Low ceiling above oven in older house

[Jan49]

The house I live in was built around 1910. The kitchen ceiling is around 9 foot high. There's a built in electric oven and hob and above the hob the ceiling is lower, around five-and-a-half foot, so there's only just over 2 feet between the hob and the ceiling above it. My last home, built in the 1930s, was similar.

I think it must be something to do with what kind of oven the houses had when they were first built. Does anyone know? Also, isn't it dangerous to have the ceiling so close to the hob - fire risk? In my current house the ceiling is paint and plaster but in my last house it was tiles but also had a wooden shelf just above the oven but to one side, so not directly above, so if something had caught fire on the hob the flames could have quickly reached the wood. I would have thought this was unsafe but British Gas did a safety check of the oven and didn't say anything.

I'm not clear. When you say oven, do you always mean oven, or do you sometimes mean hob?

Sorry it wasn't clear. In the previous house it was a freestanding gas oven (low grill and main oven, with the hob part and 4 burners on top) and in this house it's an electric oven (the main compartment only) fitted between 2 fitted cupboards plus a separate electric hob (ceramic glass flat screen) fitted in the work surface above the main oven. So in this house the ceiling comes down low over the flat screen electric hob and in the previous house it came down low over the gas burners of the hob.

So when I say oven or hob in my first post, I mean whichever one I said, except when I said "what kind of oven the houses had when they were first built I meant what kind of means of cooking, not sure if it was even called an oven, maybe a range? Hope that makes sense!

ah, you mean "cooker"

a space of only two feet between hob and ceiling (is it a sloping ceiling?) is unusually small. Cooker hoods for example are usually higher than that.

The rules will be included in the installation instructions for the appliance, which will say how much space is required at the sides and above. If you can see the make and model of your hob the instructions may be on the 'net. They might refer to the closeness of a combustible material, in which case plain painted plaster would be acceptable as it does not burn (but will be damaged by excessive heat)

I haven't got an example to hand, maybe one will turn up.

I just found the installation instructions for a typical gas cooker by Cannon, it specifies a gap of 840mm above the hob (about 33 inches)

worktops are usually about 850mm above floor level, so that would mean a minimum ceiling (or cabinet or hood) height of about 1690mm (66 inches, or five foot six). that sounds about right, as cooker hoods are usually fitted (by sensible people) at a height where the user will not bang their head on it, usually six foot or more.

The instructions for your hob might be different.

A gas hob is required to be fitted by a qualified Gas Safe (formerly Corgi) installer who should be expected to install it correctly.

Thanks, PigletJohn!