metric v. inches

petiegolfer said:
mm are definitely the way to go! All kitchen cabnets are measured in mm here in the UK....300's 400's 500's etc

300mm is just about 12inch's.

As has kind of been stated both are just scales...once you get your head around how big mm cm m look dividing by 10 etc is a lot easier.

Question: Why is coke sold in kilo's and cannabis in ounces? ???

Piers

Coke is sold in oz`s here  and pot is too.
Whats up with 12 inch cabinets?? Small kitchens I guess ,mine are 34 inches deep ,home made by me.Most big box store sell 24 inch deep cabinets the standard here.I like more room in front of the sink and in back as well,plus you get more storage as well.As far as mm `s go Its going to take me awhile to adjust I feel,I don`t have any rulers that are dedicated MM`s....But this Festool Stud I`m doing is going to get me into them I think.
 
the 300 / 400 / 500 etc on kitchen cabinets in the uk refers to the width on face of the cabinet box

in simple terms floor mounted cabinets are 600 deep (with 610mm / 2 foot ) worktops

most uk manufacturered kitchen cabinets have a service void of about 60mm (reducing the internal dimensions) others such as ikea have full depth cabinets

this variation is to do with reigonal differences (across europe) in construction

wall mounted cabinets are 300 deep
 
dirtydeeds said:
most uk manufactured kitchen cabinets have a service void of about 60mm (reducing the internal dimensions) others such as ikea have full depth cabinets

If I understand correctly, that means a false back leaving room for plumbing that's attached to the surface of the wall, or at least coming out of the wall?

I think continental practice is for the services to come out of the floor.  Is this correct?

North American practice has the services in the wall.  We have few stone houses, and few sod houses anymore.

Ned
 
quite correct ned

as always sweeping generalisations are dangerous............ however

we still build a large number of houses using a brick and block cavity wall (for external walls) so water and waste water services are still mainly face fixed to the wall, under floor services (at ground floor) are rare because of concrete raft foundations, or oversite concrete

face fixed services means rear service voids are necessary

as always this isnt totally universal, hot and cold water supplies are sometimes installed inside stud walls

the ikea units have no rear service voids, so it looks to me as if they are designed for services beneath the floor, no designer of kitchen units would design them this way if the services were face fixed

no doubt some of our continental memebers will correct me if im wrong

the requirement for cavity walls (for insulation) makes mass / monolithic wall construction nearly unworkable these days although (although some eco housing projects sometimes get the go ahead)

our version of sod houses is called cob, made of a mixture of clay and some gravel, sometimes but not always with straw as a binder

cob houses are a feature of devon
 
Ned Young said:
North American practice has the services in the wall.  We have few stone houses, and few sod houses anymore.

Ned

Hi,

                  The sod houses have all been recycled for use in the Spray On Mud and Throw On Dirt market. 

                            Referencing this thread bottom of page onehttp://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=3335.0

Seth
 
Using mm cm or m also depends on the scale of the thing being measured. small things like screws are mostly in mm ( 4x40, 5x60 etc) A small wooden beam of say 44x77mm and 2700mm long would mostly be described as 4.4 x 7.7 x 270 cm. Houses and bigger mostly in metres. Road distances= kilometers

Sometimes measurements are mixed: an MDF sheet would be 122cm x 244cm x 18mm

BTW doesn t IKEA sell tall kitchen cabinets that house fridges? They ll need that rear void for air circulation.

The primary reason IMO for that rear void as opposed to flat back cabinets is not only for the plumbing and electrical, it is mainly done to make installation easier in case the wall the cabinets are put up against is not straight. How are you going to shave something off a flat back cabinet?
 
johne said:
BTW doesn t IKEA sell tall kitchen cabinets that house fridges? They ll need that rear void for air circulation.

In the USA, IKEA sells deep upper cabinets to fit above the fridge, and finished panels to cover the sides of the upper cabinet and the fridge, giving the appearance (more or less) of a built-in.

I think IKEA cabinets sold here are becoming more and more North American-specific -- I noticed "NA" on some of the model numbers recently.  What we see here may differ from other markets.

The primary reason IMO for that rear void as opposed to flat back cabinets is not only for the plumbing and electrical, it is mainly done to make installation easier in case the wall the cabinets are put up against is not straight. How are you going to shave something off a flat back cabinet?

Very good point.
 
Ned,

what they sell over here is for example this one

[attachimg=#]

The lower door is supposed to house the built in fridge
From the looks of the photo i would say it has a closed back. Strange since most appliance manufacturers have guidelines as to the opening in the rear of the cabinet for circulation.

OT:  I was at an IKEA a few years back and was looking at some of their bedroom furniture. Some of the, what i thought to be veneer, at the bottom of one of the cupboards had come undone. Probably from the cleaners mopping the floor. I looked at that "veneer" more closely and it turned out to be paper. Paper with a cherry print on particle board ;D
 
johne and ned

thanks for getting back its good to hear about continental ways, we (ned and me) tend to hear mainly american and a few  ::) british

yes the scale of things being measured does change the unit of measurement

we use mm for screws

we use mm for beams and columns although a big column would be dimensioned as 5.300x1.500  the 3 digits after the decimal point tells you its in metres and the balance is in mm

if the retched drawing says 1.22 then you have to go checking what they mean, looking at the scale helps to define it altough a foreman would get it in writing (because it isnt ALWAYS obvious)

linear metres for fencing and crash barriers  and kilometres for road building (although our road signs are in yards and miles / mph)

but (in building and civil enginnering drawings) we DO NOT mix our dimensions

a sheet of ply is 2440x1220x18, although we would also understand 2.440x1.220x18

and as you and ned say ikea units with no service void are a pain if you need to "shave a bit"
 
the amusing thing here in england is the wish of people to have american fridges

the style that is a "larder fridge" ie fridge and freezer side by side with an ice maker in the middle

most of the time our internal doors are too small to get them in

our "rabbit hutch" spec housing doesnt help

(spec in this case means speculitive housing IE built to the absolute minimum dimensions possible under the building regulations)

these minimum dimensions are SO common here that there is a industry dedicated to produing 2/3 size furniture for show houses

partition walls in cheap spec housing are down to 60mm thick including 2 skim coats of plaster
 
Continuing the fridge subthread:  mine is 700 deep, 890 wide, and 1800 high.  Freezer and fridge side-by-side.  Most American fridges are deeper; we wanted a "counter depth" model.  Otherwise, the size of the thing is not remarkable, and growing families would want  a larger one.

When I lived in New York City, the refrigerator was much, much smaller, but then food shopping could be done conveniently every day, and the entire apartment was about the size of my current fridge.  :D

Ned

 
hence our problem in the uk

a standard internal door width is 2'3" yes i mean 2 foot 3 inches wide (because we didnt REALLY go metric in 1968, we just pretended)

so the door is 686 wide  (curiously a 27 inch door (at 25.4 mm/INCH)  is suspiciouslly and dangerously) close to 686mm)).................... especially allowing for timber movement

so an american fridge that is 700 front to back just wont fit sideways through the door....................
 
grinding

ill get back to you on that with coffin hatches in a moment

all uk doors (unless specifiacally metric (and different to autrailain metric sizes))

are sized from 2 foot wide incresing in width by 3 inches with a standard height of 6 foot 6 (1981mm)

just to confuse things this hasnt always been the case in edwardian times doors were 2 inches taller (6 foot 8...... the standard american height)

and to confuse matters entirely and completly if you are doing renovation work, then the doors were made to suit the frames...........

what does that mean.............................. each door was made to fit each frame regardless of frame size

a fully skilled carpenter was expected to make one door a day in an 8 hour shift, that timeing was still being quoted in english carpentry books in the mid 1940s

american books at the same time where expecting a framed roof to take a skilled man a full week

what is worse is it tells you that a tradesmans time (what ever side of the atlantic) was VERY VERY cheap in comparrison to the material cost
 
dirtydeeds said:
a standard internal door width is 2'3" yes i mean 2 foot 3 inches wide

DD, I'd have to disagree with you there - 2'6" (762mm) is standard, 2'3" is used if there's limited space available... :P ;D
 
jrb

i agree totally, we have standards then we go and ignore them

and building control officers accept it
 
they accept it because it is a "standard" size under 2 foot 6

ie 3 inches narrower (so technically its still an ALLOWABLE "standard" size door)
 
You have small doors over there,

The standard door width here in the low lands would be around 820 - 830mm height being  about 2000mm. The trend in construction is building houses with higher ceilings (people get taller) and so the door height standard is now around 2100mm.
 
of couse

because room sizes (for spec housing) in reality have no minimum sizes

then limited avaliable space means that in reality a 2 foot 3 door BECOMES acceptable

BECAUSE the rooms are so small the wall lengths mean they cant accept a bigger door

some "double bedrooms" in spec housing cant even take a (small)      4 foot 6 x 6 foot 6 double bed with walking space
 
johne

your comments reminds me of when i went down to tarifa windsuring, good diet is almost directly proportiaonal to height

older english are slightly taller than their german counterparts BUT the younger germans a strikingly much taller age for age than we are    (the same goes for most euopeans)

where im getting to is that we havent increased our "standard door" heights in 60 plus years but the height of a standard uk person has increased significantly

we still lag behind, at 5 foot 11 inches im relativly short these days

my dad at 6 foot 1 was quite a tall man (for his time) but nowadays would be seen as undertall

 
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