Would You Put a Cooktop in a Kitchen Island? | Tricky Requests

Would you put a cooktop in a kitchen island?

I’ve seen people asking this online, in person and even had it come up in my own office lately, so let’s consider it.

Now, as a general rule I would not recommend a cooktop in an island bench, but seeing as it’s a relatively common request from our own clients as well as elsewhere, there are ways to do it and I’m going to get into them now.

First of all, this is a matter I’d call a ‘tricky request’. It breaks some of the conventions many people assume and follow in designing their homes, but it’s certainly not impossible. When I have a tricky request for something I wouldn’t normally advise, I always like to treat it as an exciting challenge. It’s my job to listen to my clients after all, and observing the level of emotion around each request is one of the most important parts of working with them to design their dream home.

So much of design is about how we feel about our homes and how we want them to be. A client could be dreaming of a walk-in pantry because their grandmother’s home had one that was always bursting with goodies. A couple might be dreaming of entertaining and having family and friends visit and stay in a way that hasn’t been possible in previous homes. It may even be a distinct distaste for a certain finish because of negative previous experiences. Whatever the case, the level of emotion tells me if this will be a non-negotiable in their design brief.

From there I can prepare for a rational discussion, where the clients can feel heard and I can offer my professional advice so we end up with a home that is beautiful, functional and, most importantly, perfect for them.

My 4 step approach to tricky requests:

Step 1 – LISTEN

Or for a slightly less punchy heading, ‘listen and drill down to understand the reasons why and the emotions behind the request’

Step 2 – EXPLAIN

Going through the pros and cons

Step 3 – GIVE THEM TIME

Big decisions are best thought over with time, and with friends and family, especially where emotions are concerned

Step 4 – MAKE IT HAPPEN

If they insist, then my job is to problem solve for them

At the end of the day, it’s my client’s home, not mine. It’s their sanctuary, their escape from the micro stresses of the world. What stresses them might not stress me so I need to understand why and what is motivating their desire.

My clients have engaged me for so many reasons, but most of all to listen to them, to problem solve custom solutions just for them, and, finally, to design a home with them. It is my job to design a place where life flows stress free, a sanctuary of peace, joy and relaxation from the outside world.

And in order to achieve all of those things,  sometimes I need to handle a tricky request. So rather than ‘would you put a cooktop in a kitchen island?’, let’s talk about the ‘how’.

I have a wonderful client right now who really wants a cooktop in his island for valid reasons. He’s the main cook in the house and cooking really helps to destress him at the end of a hard day. He also has the most beautiful view of the harbour in his kitchen, so cooking against a wall isn’t exactly in his dream home plans. In addition to all of this, he and his lovely wife are very social and love to entertain, so on top of a gorgeous view, he’d also like to face his guests while he cooks for them. I could see immediately that there were a lot of strong emotions involved and that this was his non-negotiable, so I got to work.

Like many dreams, this trick request came with a few hurdles to problem solve.

Problem 1 – SAFETY

Cooking is a wonderful social activity, a rich and rewarding hobby and a really central part of the community in every home. However, it is also more than a little bit hazardous. Whether it’s steam or oil, having guests anywhere near a cooktop can be a dangerous affair. This was the first area to consider.

Problem 2 – UNDER PERFORMANCE OF RANGEHOODS

All rangehoods and exhaust options have to be vented safely to the outside. Nobody wants to entertain in a kitchen full of grease or smoke, right? If you are exhausting fumes from the middle of a room where islands are usually located, then there is a bigger distance to cover and multiple bends in the ducting may be required to reach the outside. This can reduce performance of a rangehood, which is of course not ideal.

Again, it comes back to safety. Rangehoods absolutely must perform as intended. They prevent kitchen fires by stopping grease build up and they improve air quality. The ventilating also prevents the growth of mold and bacteria in the kitchen, as well as helping remove offensive (sorry!) cooking odours like fish or garlic. Finally, they stop smoke alarms from triggering by clearing smoke and fumes. No sirens here please! And as a last note, many rangehoods have inbuilt lights which can really add to cooking whether that’s by making it easier to see or just adding to the atmosphere and experience.

Problem 3 – CEILING RANGEHOODS INTERFERE WITH SIGHT LINES

Remember that gorgeous view my client has? Well, overhead rangehoods require a minimum distance from the benchtop. If you add the height of a benchtop at 950mm and the distance to the underside for example being an average 750mm this makes the underside 1700mm high which is 170cm or 5’5ft. According to that math and many examples I’ve come across in my work, this obstructs views for most people.

Now there was a solution to this in recent years in the POPUP Rangehood, however they took up valuable under bench space and, in my experience, tend to underperform. They’re also not the most attractive and interfere with a clear benchtop and open sight lines.

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Problem 4 – COSTS MORE TO INSTALL

It really is what is says on the tin. This is a big one, especially when those design costs start to add up.

Hopefully it’s starting to become clear why I would normally never recommend putting a cooktop in a kitchen island. When I meet with my clients, it’s these problem areas that I flag to discourage them from these kinds of tricky requests. However, with the right set of circumstances and the right level of emotional investment, there is almost always a way.

For full disclosure, I am by no means new to putting cooktops in kitchen islands. My first case was in fact for my own home back in 2010. I had both a cooktop and a sink in my kitchen island, and my own set of reasons for making this design choice.

A little context here, my home was heritage listed in the Lower North Shore of Sydney, which, in the design world, can be the kiss of death, but to me it meant I could push boundaries and test ideas and concepts. I wrote my own design brief which included repurposing all doors and windows, even existing leadlight doors in fireplace cabinets which I relocated to the kitchen. This meant my sink and cooktop had to go in the kitchen island. I was facing the same issues then as my current client who wants the cooktop in his kitchen island. This was my dream projects… and it wasn’t easy, but the harder it is, the more creative I have to be and the more satisfying the journey and results.

When I put my first cooktop in my own kitchen island 15 years ago I faced similar problems to my client.

Safety for my guests was a relatively easy fix. In Australia it is recommended that there be a minimum distance of 600mm (or 23.6 inches) behind the cooktop. Not many people can do this due to space restrictions. This would mean your kitchen island would have to be approximately 1200mm wide (or 47.2 inches). My space could not fit a 1200mm wide kitchen island and, in my opinion, there is such a thing as a kitchen islands being too wide.

So for added safety I created a fire resistant barrier which added a little bit of extra height to the bench top and cantilevered over the edge of the benchtop. This barrier discouraged people from sitting behind the cooktop as it was too high for someone sitting on a bar stool. The cantilevered protrusion also stopped my guests from standing too close behind the cooktop. To make it clear where I wanted my guests to sit, I created dedicated barstool seating away from the range further down the island.

The steel cantilever also doubled as a servery. I could serve up platters of hot food when entertaining which could be picked up on the other side without disturbing me.

The solution to problems 2 and 3 (AKA the performance and view obstruction of the rangehood) was a little harder to find. That answer that I found 15 years ago… was a rangehood on steroids. It was a custom designed 3 engine commercial grade ceiling cassette rangehood from Condari called a Qasair Thermidor and it was a beast.

It worked well. It did look commercial grade so I softened it by boxing it as my ceilings were too high for it to be flush. It was also very cheffy, but… it cost a fortune… and it was a little too noisy when turned up full pelt. Also it was hard to clean. I had to get on a ladder to pull it apart to clean, but at least the parts could go in the dishwasher, but then putting it back together stumped me every time. I know the Thermidoor is still available today and I am sure they have improved it, but I think we can do better.

There is a product I have found since that does a great job at exhausting fumes and grease, is quiet, doesn’t interfere with sight lines and views and doesn’t take up much valuable storage space under the bench as a pop up.

And I happen to know all of this because, crucially, I have already tested it on another project and the feedback from my clients is that it really does work and do everything its meant to.

The solution here is an induction cooktop with built in extraction by Bora. It is called Pure, and it comes in a range of sizes. There are other brands like Miele and Bosch who also make cooktops with integrated extractors and I am sure they are great too, but for now, I know the Bora Pure works and I would specify it again in a heartbeat.

So would I put a cooktop in a kitchen island? Generally, no, but let’s rephrase that. Could I put a cooktop in a kitchen island? Absolutely. With the right problem solving and the experiences I’ve collected over my design career, there is a solution to nearly every problem, and this tricky request certainly can be done.