Before Selecting the Outdoor Kitchen Location - Consider Everything

How important is location?

Location is one of the most important considerations in designing outdoor kitchens. It highly relates to each of the outdoor kitchen’s quality aspects.

Planning responsibly the kitchen location includes applying all the right considerations, ensuring a high quality that is characterized by solidness and durability, as well as an appearance with aesthetic value that’s preserved over time.

However, most important is choosing the right outdoor kitchen location that’s helpful for your functionality and ease of use. Choosing the right location shall prevent unwanted interruptions resulting from surrounding conditions, ensuring convenient and efficient usage at all times and for any purpose.

The following recommendations will assist you in predicting and carefully examining the surrounding conditions of your outdoor kitchen and thus making the right decision for its location.

Planning according to current garden, yard and house

The first thing to consider when choosing an outdoor kitchen location is the current conditions of the kitchen surroundings. The yard and garden are usually equipped with a variety of elements and furniture, and though some will be placed elsewhere and make room for the new kitchen, there are others that will stay put.

Among the elements found in the yard, the most important ones for choosing an outdoor kitchen location are the seating areas, plants in the yard and garden, and recreation areas such as swimming pool, trampoline and children’s play area.

Choose the kitchen location by emphasizing the following

• Safe distance from recreation areas in the yard: The outdoor kitchen usually consists of a grill, which involves fire and smoke. The recreation corners, on the other hand, are mostly occupied by children. Therefore, we recommend separating them from each other. It’s best to keep the outdoor kitchen away from these recreation corners and thus enable the children to play and run wild at will without danger.

• Reasonable distance from the seating area: Just as the grill’s smoke might disturb the children, it might also disturb the adults and diners in the seating area. However, there usually aren’t any naughty behavior in the seating area, in contrast to the children’s, so it can be located closer to the outdoor kitchen. Moreover, the food cooked in the kitchen is intended to reach diners in the seating area. Therefore, a reasonable distance between them will enable easy and quick access, as well as eye contact of the cook with the guests, so they become part of the hospitality experience.

• Prevention of Leaves shedding and Dirt: Shaded corners under trees and climbing shrubs may be beautiful and magical, but they can accumulate dirt, and so it’s best to avoid placing an outdoor kitchen in those areas. Shedding of Leaves or small fruits and the presence of birds between the trees might mess up the kitchen if it is beneath them.

• Easy access to the house: The outdoor kitchen is smaller and more limited in space than the indoor kitchen and mostly needs a convenient and quick passage from one to the other. It is therefore advisable to place the outdoor kitchen next to one of the house entrances, thus enabling quick access inside to transfer products and tools.

Planning according to future modifications

Just as we build the outdoor kitchen, we may in the future wish to change or add elements in our yard. Once that happens, we don’t want to create dilemmas of location and organization of elements in the yard.

Attempting to look ahead and anticipate the modifications that may come about in the yard and garden, we can save a lot of time in the future and may, in some cases, save the need for renovation.

With a proper understanding of the yard structure and the desired changes or additions in the future, we can choose a great and satisfying outdoor kitchen that will stay that way over time.

The kitchen’s angle to the sun during operating hours

The considerations in choosing the outdoor kitchen’s location include not only the relation to various yard or garden elements, but also to its functionality and ease of use. One of the most important aspects in this respect is the angle of the sun and its potential to dazzle and disturb us while working in the kitchen.

To maximize the functionality of the kitchen, we shall design its location so that it won’t face the sun during operating hours.

To design it best, consider the following recommendations

• Which side is the yard facing? The sun makes its way from east to west through the southern part of the sky. A yard facing south will thus absorb sunlight throughout the day. A yard facing east or west will absorb much sunlight on one part of the day and only a bit of sunlight on the other. A yard facing north will absorb only a bit of sunlight throughout the day.

• When are your operating hours? Meaning, during which hours will you usually work in the outdoor kitchen? The sun will come from east in the morning, south at noon and west towards evening. Depending on your main operating hours in the kitchen, it can be designed so that it will not face the sun at that hour.

• What sort of sun shadings are in the yard? Roofs and sheds are usually helpful and prevent dazzling, making it convenient to work in the outdoor kitchen beneath them. However, the sun shading space must be considered because different angles of the sun are of great influence on the shade spread, depending on the different hours and different seasons of the year. In this respect, the emphasis should be on the times when the sun is low and at a sharp angle. This occurs early in the morning or towards evening throughout the year, but also occurs during the day at winter when the sun is at a relatively sharp angle coming from the south in the afternoon.

Wind direction check

Another natural element to consider is the wind direction and force entering the yard.

Powerful wind may interfere when working in the kitchen. Moreover, when we cook using a Grill, smoke is likely to take the undesired directions, like the interior of the house, seating area or children’s play areas.

If we check the wind directions, we can plan our kitchen location, so it’ll be exposed to only low levels of winds and avoid these difficulties.

The wind forecast is not as easy as the sun’s forecast and has no permanent movement directions relating to time of day and season. Still, this consideration can be conducted according to surrounding conditions.

The more open the area, the greater the wind blows. The surrounding conditions can be examined by two elements:

• Architectural surrounding conditions: Architectural wind barriers can be anything from fences or walls around the yard to neighboring houses that block the movement of the wind. The denser the yard constructions are, the lower the exposure to the wind. But this is valid only when the constructions are at the same height. Once a yard is elevated above other constructions in the same area, it shall be exposed to wind even if the other constructions are dense.

• Geographical surrounding conditions: Natural wind barriers are characterized mainly by height differences. Every space is exposed to wind from lower areas. Thus, a house built on a slope will absorb wind mainly from the direction of the descent. A thorough geographical examination will also include the surrounding conditions on a larger scale to locate the natural wind barriers.

Preliminary examination of power and water points

An outdoor kitchen, like any other kitchen, needs access to electricity and water systems in order to function as desired.

A preliminary check of the electrical system layout and water pipes will unveil the strategic points for the new outdoor kitchen that will require the least hassle.

In the ideal scenario, power and water points will all be ready-made and need only to be connected to the outdoor kitchen, but often that is not the case.

Many times, it is necessary to change the layout of the power system and the water pipes in order to connect a point in a disguised manner.

A preliminary examination of the systems will greatly facilitate this process by discovering the extent of work needed to connect the kitchen to the infrastructure.

Safety

Kitchen location considerations should be conducted in conjunction with safety considerations that include the yard’s surrounding conditions.

The outdoor kitchen is an area that may include burning fire and power points, so should be kept away from elements which might create danger when encountering them.

One of the most important security items to emphasize is the shading. Safe shading should be used for the kitchen, protected and safe from contact with the grill fire.

By giving serious consideration to the kitchen’s safety, we can ensure a useful outdoor kitchen that only benefits and adds to the experience of your stay in the yard.

Consult with experts

Considerations regarding outdoor kitchen location include numerous parameters that should be considered in relation to each other, considering many surrounding and natural elements.

You should facilitate the process by consulting with architects, and home and landscape designers who hold expertise in the field and know how to make the right considerations and decisions.

The professional experts at Outopia will be glad to assist and guide you in making all the right decisions.

Thus, you can obtain the perfect outdoor kitchen, ideally located in your yard or garden, to produce a quality and enjoyable experience.