Gas cooker clearance and stability checks

Use these checks for a conventional flueless freestanding cooker, alongside its installation instructions.

1. Check the room. Confirm the ventilation provision for the room volume. Do not install in a bed-sitting room under 20 m³ or in a room with a bath or shower. A conventional flueless range needs these checks too; a flued heat-storage model has its own requirements.
2. Get the figures. Use the clearances in the manufacturer's installation instructions and the relevant standards. Each cooker is tested with its own requirements, and clearances cannot be waived by the installer or the customer.
3. Above the hob. Keep the specified minimum to any combustible surface or cupboard. For a hood, follow the hob and hood makers' instructions and use the greater minimum height.
4. Beside the hob. Burner heat radiates sideways as well as up, so a tall unit beside the hotplate needs the distance and surface construction specified for that model. Heat marks mean you should check the gap, the material and how the appliance is working; they do not tell you the cause. Painting timber does not make it non-combustible, and years of use do not make a close unit safe.
5. Every side. Meet each required clearance. Re-site the cooker if necessary; use a protective arrangement only where the appliance instructions expressly permit it. A thin non-combustible facing over timber does not allow a smaller gap unless the instructions say so.
6. Behind. Where a gas oven or grill discharges combustion products through a rear outlet, keep that path clear. Direct discharge onto a plastic upstand can damage the plastic and obstruct dispersal. Follow the actual model’s rear-clearance and outlet requirements.
7. Soft furnishings. Site the hob so curtains or loose fabric cannot fall or blow across the burners.
8. Stability. Set the cooker level and firmly on its feet. Fit the bracket or chain to sound building structure, with the chain shorter than the fully extended hose. Check the anchor, fixings and engagement or chain setting by the maker’s procedure; do not improvise a load test on the open door.
9. Connection. Check that the complete hose assembly is approved for this cooker, gas and installation. Inspect its condition and bayonet engagement, maintain the specified slack and heat clearance, and keep the isolation point readily accessible.
10. Prove it. Complete the gas-soundness checks appropriate to the work and connections, then commission the cooker.

After the cooker is moved

Pulling a freestanding cooker out, for cleaning or any other reason, can leave the stability device disengaged. Before leaving the cooker back in use, re-engage and inspect the bracket or chain by the maker’s method. Check the hose and electrical cable have the required slack and are not trapped, kinked or exposed to prohibited hot contact.

Applying the figures to a named model

The Rangemaster Excel 110 Dual Fuel illustrates why the height of a nearby surface matters. Its hotplate surround must be at least level with the adjacent worktop. Above that level, the normal side gap is 75 mm; its instructions permit 25 mm for a suitable non-combustible surface such as unpainted metal or ceramic tile. Check the whole construction before treating a finish as that permitted surface.

The Rangemaster Classic 60 Gas gives a different overhead example: 700 mm to a horizontal combustible surface, reduced to a cooker requirement of 650 mm with a hood. Keep the hood's own minimum too. For example, a hood that requires 750 mm must stay at least 750 mm above the hotplate; the cooker's 650 mm allowance does not override it. The same cooker recommends 5 mm at each side so it can be removed for servicing.

The Stoves 60 cm gas cooker installation guide specifies 90 mm at the sides above hob level, up to 400 mm high, and 650 mm below a combustible shelf or overhang. A side-opening oven door has a separate recommended 60 mm clearance to let it open. Door access and heat clearance are different checks. A Stoves model with a cast lid also needs 35 mm from the back of the hotplate to the rear wall so the lid can open fully, kept by the supplied infill piece fixed to the wall.

Other figures in the same instructions are about access and heat build-up rather than radiant clearance:

• The Excel 110 needs 130 mm beside a corner so its oven doors can open, and is never boxed in: it must come out for cleaning and servicing, with about 1102 mm between units. It must not stand behind a decorative door, which would let it overheat.
• The Classic 60 Gas asks for adjacent kitchen furniture heat resistant to 90 °C and recommends 20 mm between its back cover and the wall for air circulation.
• A CDA HVG65 gas-on-glass hob is kept at least 200 mm from any side wall, 60 mm from the back of its cut-out to the back of the worktop and 650 mm below a wall cupboard or hood. Inside the unit it needs 30 mm between its base and any shelf, with a heat-resistant separator. Over a built-in oven, the oven must have a cooling fan, and each appliance has its own gas and electrical connection.

Restraint adjustment is model-specific too

For the Excel 110, use as little clearance as practicable at the bracket engagement and engage it as far over the chassis as the fitting allows. Its drawings retain a 3 mm minimum at that detail: the instruction to minimise clearance does not mean clamping the bracket hard against the cooker. Its chain is kept as short as practicable at the specified attachment. The Stoves arrangement fixes the bracket to the floor. Its procedure measures the engagement height from the floor, adds 3 mm, and sets the underside of the upper bracket to that height. Follow the actual model's drawing and confirm engagement after positioning.

Range cookers with a boiler

A gas range cooker with an integral central heating boiler in one appliance body needs two independently controlled burners, one for cooking and one for the boiler, so heating need not run whenever the oven does (Approved Document L 2021, paragraph 6.3).