Water damaged cabinets in Lynn, MA nearly always start in one of two places, and Custom Cabinets Lynn checks both before quoting anything. The first is the floor of your sink cabinet under the trap. The second is the end panel beside your dishwasher. Replacing a swollen base or end panel costs you $400 to $1,400. A smaller repair to a shelf, a floor or a joint in the front frame sits at $120 to $600. Those are different jobs because particleboard that has taken on water never dries back to its old thickness, and no amount of fans changes that. Both lines sit on our cabinet price guide with their sources.
Water finds cabinets slowly. A trap that weeps a drop an hour puts nothing on your floor and everything into the cabinet it sits in.
By the time you notice the swelling, the water has usually been arriving for a year or more. So we look for the source before we look at the damage. Replace a base under a joint that is still dripping and you buy the same job again in eighteen months.
What your cabinet is made of decides the rest. Solid wood and plywood swell, dry out and mostly recover, so we usually repair those. Particleboard is wood chips and glue pressed together. Once it takes on water it stays swollen, and it never grips a screw again. That is what you are looking at in most kitchens built after about 1970.
What has actually failed
The floor of your sink cabinet, where this starts
The floor of your sink cabinet takes drips from the trap, the water connections and the disposal collar. It is nearly always the first panel to go. Push a blade into the back corner and you have your answer. Sound board resists you and swollen board takes the steel like cheese. Replacing that base runs $400 to $1,400, depending on the width and on whether your counter has to come off to get it out. We tell you which of those two you have before we start.
The dishwasher end panel and the cabinet beside it
Your dishwasher throws steam sideways into the cabinet next to it, and a worn door seal sends water the same way. The panel on that side goes soft while the rest of the run still looks new. It is easy to miss, because the damage faces the machine rather than the room. We pull the kick board and look up into that bay on any kitchen we quote. What we find there changes what refacing is worth to you.
The kick board, the cabinet floor and the back panel
A slow leak that reached your floor rather than the cabinet shows in the kick board first. By then it has usually traveled under two or three cabinets. Back panels are only a quarter of an inch thick, so they go early. Where the sides of your box are still sound, we rebuild the floor and the back in plywood at $120 to $600. That is a repair rather than a replacement.
A drawer box whose bottom has dropped out
Drawer bottoms sit in a shallow groove and they are the thinnest part of any cabinet. A wet drawer sags in the middle until the bottom drops out of that groove. We rebuild the box in dovetailed hardwood at $180 to $450, and our door shop in Lawrence cuts it to your opening in 1 to 2 weeks. Your runners come off the old box and go back on the new one where they are sound, or cost $60 to $180 a drawer where they are not.
The case where it was never a leak
Sometimes there is no leak at all. A cold water pipe in an uninsulated outside wall sweats, and that does the same damage as a drip. A 1946 Lynn kitchen on an outside wall is the usual candidate. Your fix is insulation and a sleeve on the pipe rather than a plumber. We say so when we see it, because chasing a leak that does not exist is an expensive way to spend your Saturday.
How we find out which one it is
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We find the water before we look at the cabinet
We check the trap, the water connections, the disposal collar, the faucet base and the dishwasher seal. The panel is the symptom and one of those is the cause. Your repair only holds if the source is dealt with first, so we would rather have a plumber in before we build anything.
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We probe every panel in the wet bay with a blade
We push a blade into the floor, the sides, the back and the kick board, in several places rather than one. That takes four minutes. It separates a $400 base replacement from a $1,400 one, because your number depends on how many panels have gone rather than on how bad the worst one looks.
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We check whether your counter has to come off
We look at how your countertop is fixed and what it is made of. A stone top over a failed base is the biggest single variable in this job. Where we can rebuild the base in place through the front, you keep your counter and your money. Where we cannot, you find that out at the quote rather than on the day.
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We rebuild in plywood rather than in what failed
We replace a failed particleboard base with 3/4-inch plywood, and we can specify a panel made without added formaldehyde where you want to know what is in it. Your new floor gets sealed on every face and every edge. The underside of a sink base is the surface nobody ever finishes, and it is the one that gets wet.
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We refit your hardware and tell you what to watch
We reset the runners, hinges and any pull-out on your new box, and Blum parts come through North Reading within a couple of days. We tell you which joint failed and what it looks like when it starts again. The second leak in the same cabinet is usually the same fitting.
What water damage changes about every other quote on your kitchen
Why Lynn homeowners call us about a wet cabinet
Nobody wants to pay for a new-looking kitchen sitting on a rotten box. So we open your sink base with a blade before we price anything else. Most houses here went up around 1946 and the cabinets in them were fitted in the seventies or later. We replace the boxes that have gone at $400 to $1,400 each and repair the ones that have not at $120 to $600. You get both numbers on the same quote.
Refacing over a failed box is the expensive mistake here
Refacing is a door and skin job. New veneer over a box that has already swollen lifts within a year, and the veneer gets blamed for a fault that was there first. You would have paid $150 to $450 a linear foot for a finish sitting on a box with two years left in it. We replace the failed box at $400 to $1,400 and reface the sound ones around it. Those belong on your quote as two lines you can read apart.
A swollen panel cannot be dried out and reused
A cabinet shelf and its fixings have to hold about 15 lb per square foot for a week without sagging or pulling out. That is what the trade standard asks of a new cabinet. Particleboard that has swollen has lost the squeeze that grips a screw, so the fixing lets go even after the panel looks dry again. That is a mechanical fact rather than an opinion about drying time.
Cutting out a painted base in a pre-1978 kitchen is regulated
Lynn's median build year is 1946, so the paint on your old base may contain lead. Once we disturb more than 6 square feet of it, the state lead-safe rules apply, 454 CMR 22.00, and cutting a base out passes that in minutes. Sealing the room and cleaning it down costs $350 to $1,200 on its own line. The cabinet work itself needs no permit, because nothing about your plumbing, wiring or structure moves. Re-piping a trap or moving your sink does, and that is what turns a two-day repair into a two-week one.
Numbers worth knowing
| Replacing a water-damaged sink base or end panel | $400 to $1,400 per box |
|---|---|
| Localized cabinet repair | $120 to $600 |
| Rebuilding a drawer box in dovetailed hardwood | $180 to $450 |
| Drawer runner replacement, fitted | $60 to $180 per drawer |
| Lead-safe containment and cleanup | $350 to $1,200 |
| What a cabinet shelf has to hold | 15 lb per square foot |
A simple cabinet repair in Lynn runs $120 to $600. A hinge is $30 to $80 per door and a drawer runner $60 to $180 per drawer installed. A water-damaged sink base runs $400 to $1,400. What moves the number is whether the box is still sound underneath.
| What the job is | Typical range | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Simple cabinet repairA loose door, a broken shelf, a cabinet floor that has given way, a face frame joint that has opened. The visit and the fix together. | $120 – $600 | per repair |
| Hinge repair or replacementUsually done in pairs, because when one hinge cup has pulled out of the door the other is already loosening. Cheapest repair on the table. | $30 – $80 | per door, parts and labor |
| Drawer runner hardware, materials onlySide-mount runners at the bottom of that. An undermount soft-close set costs several times this and is a different line. | $7 – $15 | per pair |
| Drawer runner replacement, installedPulling the drawer, taking off the old runner, drilling and setting the new one, then adjusting the front so the reveal matches its neighbors. | $60 – $180 | per drawer |
| Soft-close hinge retrofit across a kitchenEvery door in a normal kitchen changed over at once. Worth doing as a set rather than one at a time, because the doors need re-adjusting either way. | $600 – $1,600 | per kitchen |
| Rehanging and re-squaring a run of doors after settlementWhere nothing is broken and nothing lines up. Common in older houses where the floor has moved under the base cabinets and taken every reveal with it. | $220 – $700 | per run |
| Rebuilding a drawer box in dovetailed hardwoodWhere the old box has split at the corners or the bottom has dropped out. Made to the opening rather than to a standard size, so the front and the reveals stay as they were. | $180 – $450 | per drawer |
| Replacing a water-damaged sink base or dishwasher end panelA particleboard base that has swollen under a slow leak does not dry back. It gets replaced, and the neighboring boxes get checked before anything new goes in. | $400 – $1,400 | per box |
Tell us about the problem
Send photos and one measurement across it, and we will tell you whether you are looking at a repair at $120 to $600, a reface at $5,000 to $13,000, or new boxes.
Questions we get asked
Can water damaged cabinets be repaired or do they need replacing?
It depends what yours is made of. Solid wood and plywood usually dry out, and we repair those at $120 to $600. Swollen particleboard never recovers, so we replace the box at $400 to $1,400. The board no longer grips a screw.
How much does it cost to replace a cabinet under the sink?
$400 to $1,400 for the base, including taking the old one out and fitting the new one. The spread is mostly width and whether your countertop has to come off. We check how your counter is fixed at the quote, because rebuilding in place through the front keeps that cost down.
How do I know if my sink cabinet is water damaged?
Push a blade into the floor at the back corner under your trap. Sound board resists you and swollen board takes it easily. Then pull the kick board and look up into the bay beside your dishwasher. That is the second place this always shows.
Will drying out a swollen cabinet fix it?
No, not in particleboard. The board loses the squeeze that grips a screw, so your fixings let go even after it looks dry. A cabinet shelf has to hold about 15 lb per square foot for a week, and a dried-out swollen panel will not.
Can I reface cabinets that have water damage?
Not over the failed box. Any veneer we put over a swollen box lifts within a year. We replace that box at $400 to $1,400, then reface the sound ones around it at $150 to $450 a linear foot. You should see those as two separate lines.
Who repairs water damaged kitchen cabinets near me in Lynn?
Custom Cabinets Lynn repairs and replaces water damaged cabinets across Lynn and the North Shore. A repair is $120 to $600 and a new base is $400 to $1,400. We find the source before quoting, because a rebuilt base under a live drip fails the same way.
Water damage changes what every other job on your kitchen is worth. That is why we open your sink base before quoting refacing, painting or anything else. Four minutes with a blade is the cheapest survey in this trade.
If the boxes turn out sound and it is the faces you have gone off, cabinet refacing is $5,000 to $13,000. Where the drawers rather than the boxes are the complaint, sagging shelves and broken drawer boxes covers that, and everything we handle lists the rest.