Outdoor Kitchens & BBQ

An indoor kitchen placed outside fails within months

The most common mistake in outdoor kitchens is using ready-made indoor units. MDF absorbs moisture and swells, ordinary hinges and runners corrode, and indoor worktops crack with temperature swing. The result looks excellent for six months and comes apart after a year.

An outdoor kitchen is built with a concrete or resistant metal carcass, clad externally — closer to a small structure than to furniture.

Smoke direction is settled before anything else

A grill produces smoke, and smoke travels with the prevailing wind. If the seating sits downwind, it becomes unusable at exactly the time it is meant to be used — while cooking. So establishing wind direction at the site visit precedes deciding where the grill goes.

In semi-enclosed spaces extraction helps. In fully open areas, orientation is the answer — an extractor in open air captures only a fraction.

Worktops: sun makes the difference

Natural granite handles sun, heat and staining. Marble is more beautiful but stains from oil and citrus and needs constant care — and this is a kitchen, not a living room. Some indoor-grade quartz yellows under prolonged UV exposure, so the outdoor-rated type specifically is what is required.

Waste does not go to the garden

An outdoor sink discharges water carrying grease, detergent and food residue. Routing it to the garden — which happens often in rushed work — damages soil and plants, attracts insects and creates odour. The correct connection is to the drainage network, decided at the services stage before the carcass is built.

Electricity and water

Outlets must be weatherproof with covers, and the circuit needs an earth-leakage breaker. An outdoor kitchen combines water, appliances and metal surfaces in open air — its electrical situation is unlike anywhere else in the house.

Safe clearance

A grill generates high heat. The distance between it and any combustible material — timber cladding, fabric canopy, dry planting — must be adequate. This is frequently overlooked when a grill is placed under a timber pergola without calculation.