Cooker in corner?

[wannabeanomyous]

Can anyone help me find the relevant regulations. Due to the layout of our tiny kitchen we currently have a cooker hob about 15 cm from a side wall.

We need to replace roughly like with like but have been told by the planners the freestanding gas cooker must be at least 30cm from the wall. And 30 cm from the sink on the other side. We can manage 20cm but not 30 due to the other stuff that needs to be fitted in.

I can't find anything clear and legal to confirm whether the 30cm is a guideline or the law. If it's the law we'll have to spend 1000s rearranging the kitchen.

I've spent hours googling with no clear results, and there is nothing in the cooker manual which is leading me to hope it's not the law. Is there anyone who help, ideally with something written down I can show the fitters to convince them?

Are you talking about kitchen planers or council planning department? Would it make any difference if you were to switch to electricity instead?

Try phoning the council planning department. They should be able to tell you the legal requirements.

Are you sure there is nothing in the manual about clearances? I'm in the process of buying freestanding gas oven and the manual has a page with an illustration of clearances (for info, mine are 20 cm each side to anything flammable - I can't see how a sink could possibly contravene that since it is flush to worktop any way).

What my googling did reveal is that what is in the manufacturers manual 'trumps' any other GasSafe guidelines etc.

We need a new freestanding cooker sometime and our 20 year old one is up a corner. I did look into this a bit and it seemed best to go with a independent gas fitter as some things are recommendations and a kitchen planner will want to cover all of these to tick boxes, I would probably get an independent gas fitter round and see what they say, as Origamiwarrior said the manual is the one to follow.

Thanks all, I'll try the council tomorrow, didn't think of that.

I've been told it would be the same for electric but that may be the way to go if it would help. Although I'd rather stick with gas, mainly because we have an old cooker in the garage that we hope to use - this is the one we have the manual for.

I've had a good look at the manual, all it says is 5 mm before the next unit (but it's an old cooker). But thanks origami if yours says 20 that indicates we can get away with it.

Wowfudge it was the kitchen planners (big company) who said it had to be 30 but I can't get a straight answer on whether that's what their design programme says or whether it's law.

If we can find an independent who will do the gas it wonder if we can get a firm to fit the rest of the kitchen, leaving a gap where we want the cooker?

Come to think of it a brick wall shouldn't count as flammable anyway?

Don't know about this specific issue, but "kitchen planners" in big chain shops are sales people who have been trained to use a design programme - most have very little actual knowledge, and in my experience are pretty incompetent!
Get a second opinion from someone who knows.

I would probably get an independent gas safe engineer to look at the cooker and space to see if it is all ok and if it is get them to fit the cooker, then sort out the rest of the kitchen with a fitter.

bumpertobumper I think you are right about the planners but I can't find anyone who does know. It should be written somewhere findable if it's a law surely?

Lightasthebreeze that's probably the way we'll go, if it is legal. Complicated though as the current one is built in so to get it out we'd have to remove the counter and the sink so the timing will be complicated.

We can't sick with the old kitchen because half the cooker is out of action and the rest likely to follow any minute but this is so much hassle and cost. I'm never going to get anything built in again!

I suspect 30cm is a guideline due to that being the smallest commonly available cupboard and also for reason of pan handles etc it's ideally not hard into the corner. But you can get narrower units with pull out racks in now. You often see cookers/hobs in a chimney breast fitted much more tightly into the space.

Else can you get a slightly narrower sink/cooker and steal a few cm from each? Cannon do a good 50cm range of space saving freestanding cookers.

Diagram from Argos website on the "hot" zone:

Thank you notme, that's really helpful. I now see our cooker socket is in the "hot zone" so something else to plan moving. Still looks like we can do it one way or another without too much pipework. Evidence on the way to the planner.