Plan a commercial kitchen fitout in this order: choose the equipment, add up its total electrical, gas, water and extraction demand, then design the services around that list. Doing it the other way round — building the room first and buying equipment later — is the single most expensive mistake in a fitout, because moving a gas point, a floor waste or a canopy after the fact means opening finished work.
📋 What this guide covers
- Why the equipment list comes before the services design
- Working out total electrical load and phase
- Gas: type, sizing and why LPG and natural gas are not swappable
- Water, hot water demand and drainage
- Extraction, make-up air and the canopy
- The sequencing that keeps a fitout on schedule
1. The equipment list is the design brief
Every service in the room is sized against the equipment. Until the equipment is chosen, the electrician, the plumber, the gas fitter and the mechanical contractor are all guessing.
Build a schedule listing every appliance with its dimensions, weight, electrical load, gas load, water and waste requirements, and required clearances. Every one of those figures is on the data plate or in the installation manual. Hand that schedule to your trades and your designer at the start, not halfway through.
ℹ️ The order that saves money
Equipment list → services design → construction → equipment delivery → connection → commissioning. Every fitout that gets expensive has swapped two of those steps around.
2. Electrical: load, phase and where the outlets go
Commercial kitchens are electrically hungry, and the load adds up faster than people expect. Combi ovens, dishwashers, fryers, coffee machines, refrigeration and extraction all draw at once during service.
Give your electrician the full schedule so they can calculate the total connected load and the maximum demand, and confirm whether your supply is adequate. Some equipment needs three phase; a lot needs a dedicated 15 amp circuit rather than a standard outlet. Finding out after the walls are lined is costly.
Position matters too. Outlets need to sit where the machine actually goes, at a height that is reachable and not behind a fixed bench, and away from splash zones. Plan for a few more than you think you need — kitchens accumulate equipment.
3. Gas: type, sizing and licensed work
Confirm early whether the site has natural gas or will run on LPG. They are not interchangeable: an appliance must be supplied for, or converted to, the correct gas type by a licensed gas fitter using the manufacturer's conversion kit.
The gas line has to be sized for the total load of every appliance running together, not just the largest one. Undersized pipework shows up as burners that will not reach full output when the kitchen is busy — a fault that is very expensive to correct once the line is buried.
All gas work is licensed work. Keep the compliance certificate. Browse commercial cooking equipment.
🔧 Pro tip, plan for the equipment you will buy in year three
Leave spare electrical capacity, a capped gas point and a spare outlet or two. Kitchens always add equipment. Adding capacity during the fitout costs a fraction of adding it later.
4. Water, hot water and drainage
Work out where every water connection needs to be: sinks, hand wash basins, dishwasher, ice machine, coffee machine, combi oven and any boiling water unit.
Hot water demand is easy to underestimate. A dishwasher and a pot sink running together at the end of service will find the limits of an undersized system quickly. Size the hot water plant against simultaneous peak use.
Drainage is the detail people regret. Floor wastes need to be under or beside the equipment that drains, the floor needs fall towards them, and grease has to be intercepted before it reaches the sewer. Check what your local council and water authority require for grease trapping early, because it affects both the layout and the budget.
5. Extraction and make-up air
The canopy has to cover the cooking line with the overhang the standard requires, and the extraction rate has to match the equipment underneath it. A canopy sized for a previous tenant's equipment will not necessarily suit yours.
The part that gets forgotten is make-up air. If you extract large volumes without replacing that air, the kitchen goes into negative pressure. The symptoms are doors that are hard to open, gas appliances that will not draw properly, smells pulled through from the dining room, and an extraction system that never quite clears the haze.
Mechanical work of this kind is a specialist design job. Get it done properly at the drawing stage. See commercial kitchen ventilation.
ℹ️ Check what the landlord and council will allow
Exhaust discharge points, noise limits, grease trap requirements, trading hours and available electrical supply are often constrained by the lease or by council conditions. Confirm these before you commit to a layout, not after.
6. Surfaces, clearances and cleanability
Wall and floor finishes behind cooking equipment need to be non-absorbent, durable and cleanable, and coving between floor and wall makes cleaning far easier. Leave the manufacturer's clearances around every appliance, including at the back, and allow room to pull equipment out for service.
Design the walkways properly. Aisles that are too narrow are unsafe with hot pans and they slow every service. If in doubt, make the aisle wider and the bench shallower.
7. Sequence the delivery
Equipment should arrive when the room is ready to receive it, not before. Confirm the access route, the delivery date, who is unloading, and whether the machine can be positioned before adjacent joinery is installed. Large equipment often has to go in before the last section of bench.
Plan for the installer and the trades to be on site together, so a machine is placed, levelled, connected and commissioned in one visit rather than three. Browse stainless steel benches and storage and commercial refrigeration.
Final thoughts
A commercial kitchen is a services problem dressed up as a design problem. Choose the equipment first, hand the full schedule to your trades, size electrical, gas, water and extraction against real simultaneous demand, and leave headroom for what you will add later. The fitouts that run over budget almost always did the services design before anyone knew what was going in the room.
Frequently Asked Questions
The equipment list. Every service in the room is sized against it. Build a schedule of every appliance with its dimensions, weight, electrical and gas load, water and waste requirements and clearances, then design the services around that. Building first and choosing equipment later is the most expensive sequence.
Not without conversion. Natural gas and LPG appliances are not interchangeable. The appliance must be supplied for the correct gas type, or converted using the manufacturer's conversion kit by a licensed gas fitter. Confirm the site's gas type before ordering.
Make-up air replaces the air the canopy extracts. Without it the kitchen runs at negative pressure, which shows up as doors that are hard to open, gas appliances that will not draw properly, smells pulled in from the dining room, and extraction that never clears the haze.
It depends entirely on the equipment. Some appliances require three phase and many need a dedicated 15 amp circuit rather than a standard outlet. Give your electrician the full equipment schedule so they can calculate maximum demand and confirm whether the existing supply is adequate.
Designing the services before the equipment is chosen. Moving a gas point, a floor waste, a power outlet or a canopy after construction means opening finished work. The second most common is aisles that are too narrow, which is unsafe and slows every service.
