Furniture hinges (furniture drapes) are together with the holders certainly the most used furniture fittings. Even if the hinges are not so visible as mounts, they are several times more stressed when opening the door. So, when you order furniture you have to pay attention to these less visible furniture fittings.

As any furniture fittings, also hinges are made in the various quality and the price categories. On the cheapest furniture there are assembled furniture hinges of Chinese production with almost no guarantee of quality (although the production of cheap furniture is one of the few industries where China does not have succes in Europe - in this case Polish furniture is popular), superior furniture is usually equipped with an excellent Blum hinges with complete guarantee. In the case of the furniture made to measure, the selection of appropriate furniture hinges corrects its final price - it depends on the customer’s priorities.

Well-made furniture hinges, however, do not guarantee long-term faultless and comfortable opening of the door. Another important condition for the smooth functioning is assembly. To make hinges work well, they must be fitted to approximately 100 mm from the top (upper hinge) and bottom (lower hinge) edge of the door. If the hinges are mounted from the edges to a greater distance, the action of gravity will change the position of the door (it will twist) and it will start to clash with the neighboring door (so it will not be able to close them), or in the worst case hinges will whip out of the cabinet corpus because of the door weight. A similar situation may occur if the manufacturer of furniture saves not only on quality but also on quantity. Rule is that the hinges should be from each other in distance of about 500 millimeters - that’s why the cabinet with higher doors must have installed 3 or more hinges (in determining the number of hinges there is important height and also width of the door).

For these reasons, I recommend to check and verify the location and number of hinges and test the strength of the suspension with gently pulling. If the seller of furniture says you to do not touch exposed furniture, it would be beter find your furniture somewhere else.