UKH

Seven years ago we had our kitchen refitted. It was designed and supplied by a well known company and we employed a fitter ON THEIR recommendation.

The cooker is a range cooker with electric ovens and a gas hob. Either side of the cooker are two worktops which butt right up to the edges of the cooker. The worktops, however, are about 15mm higher than the hob.

I've now been told by a chap in the local branch of the company that designed and supplied that the hob and the worktop should both be at the same level. Does anyone know if this is correct? Raising the cooker on to a plinth of some sort might be nigh on impossible as it weighs a ton

If it's been like that for 7 years and hasn't bothered you yet, what's the problem?

I know what you're saying but I didn't know if it contravened anything like building regs.

Personally I'm happy to leave it as it is.

Even if it does contravene building regs, who on earth (from the land of officialdom) is going to know it is the case in order to carry out any form of enforcement?

FWIW when I fitted mine (electric cooker) I ensured they were aligned (by putting the cooker in first then adjusting the cabinet legs to match), but that's because I'm picky.  If 7 years on there has been no issue, as others say who cares?

If it posed a fire risk it'd have gone up by now.

FWIW if you are bothered you may find the cooker has adjustable legs to alter its height.

As per the previous post, there should be 15mm of adjustment available if it's an issue. (If it's a rangemaster the adjusters should all be accessible from the front).

As per everybody else, I wouldn't worry about it. If I had to choose between the cooker being lower or higher than the worktops then I'd go for lower, purely as I think higher would look odd and spoil the line of the surfaces, whereas lower would not be too noticeable. I assume the worktops have metal endcaps or similar fitted?

Out of curiosity, how did the guy see it, was he round to look at doing more work for you?

Similar to this but more rigid. Not metal. http://blog.decorati.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/foto04_borda.jpg

No, I was less than happy with his performance. Disappearing mid job, didn't finish on time...

It seems Mrs num num and Mr Boing boing are num ing and boing ing together.  

Yeahhh, loverly

Nothing in building regs. You're free to have your cooker like that.

We have my wife's crumble station on one side of our range cooker, this is a custom unit with a worktop height perfect for my (short) wife to stand and run flour and butter into crumble topping. Only the other side has a flush worktop.

Gas cooker jobs must have 50 mm ? ( can’t remember exactly) gap or fire proof protection to flammable surfaces horizontally. Normally this means aluminium end caps on the worktop either side of a cooler job. If the cooker is very low you could be beneath the metal end caps. As above most cookers have adjustable legs but as above who will enforce.

chris

That's correct, range cookers should be fitted flush with the worktops or set slightly higher. I would never think of having the cooker set lower than the worktops.

The cooker should be fitted according to the manufacturers instructions, I would recommend sending the range cooker people pictures of the fitted cooker if you want to know how this all stands from a safety perspective.

Best of luck

Making a cooker higger can always be done by putting something underneath it, if the cooker doesn't have a built in hight adjustment. As noted before, some do that you just remove the bottom decorative panel n wind them up or down.

Making them lower when they are not designed to adjust is a bigger challenge..

Seven years? Has it only just started itching?

Which, by the way, creates an almsot impossible to clean area of floor for spilled food to fester into lethal biohazards...

I doubt that building regs would go down to that fine a detail.
There may well be something within GasSafe regs on this subject though.

The only issue I can see occuring with your setup is that a lage pan on the hob could overhang or contact the worktops and result in either heat damage or worse catch fire.

There's bound to be some way of raising the cooker if needed.

There are no Gas Safe regs. Gas Safe is the body that registers those people competent to install to building regulations. So back to my original point, which is there isn't anything in building regs specific to gas hobs. There is something (can't find a link) about clearance above and the hob does have to be installed as per the instructions.

What seems more unusual is that the worktops either side butt up to the appliance which appears a no no for most devices. That could be old info, maybe manufacturers now make them so they don't need clearance. Apparently Rangemaster only require 2mm.

Cut a piece of Contiboard to fill in the gap - useful extra worktop when not using the cooker?