CountryByNet.com Forums :: Outdoor kitchen

Up until I retired a couple of years ago, I was in the business of building custom outdoor kitchens. We sold natural gas grills to everyone who had NG available; they are a heck of a lot more ocnvenient than propane. However, depending on where you are installing it, it can be difficult to plumb the NG. Your local NG supplier will be able to advise you.

NG grills are just as efficient as propane grills. NG doesn't have quite as many BTU's as propane, so the valve openings and orifices have to be larger in order to provide more gas to get the same heat. Some grills can be converted by drilling out the orifice, but most cannot without also changing the valves. The reason is that many valves use different size holes for low, medium and high, and using a propane valve for NG will step the range down a level. Low will be too low, medium will be low, and high will be medium. If the grill uses infinite adjustment, it may not be necessary to change the valves. One example of a grill that can be converted with just a new orifice is FireMagic; the grill is shipped with both NG and LP gas orifices, and a new label to stick on if it's converted.

Most of the grills sold by the big box stores are not easy to convert; some are impossible because the Mfr. does not provide the necessary parts.

None of the built-in grills follow a standard size. Every Mfr. varies the size slightly. They are still uinder the mistaken idea that once you buy their grill, you should be locked in to them when you replace it. They have not yet discovered what the kitchen appliance industry figured out many years ago -- that you can get more sales by allowing customers to swap to your brand from some other, rather than trying to lock them in. Not only does this policy make it difficult to upgrade from an inexpensive grill at a later date, but it is especially bad if your first choice Mfr. goes out of business and you own an orphan. There are a very few possibilities of converting from one Mfr. to another, but it always involves some fabrication and filler pieces or some additional "carving" of the cabinet.

You should pay particular attention to the materials used to construct your island or cabinet. Wood is bad. It burns if too close to the grill; some manufacturers will declare their warranty void if you use a combustible cabinet. It also rots and attracts critters (like termites). Masonary is good, but difficult to handle. We sort of invented our own method, but it's not easily adopted by a homeowner. We used square aluminum tubing and TIG welded a frame for the cabinet, then "skinned" it with 4' x 8' sheets of cement board siding (HardiPanel). We then applied a veneer over the HardiPanel of whatever the customer wanted -- stucco, ceramic tile, stone, slate, etc. We could easily have applied veneer bricks, but the brick look isn't popular in South Florida, so we never did one.

Building a quality outdoor kitchen is not cheap. Our average cost for cabinet, grill, bar sink, undercounter refrigerator, etc. was around $8,000; we built several that went over $15,000. A good quality grill will retail between $1,500 - $6,000 depending on brand and size. At the upper end is Viking, etc., but they aren't any better than a grill costing $1,000 less -- they just have an expensive name. YOu shoould buy the best quality grill you can afford, because of the aforementioned problem with upgrading -- you don't want to put a cheap grill in now, and be forced to spend $$$ in a couple of years because that grill is junk and a new one won't fit. In addition, the better quality grills simply cook better -- almost unbelievably better. All of our clients thanked us once they discovered how much more fun it is to cook on a quality grill.

Most of our cabinets were installed under a patio roof, so we also frequently got into the issue of ventitlation hoods. You will need a minimum of 600 CFM for a basic 64,000 BTU grill, and 300 CFM more for each 32,000 BTU that you add. A 600 CFM Vent-a-Hood starts around $1,000.

Attached is a typical outdoor kitchen we built.

...Don

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