Had refrigerator and dishwasher with cabinet panels and no hairline cracks. I call BS on your contractor! Are the pulls meant for appliances or for cabinets? The one's we installed were heavier and meant for appliances.

Yea they are appliance pulls. There must be a way to make the panels so that they don't crack that quickly/easily.

Brian are you referring to the vertical crack at the top of your photo? That's where the stile meets the rail. When you mentioned hairline cracks I was thinking of spider web type cracks around where your pulls are mounted. Wood cabinets will expand and contract and show the type of separation you are talking about. Is it happening in other areas?

They are not really cracks, just expansion at the jointery of the wood.

What bry said. It's the nature of real wood. If you didn't want the cracks to eventually happen, then you should have had the doors made out of MDF.

Interesting.

I can stick my nail into it for what it's worth. My contractor's millworker suggested switching to a flat panel, which makes sense if the issue is where the joints are, a flat panel doesn't have joints.

Is it an indication of low quality wood that it happened so fast? Or poor millworking?

Should I ask my contractor to have his millworker make it out of MDF? Or do something else? He's offering to replace the doors.

It's opening happening on the two doors that require a lot of force: the dishwasher and one of the fridge doors. The contractor is blaming the force of the opening, not the expansion of the joints.

Would appreciate advice on what I should ask my contractor to do as an alternative. I am also hearing from ya'll this is pretty normal and not to panic about it.

Can you get a picture of the top and bottom of the rail and stile?

I am looking for this detail

Feature or flaw?

I'm guessing the cabinet doors would meet/exceed any national standard.

Built in refers may have unusually high suction for the first 60 seconds after closing & the length of the doors will put significantly leveraged pressure on that corner if opened during that time so if you cannot live with it you will need to go flat panel.

Painted surfaces will show this quicker than stained, but they will all do it sooner or later as its a wood joint.

I’ll try to get a pic in a bit (not at apartment. We move in tomorrow) but it’s painted wood so the joints might not be visible anyway.

" Is it an indication of low quality wood that it happened so fast? Or poor millworking? "

No and no. 'Real' wood expands and contracts at the joints.

That is 100% normal. It’s all about wood moving with changes in humidity. The only way to minimize that is to make your doors out of MDF, stiles and rails, and the center panel. It will not eliminate it. It will just minimize it.

This s what happens with real wood doors as many have said, expanding and contracting.
I am surprised your contractor does not know this.

Wood expands and contracts-this is normal. May I suggest you check your humidity levels-it may be to dry in your home and increasing the humidity level could improve the appearance.

Hm. Interesting. Glad it’s not cause for concern about quality. My gut says we’ll notice the panels being a different style moreso than the crack. Is it the panel breaking or a crack in paint? Like wil the door break in a few years?

The crack you are showing looks just like normal wood movement, however, I suspect it is not.

Wood is hygroscopic, thus swells and contracts with changes in humidity. That is what people are talking about when they say wood moves. Since wood moves quite a bit tangentially and radially but very little longitudinally cabinets are constructed with rails and stiles so you are only swelling the width of the edge pieces rather than the width of the entire cabinet.

You will often get a crack where those two boards meet, because your rail is swelling and shrinking across its width but the stile is not moving over its length, this difference in movement is what creates the crack.

However, that doesn't mean that all wood movement is normal. Since only the refrigerator cabinet door is cracking, I suspect the refrigerator door is flexing as Jeffrey Grenz noted. That is a fairly long rail, thus a pretty good lever and that joint is just not that big. This isn't a problem alone but could be additive to any natural movement you have.

I would not get a flat panel, what you have now even with some character is better than a solid panel door in the scope of your kitchen. You might have your cabinet installer try to release some of that tension on the lever up there.

If the refrigerator panels were the clip type I would first try moving the clips away from the corners a bit to give that joint a bit of space to move. If it is the panel-spacer-panel type just remove a few screws in that top portion.

Also since it is a refrigerator panel and only the outside matters, you can have someone route in a nice corner brace to remove the pressure on that joint. Having said this, it could just be normal wood movement. A pic of the top and bottom might help a bit or it might not tell me anything.

Best of luck.

MDF a much better choice for painted cabinets.

Attached pic of from POV of looking up at the bottom of the panel door. The crack seems to run through where the joint is.

Hope this helps diagnose it a little more.

This doesn't look like just seasonal expansion. Especially if its only happening on those two doors. Looks like a poor quality joint and the long style with the handle does not have enough fastening contacts. It shouldn't be pulling on the top and bottom rails. I build doors differently then this to avoid this problem.

Hard to tell... it may not be a true stile & rail door, but an overlay, leaving a weak joint. Explore with the cabinet maker. Otherwise, it all looks pretty nice.

MDF isn't always the answer. Its heavy, chips easily, and it warps under its own weight for cabinet doors during shipping if you're getting a manufactured cabinet and stuff gets laid on its side. I like it for paint grade inset panels.

That picture is a little blurry. See if you can get one better. With autofocus, it may require you to put something next to the door that the camera can see clearly, like some newsprint.

This begins to look more like that 'style' is pulling away from the door. Hard to tell. Also, since it is a refrigerator door, there are some restrictions as to how it gets made, so it can mount to the door. See if the cabinet guy (assuming this is custom) can stiffen the back and the corners.

If this is the joint, it’s the cabinet makers fault. I’ve never seen a professional make a door panel like this, especially one designed for a refrigerator door.

The joint is not what I expected to see.

Are you in the U.S.? I can't see anyone just doing a rabbet for cabinets, it just doesn't save money, and that is usually the excuse for substandard work. Having said that, I don't know any cabinet maker in the U.S. doing rebated mortise and tenon joints (a.k.a. offset mortise and tenon). Which would certainly be a stronger joint, but a serious time sink.

Can you look at some of the doors on your other cabinets to see the detail of the joint, even painted they can often be seen?

I am in the US but my cabinet maker originally did millwork in Korea. I’ll take some other pictures of the doors when back at the apartment in a couple hours.

This negates most comments above your photo.

Any advice on what to tell my contractor to tell his millworker on redoing it?

So it sounds like this isn’t a humidity / normal issue and instead a function of how it was made? I assume it’s occurring because of the force of the pull and then exposing the joint / not sturdy enough for a panel.

As long as he remakes it out of wood, you'll have cracks! It makes absolutely no difference what kind of joint he uses. Wood swells and contracts with the seasons. You can't fight Mother Nature.

True, any wood framed door will have cracks. That one is suspect for long term strength of the join. Structural integrity has become the issue, not aesthetics. Aesthetics, any door will visually look the same in the end. But, wanting one to not come apart when you try to open it will be pretty important.

Hallett & bry911 <------ what they said +++

the panel is weakly constructed, not what we expected to see, not a typical stile & rail joint.
it's not due to normal wood expansion/contraction.

I am hesitant to solve this problem as there is significant possibility this is a small part of a larger quality issue.

So first let me talk about what we expect, what we love and what we are surprised by with pictures (note: this is very subjective).

What we expect to see in a joint...

This is pretty much the standard scope and stick joint for U.S. cabinets. Even incredibly cheap cabinets will use this as it is also very price effective.

This is what we can't see but would love on these types of cabinets.

this is a haunched tenon and there are other versions that are just as good. It gives more strength than the traditional cope and stick joint.

This is what yours looks like and is not what I would consider acceptable for cabinets.

I am concerned if cabinets that are going to see any real use are constructed like this. Maybe a curio cabinet with glass inserts type of thing would be fine.

However, it could actually be this...

this is a rebated mortise and tenon and would be superior to cope and stick. But probably inferior to a haunched tenon, at this point in quality it really doesn't matter.

Japanese and thus really Korean joinery is something of legend. Structures built without a drop of glue or nails that have withstood hundreds of years of earthquakes and storms. So it is entirely possible that these cabinets were constructed like that, I would be floored if that were the case and the bill should be very impressive if they were.

----

As to the fix. It is a lever problem on a door where only one side is important. Router and chisel in a small pocket, epoxy in a 1" wide flat corner brace and drink to your victory.

This is my take on what I see. Others may see it differently and certainly we are moving out of my wheelhouse, so I will claim no authority.

Hope this helps.

Hi Brian! Although this post is very old but I found it while fetching answer the same problem I am having.
By any chance are these cabinets from Diamond cabinets ? Or Master brand cabinets ?

As another poster commented, the original post is old. However, we have the identical doors/cabinetry with similar handles. A $22,000 kitchen from Woodcrest (company based in the USA but bought in Canada through Home Hardware), and 80% of our cabinet doors showed the same cracks. We ordered our kitchen cabinets in Sept 2020 and they didn't arrive until February 2021 due to COVID issues at the Woodcrest plant, shipping, etc. Bottom line, possibly due to COVID staffing issues, the quality control was non-existent. In addition, the paint finish wasn't smooth into the corners or on many of the center panels and we could see the woodgrain through the paint. We had cabinets that were warped, not joined correctly, cracks showing in the joins, etc. We had a Woodcrest sales rep come to the house and try to tell us it was all normal. When he tried to straighten 2 of the doors to eliminate a warped bottom shelf, he couldn't do it and had to concede the cabinet needed to be replaced. They replaced 7 cabinets but were not going to replace all of the doors...and we argued that if the newer doors came in with a different (better) finish then the other doors wouldn't match. Our Home Hardware store footed the bill for the remaining doors and it all went under warranty. Unfortunately, some of the replacement doors were no better than what they sent originally and almost 5 years later we are considering repainted/spraying them ourselves. We were going to purchase the MDF shaker cabinet doors because I don't like cleaning in the cracks of shaker doors, but I was talked out of it by our kitchen designer claiming MDF doesn't last as long and has "wear" issues over time. I regret every dollar spent on the maple kitchen cupboards we paid way too much for and still have the cracks showing on many, but not all of our cabinet doors.