Hafele soft close cabinet drawer slides?

9 years ago

My contractor installed Hafele soft close drawer glides on my cabinet drawers. I went through to test them and some glide easily, while others are quite stiff and don't close far enough to "catch" the soft close unless shoved with more force. It seems like the smaller drawers are more affected than the larger ones.

I asked my contractor why he didn't use Blum glides as that seems like the industry standard from what I read online. He said they are expensive and not that much better. He also said once the drawers have weight in them, they will glide better. I have a hard time believing that the weight of kitchen utensils will make that big of a difference in the small drawers.

This is supposed to be a higher end, custom cabinet company, with numerous, all 5 star reviews on Houzz. I have been less than impressed with some of the quality of their work so far. I have had them fix many things on the cabinets that should have been caught before leaving the factory (cracked wood where hinges are screwed into cabinet doors, cracked drawer boxes, poor lacquer based finish paint issues, etc.)

I would like to know what others think about the Hafele drawer slides.

Featured Answer

zone 8a no longer SETX

7 years ago

Hi, How did you end up liking these closers? Im re doing some drawers and came across these... not sure what I should spend or what brands matter. Thank you.

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Comments (7)

PRO
Strott & Company, LLC.
9 years ago
Your contractor is correct. The drawers will work better when they are loaded. Also, over time, they loosen up. Unless they bind when closing, I think you will be surprised at the difference.
PRO
Ellsworth Design Build
9 years ago
The other thing that sometimes happens is sawdust or worse granite dust gets in the slides during install. That can destroy them as it gets into the mechanism.
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atozkids
Original Author
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Hi, I do NOT like these Hafele glides or hinges. They are cheap and inconsistent and DO NOT work better over time - they are slowly getting worse. (Our contractor, Pacific Coast Custom Design in Fountain Valley, CA, cheaped-out everywhere possible.) It does make a big difference if you use Blum drawer glides and hinges. We had a reputable cabinet maker install another built in using BLUM and the quality is amazing. (It was Joe Carter in HB, CA.) He said they always use Blum Glides. It seems to be an industry standard for REPUTABLE carpenters.
zone 8a no longer SETX
7 years ago
Thanks for the honesty!
PRO
Brian Gannon
7 years ago
Not really true and might be due to how your carpenter installed the slides. People insist on these so close and if you see the complexity of the slide you will understand they will fail.

The weight of the drawer does effect closing. I guarantee the slides on those slow closing are misaligned. You can try loosening the screws and see if it helps. On the cabinet side there should be at least one adjustment, vertical.

Single center wood slide will last a lifetime but the horror of hearing it close, oh my!!!
Sebastian Grey
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Yeah some of these can be shady. I had Hefe in my last home. I did not like them. I struggled with it and so did my wife. I started looking for something to change that. Since we were planing to move in a new home anyway we were looking for new kitchen cabinets. Since the previous one were such a flop we desired to do something we might like. Everything we saw at Ikea and Home Depo was not what we wanted so we started looking for a personal design. While researching we came across this type of cabinets that involved a telescopic mechanism. It looked promising so we started looking for people who would be able to build it for us. I came across this German contractor who was willing to do (teleskopschienen Schranken as he called them). It took a while and it was kind of expensive but I am really pleased with the result. My wife loves it too.