Before, During and After a Remodel
The Install Documents to Hand Your Contractor
Two Viking documents, handed to the right trades, settle most install arguments. Viking Appliance Repair Denver — call (720) 770-4189.
Written by Natalia Vukovic
Role Service technician — water systems and leaks · 17 years in the trade
In the trade Finds where the water goes before deciding what is wrong. A seal that shrank at the corner and a fitting that weeps look the same on the floor and cost nothing alike.
Most installation arguments on a kitchen job are not disagreements about skill. They are two trades working from two different pieces of paper, or from none. The appliance paperwork is the cheapest coordination tool on the whole programme and it is free, which may be why it so often arrives in a carton on delivery day rather than in an inbox at design stage.
Which documents exist
Viking publishes these per model rather than per product family, and two of them matter to a build. The installation instructions are written for the person fitting the appliance. Take the contents page of a current 5 Series built-in refrigeration guide as the example of what is inside one: dimensions and specifications, cutout dimensions, anti-tip dimensions, cabinet information, custom side panel and door panel dimensions, unpacking and moving, hinge adjustment, kickplate installation, door stop adjustment, final installation, and a performance checklist to sign off against at the end.
The use and care guide is the other one, and it is written for whoever ends up cooking. It holds the operating detail, the cleaning chart, the first-use instructions and the model’s own service and registration information. It is not a substitute for the first document and a cabinetmaker handed it instead has effectively been handed nothing.
Both live on vikingrange.com and both are looked up by model number. Not the series, not the showroom shorthand, not what the appliance is called in the specification schedule — the model number on the order. Two appliances in one family can differ in exactly the dimension your joinery depends on.
Who needs which one
Split the documents by trade and hand them out individually rather than emailing one folder to everybody, which reliably results in nobody reading anything.
The cabinetmaker needs the installation instructions, and needs them before the drawings are signed off rather than before the units are built. Cutout sizes, cabinet detail, panel dimensions, door swing and anti-tip positions all belong to them. The electrician needs the electrical requirements for each appliance, which is a page and not a paragraph. The plumber needs the water supply requirements for anything that takes water, including the note about leaving enough line to draw the unit out of its enclosure later. The gas fitter needs the gas requirements and the shutoff detail. The mechanical contractor needs the ventilation figures. Keep one copy of everything yourself.
Handing them over at the right moment
The timing is what makes the difference, and it is earlier than instinct suggests. Installation instructions are a design input, not a delivery accessory. They arrive with the appliance schedule, before the cabinet drawings are approved, because that is the last moment at which an opening is still just a line on a drawing.
Practically, that means the appliances are chosen before the joinery is drawn. Every designer knows this and every programme is occasionally asked to break it. Where it does get broken, the honest position is to say which dimensions are now assumptions and to mark them as such, so that the change, when it comes, lands as a change rather than as a surprise.
Keeping a copy after handover
Viking asks for this in the documents themselves, and it is worth honouring. The installer should leave the instructions with the owner, who keeps them for the local inspector’s use and for future reference — and the use and care guide carries the same direction, in capitals, to keep the instructions for future reference. Neither line is boilerplate. A guide left in the house is what lets an inspection be answered without a second visit, and what lets somebody arriving years later work on the appliance that is actually there.
Scan them. Keep the files with the model and serial numbers, the purchase date, the installation date and the dealer, which is exactly the set Viking wants when a product is registered or a service call is opened. A drawer in the new kitchen is a reasonable second home for the paper. A skip on the last day of the build, which is where a good proportion of them end up, is not.
One term, defined
Installation instructions
The document Viking publishes per model for whoever fits the appliance, holding cutout and cabinet dimensions, panel sizes, anti-tip positions, door swing and a performance checklist. It is a different document from the use and care guide, and the trades need it long before the owner does.
Spec check
Confirm each of these before anything is cut, ordered or delivered.
- The exact model number of every appliance ordered, not the series name and not the showroom description
- That the installation instructions are in the cabinetmaker's hands before the joinery drawings are approved
- Which trade has been given the electrical and water requirements, and whether they have read them
- That the appliance schedule names one document per appliance rather than a folder of everything
- That the installer leaves the instructions in the house at the end, as the manufacturer asks
Questions on site? Viking Appliance Repair Denver, (720) 770-4189.
Follow-ups we get asked
Is the use and care guide enough for the contractor?
No, and this is the most common substitution. The use and care guide is written for whoever cooks on the appliance. The installation instructions are written for whoever fits it, and they hold the cutout, the cabinet detail, the panel sizes and the anti-tip positions. A cabinetmaker given the wrong one of the two has been given nothing useful.
Where do these documents come from?
From vikingrange.com, looked up by the model number of the appliance you have actually ordered. Dealers often hand over a printed copy in the carton as well. Where the two disagree, the document currently published for that model is the one to work from, since printed inserts travel with stock for a long time.
What if the appliance has not been chosen yet?
Then the cabinetry is not ready to be drawn, and saying so early is the cheapest thing on this page. Openings, panel sizes and service runs all come from a specific model. Viking Appliance Repair Denver takes questions on that sequencing at (720) 770-4189, though the answer is usually the same: choose the appliance first.
