Which hinge do I need to replace a kitchen cabinet hinge?

People replace a hinge, find the door now stands 8mm out of line with its neighbour and no amount of adjusting brings it back, and conclude the new hinge is faulty. It is not. The three overlay types look almost identical in the box and put the door in three quite different places, and the mounting plate height shifts it again. Getting those two right is the whole job.

What you'll need

• The failed hinge, or a photograph of it fitted
• A tape measure or a steel rule

Step by step

1. Confirm the cup is 35mm.Open the door and look at the round boss set into its back face. 35mm diameter with two screws is the near-universal kitchen standard. 26mm cups exist on some furniture and on thin doors, so measure rather than assume.
2. Work out the overlay from how the door sits when shut.Door covering the whole thickness of the cabinet side: full overlay. Two doors sharing one side panel with the gap down the middle of it: half overlay. Door sitting inside the opening with its face flush with the carcass front edge: inset. This is the single most important thing to get right.
3. Read the crank on the arm.Sight along the arm from the side. A full overlay arm is straight where it meets the plate. A half overlay arm steps sideways about 9.5mm. An inset arm steps about 16mm. Many hinges have the figure stamped or moulded on.
4. Note the mounting plate height.Plates come in heights, commonly marked 0, 3, 6 and 9mm, sometimes as H0, H2 and so on. The plate height and the arm crank together decide where the door lands, so an identical arm on a taller plate gives a different overlay. Take the plate with you as well as the arm.
5. Check the opening angle.110 degrees is the standard kitchen hinge. 165 degree hinges are used where a door has to fold back past a pull-out or an appliance, and 90 or 95 degree hinges where the door must not hit something. Fitting a 110 where a 165 was will stop a carousel or a pull-out working.
6. Decide clip-on or slide-on.Clip-on hinges separate at the plate with a lever or tab, so the door comes off and goes back on its existing setting. Slide-on hinges are held to the plate by a screw. A clip-on hinge will replace a slide-on one and is worth the small extra, because it makes every future job easier.
7. Decide whether you want soft close.Modern hinges have the damper built into the cup body. You can also buy a clip-on damper that fits onto an existing plain hinge arm, which is the cheap way to convert a whole kitchen without changing anything else.
8. Buy one, fit it, then buy the rest.Fit a single hinge and check the door lands where it should before buying twenty. The five-minute test costs one hinge and saves a return.

Tips

• Photograph the fitted hinge from the side, with the door open, before removing it. The side view is the only one that shows the crank and the plate height together.
• Blum, Hettich, Grass and Salice are the brands you will most often find stamped on the arm. Matching brand is not essential, but matching brand makes the plate certain to fit.
• Sprung and unsprung hinges both exist. An unsprung hinge needs a separate catch to hold the door shut, and is used where a soft-close mechanism or a push-to-open catch does the holding instead.

Common mistakes

• Buying by cup size alone — The 35mm cup fits every time, which is exactly why it misleads. Overlay type and plate height decide where the door ends up, and neither is visible from the front of the hinge.
• Replacing one hinge on a door with a different type from the other — Two different overlays on the same door fight each other, and the door will bind, twist or refuse to close whatever you do with the adjusting screws.

Alternatives

• Clip-on damper on an existing hinge: A small sprung cylinder that clips onto the arm of a plain hinge and turns it into a soft-close one. Cheapest route to soft close across a whole kitchen, and it fits most 110 degree hinges.
• Push-to-open catch: A sprung latch fitted to the carcass that lets a handleless door be opened by pressing it. Usually used with an unsprung hinge, because a sprung hinge fights it.
• Full replacement hinge with integrated soft close: Cleaner and quieter than a clip-on damper, and adjustable for damping strength on better brands. Worth it if you are replacing the hinge anyway.

Questions people ask