Help, my oven is broken and no one will fit a new one

[LittlePickleHead]

We have a gorgeous, expensive bespoke kitchen that we inherited with our house that we bought 7 years ago. it’s Formica faced beech ply with granite work surfaces. The cooker is freestanding, with the space cut into the granite, and the extractor is built into the cupboards above.

the oven has broken a few times, it’s gas and a couple of years ago we ordered a new one with fitting and they ended up having to take it away as the distance to the bottom of the extractor/cupboards is 60cm and the regulations say it has to be 65cm. We’ve managed to get it fixed a few times but now it’s completely given up the ghost.

i thought we might be ok replacing with induction, but the regulations seem to now be the same for any type of cooker.

we can’t afford to get the whole kitchen replaced, or even the cupboards as the cost of the Formica has spiralled ( we recently got quoted £3.5k to install an additional tall cupboard!).

any creative ideas what we can do? I guess we could see whether a carpenter could somehow modify the cupboards so they are shorter by 5cm but I assume that will also be really costly.

I assume that the regulations must have changed since the kitchen was installed (it’s probably about 10 years old) so others must have encountered similar issues?

Yes, we had this. Had to end up removing the extractor fan ( which, tbh, we never used). Left a gap that needs tiling but haven't got around to that yet.

The Minimum distance for electric and induction hobs are lower so you could replace with a different type of

I think your best bet is to get a carpenter to shorten the cupboard above and move the extractor upwards so there is sufficient clearance. Or you could try replacing the extractor with a much smaller model if the current one is chunky? Unless you already have the type that is built into the underside of the cupboard above so no space to be saved either.

TBF 60cm doesn’t seem like much clearance, don’t you find the extractor and cupboards are in the way when cooking on the hob?

Gas now seems to be 75 cm, electric 65 cm. I would check very carefully before getting something. We had to change from gas freestanding to electric freestanding about 5 years ago because a window was in the wrong place as the regs had changed since we had our previous gas cooker.

"i thought we might be ok replacing with induction, but the regulations seem to now be the same for any type of cooker."

As far as I'm aware, the Building Regs don't specify a minimum distance. What the regs do say is that a cooker hood venting outside should be able to extract at least 30 litres of air per second (if the house was built or the kitchen altered after 2006).

Any extractor hood should be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. What you will need to do is look at the individual manufacturer installation manuals (for both hob and hood).

Ita the manufacturers instructions that specify the clearance - it’s minimum 65cm for all the inductions I can find.

the cupboard is actually fine as the worktop is extra deep so the cupboard doesn’t overlap that much, but enough to fall foul of regulations.

photos to show the issue - raising the extractor means modifying all of the cupboards above

So the issue is that we can’t get anyone to fit it as it won’t comply with manufactures specifications

Do the top cupboards go all the way to the ceiling? If not can you move then all up and retile?

I suspect if you can’t move the cupboards up you are going to have to replace them. Can you get a recommendation for a joiner/good kitchen fitter round to give some ideas. Our kitchen fitter was quite creative in a similar situation but where we had to make cupboards taller…

No, but there is boxing in/the extractor housing is build into the interior of the cupboard so it’s not really as simple as moving them up, they would need to modified

A good joiner could change the height of only the affected cupboards. It looks really low

I think this is going to have to be the approach, although the another annoying this is that the two centre cupboards that house the extractor aren’t centrally placed over the oven so it could potentially look a bit weird. So I think we’ll have to do the whole bank

Please show us the extractor inside the cabinet, and preferably the exhaust duct too, so I can see the problem

I would take the extractor out (or take the fuse out to prove it unuseable) while the oven was being fitted, and then put it back in afterwards.

That wouldn't help. The obstruction is too close, regardless of whether it is an extractor, a cupboard, or a shelf.

When you say you can't get anyone, do you mean the companies selling the new oven? I had this issue with a new gas hob - AO and currys refused to fit it as there was an electric socket closer than updated regs allowed. But an independent gas safe engineer had no issue replacing like for like - as long as not immediately operationally unsafe then it was legal for them to do. So maybe worth getting a second view, not just the appliance sellers?

Disclaimer - I don't know much about gas cookers, BUT I presume there's no point moving cooker to the alcove at the end on the left in the pic? Would involve moving gas supply I suppose and it may not be wide enough anyway.

If it were me, there's no way I'd pay for a whole new bank of cupboards and possible tiling and in filling, I'd take the hit and buy an induction hob and pyra clean electric oven for the space. Gaps around it if any can be filled.

I'm probably talking rubbish, but I couldn't face all that residual work and the expense for the sake of a cooker. But look, that's just me!

This doesn’t help as the cupboards are still too close for the hob to be installed

Not easy to show but you can see the extractor is build into the lower part of the shelf, then the duct is build into the shelves as a kind of chimney, it goes all the way to the top and then boxing goes along the ceiling to the outside vent

This is the boxing around the duct that goes outside, so the cupboards have been fitted around it. The issue I have with moving the oven (there is a gap to the left of the run where there used to be a panty door opening into the room) is that the granite fits the space for the oven and is now discontinued so I would then have to replace the worktop and get a new lower cabinet built. I can’t see any way of resolving this that isn’t £££ that we don’t have 😢

Ah, ok. As I said I am no expert, but I thought the issue might not be as critical with electrics rather than gas.

Sounds like a bit of a problem alright. I hope you find a solution within a reasonable budget for you. I'm sure there's an answer out there somewhere.

I hope so, we just redesigned the rest of our kitchen around the existing units so it’s a bit frustrating!

I think that can be resolved.

Since the horizontal duct is at the top of the cabinet, and has a vertical "chimney" running up to it, an extractor can be mounted higher up, with a shorter vertical run.

I expect there is a round tube of 100mm/125mm/150mm (the bigger the better) running to an elbow connector at the top, probably with a push-in fitting.

Your built-in extractor is probably something like one of these:

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Manufacturers/Elica/Built_In_Canopy/index.html

And you can get an example pic if how they are made from

www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/ELBOXINLX90.html

Have you considered buying second hand and fitting it yourself?
You could ask an electrician to check the load for the existing wiring (may need an extra heavy-duty wire for induction), get any work done and then, with max caution and good sense, wire the machine in.