Designing Kitchens for Efficiency
Designing Kitchens for Efficiency
It is over fifty years since efficiency experts studied the movements in the kitchen of the average housewife and discovered that there exists a natural foot fall between the sink, cooker and refrigerator. They named this footfall the “Work Triangle” and calculated that the distance between them and how easy it is to navigate defines the efficiency of the modern day kitchen
This doesn’t mean that you need to create a triangle with equal sides, however for maximum efficiency in design the sink, cooker, fridge, should add up to between 12 and 24 feet and the sides of the triangle should be no shorter than 4 feet and no longer than 9 feet e.g. cooker to fridge could be 4 feet apart, sink to fridge could be 9 feet apart, and cooker to sink could be 8 feet apart for a total of 21 feet. To create a design with maximum efficiency and safety, ensure your design includes worktop space near to the opening side of the fridge or either side, if you have a side-by-side fridge, to enable easy unpacking of bags of groceries, also plenty of heat- and wet-resistant work top space at both sides of the cooker and sink for emergency placing of heavy, hot, or slippery pots and pans.
With the additional appliances in kitchens today, dishwasher, washing machine, etc. it may create extra work stations, which mean the requirement of creating additional triangles in your kitchen. In these cases, you need to be extra careful to ensure the extra triangles don't create a collision course or log jam. Now for energy-saving reasons, it's usually best to keep separate the fridge and the cooker if space allows. If you’re planning an island, you'll need to look at least 4 feet between it and the nearest counter worktop or appliance. Obviously, this is going to requires good planning, design and implementation
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Comments (8)
Mohann Krish6
New knowledge for me, Sean and it has been a welcome change of topic. We normally tend to forget or ignore the space aspect in kitchens and how much it would please the spouse to have a good convenient moving place without as you call the logjam. Thanks.
Sean North12
Business
Thanks for everyones comment much appreciated
Cheryl Baumgartner12
Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Just a cook Paula? I want mine equipped with an Iron Chef! and plenty of counter space.
Paula van Dun16
Retired
My dream kitchen would be one with a cook in it. As long as they don't have those in the collection i settle for the above
Sean North12
Business
Thanks for your comment Mas, I just know you willl get your dream kitchen someday
Mas Andry6
Internet Marketer
I agree that we must designing our kitchen for efficiency. I will build my kitchen someday. Thanks for the information. Very interested.
Sean North12
Business
Grazie per il commento di Gino, è la politica di questo sito per pubblicare in lingua inglese nel settore pubblico
Thanks for the comment Gino, it is policy of this site to post in english in public area's
Luigi Paparazzo5
Operaio
Si sono d'accordo, le cucine che servirebbero dovrebbero essere fatte in modo da occupare gli spazi utili, quindi con risparmio di spazi, basta con le solite cucine enormi, la cucina pratica è meglio...