Good afternoon Festool members;
I was invited to log-in for the purpose of answering some of your questions / concerns about our product, the EZ-Level Cabinet Leveling & Stabilization System. First let me say that I have been remodeling houses since 1985 and kitchens for the past 10 years or so. Before the economy died we had a 3 month waiting list for any new kitchen remodel, as we only had 3 crews running at the time. Our kitchens ranged from $10,000 – $120,000.
There are parts of a remodel that warrant time spent, but wasting time on any part of that remodel destroys overall profitability. All good managers know this and spend countless hours assessing and adjusting so that every hour spent on a job is profitable.
Shims were out of the question, and like many of you, we tried the other levelers including the ABS Plastic Legs. However, I noticed that in almost every case two men would be tied up leveling… as one was crawling underneath the cabinets while the other was looking at the laser line. Not to mention they shear off if you try to scoot the cabinets around. (which happens a lot) We also built ladder boxes (or toe-kick bases) but that wasn’t much quicker (albeit more stable)
Therefore I set out to develop a system (for our own needs) that would adjust through the toe kick so that one crew member can level a kitchen quickly while the others move onto something more profitable. I spent 3 months engineering our system and at the time it was ugly, but it solved the problem immediately…with the exception of the fact that the other crew members would stand there and WATCH as the other would laser level the kitchen … because it was “cool”. However it gave me an idea. Because it’s so unique and cool to watch we started to “promote” the system to our customers, therefore we named it the EZ-Level. By doing so we had customers inviting their neighbors, and friends to watch as we split the laser beam in minutes. Some even posted on you tube! The word got out quickly and the phone started to ring with new orders because of the levelers. Who would have thought?
So I spent the next years perfecting and patenting it to sell on the open market. Surprising to me was that 80% our customers are “homeowners” who in turn give them to their installers to install. Come to find out… they could care less about the time savings… but they care a great deal about the “Long Term” and are all too happy to invest a few extra dollars for the best foundation possible. That gave us another idea. How about offering the EZ-Levels as a premium upgrade for installs? WOW… who would have ever guessed that 95% would be eager to pay for a leveling system? Now… they don’t cost a dime for a lot of jobs.
So here is the scoop:
1. Installation - It takes approximately 10 minutes for me to install levelers on an entire kitchen. (the first job will take you an hour to read the directions etc) Most installers that have been using our system say it takes approx. 15 minutes to install the levelers. There is no measuring because we include a drilling jig to mark for the holes in the toe-kick. Drilling the hole with a paddle bit is not easy so we sell a “step bit” which bores the whole in about 15 seconds.
2. Time Savings - At the Vegas KBIS show I demonstrated LIVE… Laser leveling an entire kitchen in less than 5 minutes! I also have a video of a kitchen whereby I laser leveled a kitchen in 4 mins and 13 seconds. On the job I usually laser level kitchens in about 10 minutes.
3. Other Problems - On my own kitchen I had 4 pieces of granite installed around a wall which meant that the granite itself was not perfectly flat. In that case I simply continued to adjust the cabinets after the granite was sat into place… so that they fully supported the granite. In essence I had to “un-level the cabinets”, but it fixed the issue in a few minutes.
4. Missing tile – Sometimes the tile is missing where the old cabinets used to be. Sometimes the new cabinets set half way on top of those tiles. Before our levelers… that was a time suck… but with the EZ-Level system it simple doesn’t matter. You could set the cabinets on gravel and leaser them.
5. Water protection – To me it’s a big deal because I sold a TON of kitchens to folks who had a small water leak (from their ice line or whatever) which trashed their cabinets. Insurance companies paid me for their new cabinets but they never paid for the new back splash, or anything else because they weren’t technically damaged. In every case the customer ended up losing money. Plywood cabinets were not covered for replacement… those had to be removed and refinished as they are not a total loss according to the insurance company.
6. Cost – You do not need two sets of levelers per cabinet. Cabinet runs only need levelers on each side and at each seam (like fence posts). This yields a cost of approximately $20 per cabinet. (if the customer does not pay for the leveling system)
7. If your competition is still using shims and your customer sees our video, you will win the bid every single time. Once a customer is informed of things like Thermal expansion, settling etc they will demand a leveling system that fastens securely to the cabinet. That way they stay put no matter what.
8. I sell composite shims on my site because you still need them when it comes time to fasten the cabinets to the wall. There will always be a gap that needs filling. Screw through the cabinet, shim and into the wall. (I provide any and all tools I find helpful to my customers)
9. I also gained two kitchen jobs (both over 30,000) because the clients wanted to keep the existing granite in place. No one else would attempt it but we did. We simply stuck the ez-levels on 34” 2x4’s and used them as little jacks holding up the granite while we cut the old cabinets out… one at a time. Both jobs were VERY hard to do but we charged them HOURLY and they didn’t care. (also we had to cut to bottoms of the toe-kicks off because they had tiled “to” the old cabinets. ) We did so… slid them in… dropped them into the hole and leveled them up until each corner rested on the granite. My customers were elated! (I was relieved).
10. I also gain numerous OLD HOUSE remodels. We have a lot of 100 year old homes on the beach and they love our system. If the house settles in a year… just tweak the levelers to make sure everything is still stable. (those jobs are usually higher priced remodels too which is always good)
11. Can I laser every single kitchen in less than 5-10 minutes? Not always… Most of the time… yes. Some of our larger kitchens take a bit longer. Big islands take time, and some kitchens are a disaster from the start… or their cabinets aren’t flush on top or something. But here’s the cool thing. Even if it takes me 20 minutes to laser those kitchens… just imagine what it would have taken me without the EZ-Level system!
EZ-Level Reviews - Here is the bottom line for me:
*Time is money… and the EZ-Level’s save a lot of time.
*Having a reputation for using the best materials, tools and methodology gains long term referrals.
*Protecting customers from potential long term disasters also gains referrals.
Those are the reasons why we have so many contractors who purchase the EZ-Level system every single month. It improves their overall bottom line.
Thank you Ken for allowing me an opportunity to respond to the group.
