Outdoor kitchen ideas for Northeast Ohio backyards

Most outdoor kitchen photos online come from Arizona, Texas and Florida, where the grill gets used in January. Here the cooking season runs roughly from Memorial Day into October, and the rest of the year the kitchen sits under snow, rain and freeze-thaw cycles. That changes what you should build.

The kitchens that age well in Akron, Canton, Hudson or Kent have three things in common. They sit on a real base, not four inches of concrete poured on wet clay. They use materials that do not mind water getting into them and freezing. And the plumbing is designed so it can be drained in the fall without a plumber taking half of it apart.

The kitchens that fail usually fail at the ground. A counter that is heaving an inch out of level by the second spring, a crack running through the stone veneer, a grill cut-out that no longer fits the grill. Those are base and drainage problems more than appliance problems.

Start with the walk from the back door. If you have to carry a tray of raw chicken across 60 feet of lawn, you will cook inside and eat outside, and the kitchen becomes a very expensive shelf. On most lots we like the cooking area on the house side of the pool, close to the door that leads to the indoor kitchen.

Close to the house does not mean against it. The National Fire Protection Association tells people to place a grill well away from the home and deck railings and out from under eaves and overhanging branches. A built-in grill is still a grill. We would rather give up a few steps than park a hood full of grease under a vinyl soffit.

Then think about smoke and wind. Most of our weather comes from the west, so a grill on the east side of the seating area tends to send smoke away from guests. Look at where the smoke would go on your particular lot, and whether it drifts toward a neighbor's patio.

Near the pool, keep the cook out of the swim traffic. Wet kids running laps around the deck and a person carrying a hot pan should not share the same 4 ft strip. A separate patio pad a few steps off the pool deck, with its own floor level or a change in paving, keeps the two zones apart without walls.

There is a wide range between a grill with a counter and a second house kitchen. These are the layouts we see asked for most, from simplest to most involved.

• Straight grill island. A built-in grill with counter space on each side and storage doors below. It fits almost any patio and is where most people should start.
• L-shaped island. The short leg adds landing space and often a side burner or a small bar top so people can sit and talk to the cook.
• U-shape or island with bar. Room for a sink, a refrigerator and seating on the far side. Better for people who host often and want to keep the cook in the conversation.
• Covered kitchen. Any of the above under a pavilion roof. More expensive, but it adds weeks to the season and lets you cook in a summer storm.

Give yourself landing space. The most common regret we hear is too little counter next to the grill. Plan at least one uninterrupted stretch where a full platter can sit, and put the trash and a place for tongs within reach.

If you want a pizza oven, smoker or griddle, decide early, because those change the island size, the gas sizing and the heat protection around them. Adding one later often means cutting into a finished counter.

Appliances and doors. Stainless steel is standard, but not all stainless is the same. Grade 304 is the common choice for outdoor appliances, and 430 is cheaper and less corrosion resistant. Reliance Foundry, which casts stainless for a living, points out that a thin, rough 304 unit can age worse than a heavy, well-finished 430 one, so look at gauge and finish as well as the grade. Near a pool, chlorine and salt in the air are hard on metal either way, so plan to wipe it down.

Island structure. We build islands on a proper frost-protected base with a masonry or concrete block core and a veneer of stone, brick or stucco. Wood frames and steel studs are lighter and quicker, but water gets in behind the veneer here, freezes, and works joints apart.

Countertops. Granite and other dense natural stone handle cold and sun well. Poured concrete tops look great and can match a stamped or exposed aggregate patio, but they need sealing and the occasional hairline crack is normal. Tile counters have grout lines that take on water, which is a poor trade in this climate.

The floor. The patio under the kitchen gets grease, spills and a lot of foot traffic. Pavers let you lift and replace a stained section. Broom finish or exposed aggregate concrete gives good grip. Stamped concrete looks great, but choose a texture that is not slick when wet, especially near the pool.

Gas. Most built-in grills run on natural gas or propane. A line run from the house meter means no tank swaps, and it has to be sized for everything on it: grill, side burner, fire pit or pool heater. Plan the whole list at once, because upsizing a buried gas line after the patio is poured is a miserable job.

Power. A refrigerator, lights and a place to plug in a blender all need circuits, and outdoor outlets on a home have to be GFCI protected under the National Electrical Code. Near a pool there is a second set of rules. The NEC requires at least one general-purpose outlet between 6 and 20 feet from the inside wall of the pool, and other receptacles have to stay at least 6 feet back. Where a kitchen sits close to the water, those distances shape the layout.

Water and drain. A sink is lovely in July and a headache in November if the line cannot be drained. We plan a shut-off inside the house, a line that slopes back so it can empty, and a drain to a place that is allowed and will not freeze solid. On a septic system, ask before tying a sink into it.

Digging. Every one of those trenches crosses a yard with buried lines. Ohio law requires the person doing the digging to submit an OHIO811 ticket first, and utilities get two working days to mark their lines. Service lines the homeowner owns, like a gas line to a detached garage or a buried feed to a lamp post, are not marked by OHIO811 and need a private locator.

Treat it like the pool. Once nights start dropping below freezing, usually some time in October across Summit, Portage and Stark counties and sometimes sooner up in the Geauga snowbelt, it is time to close it down.

• Shut off and drain the water line and the sink trap, and leave faucets open.
• Empty and unplug the outdoor refrigerator, prop the door, and follow the maker's winter instructions.
• Clean the grill, burn off the grease, shut the gas valve at the kitchen and cover the grill with a breathable cover.
• Pull cushions, clear leaves out of cabinet bases and knock snow off counters rather than chipping ice.
• Keep rock salt off natural stone and decorative concrete. Use sand if you need grip.

A kitchen closed this way opens in May with a wipe-down and a gas check. One that is left alone tends to open with a cracked faucet and a ruined refrigerator.

The island itself is often simple from a code point of view. The gas piping, wiring and plumbing are the parts that normally need permits and inspections, and a roof over the kitchen can make it a structure the building department wants to review.

Who issues them depends on where you live. In Portage County, for example, the county building department covers the townships and villages it serves, but Kent, Ravenna, Streetsboro and Aurora run their own departments, and plumbing, wells and septic go through the Portage County Health Department. Hudson, Stow and most Summit County cities have their own offices too. We pull the permits on the work we build, and we check the rules for your address before the design is final.

Footings follow the local frost line. The Residential Code of Ohio leaves the frost depth for each jurisdiction to fill in, so the number in Chardon is not always the number in Canton. We build to whatever your building department publishes.

We build outdoor kitchens on their own and as part of a pool project, and our outdoor living projects start from about $15,000, with financing available through the lenders we work with. The kitchen usually sits inside a bigger plan: a patio, a pool deck, maybe a pergola, a fire pit and some grading to get water moving away from all of it. Our crew has backgrounds in construction, mechanical systems and landscaping, which is most of what a kitchen needs.

If you are building a pool with us, the kitchen goes into the 3D design with everything else, so you can see how far the grill is from the back door and where the smoke will go before anything is dug. Doug H., one of our pool customers, put it this way: "Already working on plans for the patio and outdoor kitchen area!" That is a normal order of events. Plenty of people build the pool first and add the kitchen a season later, and we lay out the gas, power and patio edges so that step is easy.

Bring a rough idea of how you cook and how many people you host. That tells us more than a photo of a kitchen someone built in Scottsdale.