gas cooker purchase: height and type

[Keelstow]

would be grateful if anyone could confirm that 85cm is the height of the gas rings and that most on sale are by default for bottled gas.

I intend building some wooden units either side of the cooker and need to make sure the worktop height is level with the rings. The UK size is 90cm so need to be sure as I intend bringing some of the joinery from the UK.

any suggestions of best stockists also appreciated whilst assuming Darty to be the best as it offers free delivery?

martin

[Mac]

Free delivery normally has a limit. Darty wouldn't deliver free to us from the nearest store which was 50k away. We ended up at Pulsat in the nearest town. Slightly dearer but free delivery and set up-most gas cookers we looked at were set up for town gas and had to be converted ( not a big job as bottle gas jets came with the cooker)

[idun]

 As was said, always read the small print in France with deliveries, so can be free, but not always.

Re the height: I still have a french cooker and that is 85cms, lovely working height, three gaz rings and an electric and an electric fan oven. Not the best I have had but works so much better than my UK canon (expensive and awful) and that is 90cms and all gas.

Hate the height of kitchen units in the UK, far too high for someone who cooks a lot and had some in my latest kitchen I had put in with dinky legs so that they are a decent work height.

Which ever cooker you like the look of, check the height on it, is all I can suggest.

[Cendrillon]

When we put some very basic units in our French kitchen we had a plinth made for the ( very basic) gas cooker. The bonus is that a) it's the right height for us, b)

It is easy to pull the cooker out to clean behind it.

[Keelstow]

my concern in making the units 85 cm high is that they are the same level as the cooker. Whilst one could make a plinth for the cooker ,if that is too low, it would be tricky to alter the units if those were too low.

fortunately these helpful replies confirm the french standard of 85cm with replaceable jets supplied for bottled gas situations

thanks

[idun]

 When we had our french kitchen installed, I never gave the height of the units a thought. The only occasion when we had a problem was when we bought a dish washer to slide under the work top and had to take the top off. As the dishwasher was german, I just thought that german things were a bit taller.

Then we moved back to the UK and realised what a difference these higher units made to me. Rubbing in pastry really hurts my shoulders as does kneading dough, hence when we moved again and got a new kitchen, I took the smaller legs for the units on one wall and that work surface where I do all my baking is now 80cms and fine. Husband 6' tall happily uses it at this height and I do and I am 5'4.

90cm is too unconfortable for me when I am cooking.

[Pierre ZFP]

Its funny but my son and I find worktops far too low, even at 90 cms. We would prefer about 15 cms more as the constant bending over does our backs in (don't get me started on how low sinks are) .   However, if we had that then OH couldn't reach - maybe we need a his 'n hers halves of the kitchen.

PS Why are broom handles and garden tools so short too?

[idun]

We had french friends she probably about 5'10 and he about 5'4 and their kitchen had different work heights. I say 'had' because sadly, even though they were about our age, both are now very sadly deceased.

edit

Pierre, I have just been wondering why you need to bend over your surface to chop if it is 90, cannot work it out as with a straight back, I can work on pretty low surfaces and have in the past, ones we have just bodged when camping.

With my baking and my doing a lot once I get going, it is the big bowl height that makes that difference to my shoulders.

[Pierre ZFP]

Well I stand about 6' 4" in my cotton socks, my son a bit more. Both of us find that the normal worktop height is just a bit too low and requiring a constant slight bend in the back to reach properly, I've always had back problems though.  I made the bench in my workshop a bit higher than is usual and I can work for a long time at that.

PS I've only played golf a couple of times but I found the bats to be ridiculously short

[sid]

We have found that French cookers are usually 85/86 cms high, too low for us and they are lower than the standard worktop height, (finished height 90cms), so that with a pan on the burner there is a real risk of burning, or setting fire to, the adjacent worktop. I had to make plinths for both of our previous French cookers in order to make them safe when fitted between (French) units and worktops. Our latest cooker was purchased in UK and is far superior, having a double gas oven (try finding one of those in France). The new cooker is around 92 cms high in total and looks so much better without the homemade plinth.

French gas cookers are generally fitted with town gas jets but a set of butane jets is normally supplied; it's a simple job to change them. 

[idun]

Oh..........well my french kitchen was most certainly a french one, bought in France from savoyard makers....... and was most certainly not 90cms high. And I have just looked on a couple of french kitchen sites and the meuble avec plan de travail are still 85cms high........ and that will always do for me!

Feels like everyone must be very very tall and way above average height........ and I'm not apparently[Www]

[sid]

Not being able to afford a specially made savoyard kitchen, even if I knew what that really is but I suspect it's no different to any other kitchen, we bought ours last year from Castorama. I suppose you could say that it's European (B&Q sell similar stuff); we think it's French; it's manufactured in France, as they're very proud to point out. The base units are adjustable with around 5 cms of adjustment. We're not tall people, we're simply used to worktops, sinks and appliances at a certain height. You don't seem to get this difference in height in the UK where we lived the first 35 years of married life.

The problem is that units need to be higher than 85cms finished height for the reason I already stated; French cookers are lower! If you want a worktop to go OVER a dishwasher for example, or over a freestanding (not fitted) fridge, then the worktop is going to be higher than that. It's not usually practical to start cutting down a dishwasher or fridge [:-))], and we much prefer the security of knowing that the adjacent worktops are not going to burst into flames [;-)]. Home made plinths look pretty poor; they break the line of the unit plinths because they have to "stick out" further to accommodate the depth of the cooker.

Here's the finished cooker section:   http://tinyurl.com/hzv6sxp  and anyway, we like it. No backache.

My work here is done.

 

 

[idun]

Right..... I have said on here that we had to take the lid off the dishwasher we bought to get it under the work surface in France. We do not have to do that in the uk.

And yes, I agree free standing cookers need to be the same height or higher than the work surface because of fire risk.

However, I cook a lot and I bake a lot. And I know all too well that when I use my big mixing bowls, 20cms and one higher it makes my shoulders ache when using a90cms surface.  And even for prep / chopping stuff it is not a relaxed height for me.

And a savoyard kitchen was made in the Savoy. Strangely, when I was looking for a kitchen, no matter what it was made of, whether in theory cheap or expensive all worked out to the same price. Went to Chambery, Lyon and Grenoble and many places in between these cities and ended up with one that was made locally at exactly the same price as was being quoted elsewhere, and the units were made up.

Since we have been back we have bought a B&Q kitchen, at that time, which was 7 years ago, the units were only 15cms panels, too flimsy really and I hadn't realised. They have improved them since then on the basics and the Cooke and Lewis which started later or was just starting at that point...... are now as they should be 18cms.

We used to use Castorama quite a lot in France, but, after what I considered getting a poor quality kitchen from B&Q, simply do not shop there very much. IF we spent tens of thousands doing this house up, they got a few hundred, I can buy quality goods elsewhere and locally.