DADO cabinetry comes with a lifetime warranty, and the asterisk on it matters. The hardware and the mechanical parts, meaning the hinges, the drawer slides, and the soft-close mechanisms, are covered for life. The wood and laminate finishes typically carry a one-year manufacturer warranty. That is the whole promise in two sentences. The rest of this post explains why it is split that way and what a warranty does not cover, so you know what you are buying before you sign anything.
The parts of a kitchen that move are the parts that fail. A hinge opens and closes several thousand times a year. A drawer slide carries a full load of pots every time you pull it. A soft-close mechanism cushions the last inch of every one of those cycles. If any of those parts fails through a defect, at any point, it is replaced.
This is the part of the warranty that is easy to keep honest. A mechanical part either works or it does not, and a failure shows itself in use: a door that sags, a drawer that runs rough, a soft-close that stops closing softly. There is no judgment call about wear, because these parts are built to take that wear for the life of the kitchen.
The wood veneers, the painted slab MDF, and the laminate finishes are surfaces, and they live in a working room. They sit next to steam, sunlight, and hands. The manufacturer warranty on a finish is typically one year from delivery, and it covers manufacturing defects: a veneer that lifts, a paint layer that bubbles or peels on its own, a laminate edge that separates without being hit.
A year is long enough for a manufacturing defect to show. If a finish was going to fail because of how it was made, it will do so early. What a one-year finish warranty does not cover is the way every finish changes with normal life, and that is worth reading closely.
A warranty covers defects in how something was made. It does not cover what happens to it afterward. On finishes, the things that fall outside it are the things a kitchen actually does to a surface over ten years:
None of that is a defect. It is life in a kitchen, and no honest warranty pretends otherwise.
A lifetime promise on a painted surface would be a promise nobody could keep. Paint on MDF in a kitchen will meet steam, sun, and a thousand fingertips a week. Putting the lifetime part of the warranty on the hardware and the mechanical parts puts the promise where it can be kept, and puts the one-year term on the part that fairly needs judgment. We would rather you know the split now than find it in the fine print later.
Coverage runs from the delivery date, so keep your delivery paperwork with the rest of your project documents. If a hinge, slide, or soft-close fails, tell us and describe what it is doing. A mechanical part is a straightforward swap. If a finish shows a defect inside the first year, send a photo and we will look at it against the same standard we build to.
The word lifetime on its own tells you very little. Ask which parts it applies to and for how long. Ask what counts as a defect. Ask when the clock starts. Ask whether the answer is written down. Our answers are above, and they are the same answers you will get in the showroom. A warranty is part of what you pay for when you choose custom cabinetry, and it should be as plain as the price.
If you are planning a kitchen, the Vancouver Kitchen Cost Calculator gives you a planning range in a minute, and what you pay for when you choose custom explains what sits behind that range. When you are ready to talk through a real kitchen, book a free consultation at the Kitsilano showroom.