Outdoor kitchen unit - core materials
Outdoor kitchen unit - core materials
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StevieBee

Original Poster:

15,426 posts

285 months

Monday 4th August 2025
quotequote all
I've designed an outdoor kitchen unit that I'll be building. Roughly 2m x 800m. There's a drop down where the BBQ will sit and top will be tiled with the facias vinyl floor strips.

Plan is to use 18mm marine ply as the base and build the frame up from that. Seems there's two options on the latter; metal stud framing with concrete fibre boarding or wood frame and ply. To me, the metal frame sounds safer in terms of fire risk But most of the online examples are wood as are most of the ready-built options.

Am I overthinking or is one better than the other?


OutInTheShed

14,833 posts

56 months

Monday 4th August 2025
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Wood rots, metal tends to be steel which rusts!

Would it not be better to use ceramic tiles for the top?
Something heat proof anyway?


Provided the barbecue or other flames etc isn't directly burning the wood, a wooden frame should be fine.
Depends what skills, tools and materials are to hand.

honest_delboy

1,761 posts

230 months

Monday 4th August 2025
quotequote all
StevieBee said:
I've designed an outdoor kitchen unit that I'll be building. Roughly 2m x 800m. There's a drop down where the BBQ will sit and top will be tiled with the facias vinyl floor strips.

Plan is to use 18mm marine ply as the base and build the frame up from that. Seems there's two options on the latter; metal stud framing with concrete fibre boarding or wood frame and ply. To me, the metal frame sounds safer in terms of fire risk But most of the online examples are wood as are most of the ready-built options.

Am I overthinking or is one better than the other?
Thats quite a big kitchen, what about curvature of the earth ?

tomsugden

2,478 posts

258 months

Monday 4th August 2025
quotequote all
I did this in my old house and am about to start again in our new house. Blockwork is the answer.




andy43

13,276 posts

284 months

Tuesday 5th August 2025
quotequote all
honest_delboy said:
StevieBee said:
I've designed an outdoor kitchen unit that I'll be building. Roughly 2m x 800m. There's a drop down where the BBQ will sit and top will be tiled with the facias vinyl floor strips.

Plan is to use 18mm marine ply as the base and build the frame up from that. Seems there's two options on the latter; metal stud framing with concrete fibre boarding or wood frame and ply. To me, the metal frame sounds safer in terms of fire risk But most of the online examples are wood as are most of the ready-built options.

Am I overthinking or is one better than the other?
Thats quite a big kitchen, what about curvature of the earth ?
Way ahead of you