Roper Rhodes Equinox Bathroom Cabinet Review

A year or so I moved into a rented property with an installed bathroom cabinet of Roper Rhodes (Model Equinox). A few days ago I narrowly escaped an accident.

What happened is that there was a toothpaste box at the top of the cabinet. When I closed the cabinet door, the door pushed against the toothpaste box and unhinged the cabinet and almost crashed down the floor. Luckily I caught the cabinet in time and nothing happened except for being shocked a bit.

In hindsight it was a bit careless of me to put the box on the cabinet like that. Another problem is that the wall is not solid brick wall but plasterboard. I've yet to find out if the builders used special plasterboard wall plugs as described in the manual. However the product also has design flaws in my opinion in that the cabinet door doesn't end where the cabinet ends, it sticks out/protrudes.

Also it doesn't help that the cabinet has only one screw at the bottom and that the wall brackets are fairly short. It didn't take much force to unhinge the cabinet. It came off very easily.

Now if a little child won't be able to stop the bathroom cabinet from dropping on it. This can cause serious injury.

This model in particular is quite dangerous in my experience. I've seen Roper Rhodes has also other models where the door isn't designed to stick out like that.

Below is a YouTube which demonstrates the design flaw. The door presses against the toothbrush box. And the box is pressed against the lamp. If I would close the door completely you can figure out what would happen.  The door acts like a very powerful lever.

YouTube video demonstration this (Click link)

I've tried to explained the problem to Roper Rhodes, but they don't think its a problem. The answer I got from them:

Thank you for your email.

We are sorry that we have not come back to you sooner.

We are also sorry that you experienced a problem with the cabinet, from the pictures you have kindly provided it does look like one of our Equinox cabinets.

We have been selling the cabinet for a number of years since 2007, we are not aware of any issues where the whole cabinet can so easily fall off the wall. We have attached the fitting instructions and would suggest that how the cabinet is fitted onto the wall is checked, as part of these instructions it is clear that the cabinet is fixed securely.

If the correct fixings have not been used, please advise and we can replace.

I've written them a follow-up email and I will update this blog post if there are new developments of this story.