Wall units the gap between the unit and bench

[David Robson]

I have had a new kitchen fitted recently and I was wondering if there is a minimum gap between the bench and wall units. I know there are regulations governing gas appliances and wall units but is there anything about ordinary benches and wall units. I have seen a recommended gap of 500mm but is there a statutory requirement where I can force my installer to move them up to at least 500mm gap?

[John G]

Hi David,
I think the choice is yours, one way is if you take the height of a full height larder unit etc. you can line the top of the wall units with this.
If you have no tall units then you could look at the height you would need to make tile sizes fit between worktop and wall unit.

John G

[Tony]

Yes, John's right.

Looking at a Howdens Catalogue:
A tall unit is 2112mm tall, a wall unit is 720mm - so, with the tops in line, the bottom of the wall unit works out to be 1392mm above floor.
A base unit is 890mm high, and worktop about 40mm thick, so that would make the gap between top of the worktop and under wall unit to be 462mm - this would reduce if you had a pelmet under the wall unit. They do special 'hob wall unit' as the distance must be at least 650mm above hobs.

This is obviously how their units are designed to work together, but if you don't have any tall units, you could hang the wall units as high, (or as low) as you wanted, but your installer will probably say that you should have specified the height before the work was started.