -- at least since V7.

Regards,

[louis]

Our house part of a development of 300 units and built in '79, came with 8" toe kicks at bathroom vanities to possibly save on cabinet cost.

That 8" toe kick is still standard on accessible cabinets. I have a couple of lines that do that.