foundation question Outdoor Kitchen Design Discuss foundation question in the Outdoor Kitchens and Living Rooms forums; Hello, my name is Dean and this is my first post. I have been wanting an outdoor kitchen for a ...

[stoneman]

Hello, my name is Dean and this is my first post.

I have been wanting an outdoor kitchen for a long time, but I wanted to have it more old school (ie wood & charcoal) and more for entertaining. I have a natural gas barbeque on my back porch and for quick food I keep using that.

After a lot of web and book research, I have found this site, and I am constantly wiping the drool from my chin.

My plan for the Kitchen is an L shape, with the pompeii oven in the corner, and a open grill area on one of the legs, and possibly a sink on the prep counter on the other leg. Very similar in design to Xabia Jims (Thanks Jim!) But without the back wall. I plan on doing it with cinder block construction faced with cultured stone and topped with granite or concrete counters.

So here is my question, on the pompeii plans it says to put in a floating foundation, the masonry book I have says to do the same for the barbeque, since I want to combine them on a bigger surface will a slab foundation work or should I shape the entire slab like the floating foundation recommended?
Should I just make a L' shaped foundation or should I pour a rectangle with the L one corner?

thanks for the advice, I love the site.

[dusty]

Dean,
I am constructing an outdoor kitchen in the shape of an L also. I understood your question as "should I lay one foundation for everything, or seperate foundations for the different things". I am facing mine with red brick. I poured one foundation, with a footing and rebar, for the whole project. I was afraid that seperate foundations might allow the red brick facing to crack as the they settled independently over the years. Make sense?
Prep station on left, oven in corner, BBQ and stove on right.
Dusty

[Brauma]

Dean, please keep us posted. I intend to keep mine "old school" as much as possible. But I'll probably have a small gasser - just to keep the wife happy.

I have an old post in this forum about footers. My thought is to do one whole "U" shaped footer.

[christo]

I did my foundations separately for my outdoor kitchen.

I built the oven first and added the wing foundations later. I drilled holes in the foundation of the pizza oven and used rebar dowels to key the outdoor kitchen foundations to the oven foundation to prevent any up/down movement.

[gjbingham]

I'm thinking that you should pour the whole thing at once. I agree with Dusty that different settling could cause problems in the future.

I'd make sure that the corner oven is really what you want to do. It kind of limits you to an igloo finish or some obtuse shaped brick or other enclosure. If you have a good plan, go with it. If you're not 100% sure, give it serious thought. There are may more finish options available with the standard plan for a rectangular hearth and forward opening (vs. corner opening) oven.

Just my opinion, formed from banging my head against my corner installation oven.......

[stoneman]

Thanks for all the responses guys.
I was thinking about having the oven in the corner so it was central, for me the cook, but maybe I should place it on an end, where it is more accessable to everybody.
Thanks for the heads up.

[Xabia Jim]

George, can you restate why you don't like the corner location or why you're not happy with yours. I like the corner and find it works well with counters on each side. To me it looks good, but maybe I'm obtuse