How to hide a gas boiler in the kitchen
A gas boiler is an almost indispensable attribute for many. For some, it is only responsible for hot water, while others install it for heating the house. However, the boiler is a bulky, often white structure, which in its original form does not fit into any interior.
According to safety standards, the boiler should not be located in a residential area (even a kitchen combined with a living room is not suitable), so in houses it is often installed in the basement, where it is not an eyesore, and in apartments - in the kitchen. Many housewives, due to the fact that the boiler looks like a big white spot against the background of the common room, refuse to use it in favor of more expensive options. However, you shouldn’t give up on it for this reason. Inquisitive craftsmen have already come up with several ways to disguise a gas boiler so that no one would even know about its existence.
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Is it possible to hide a gas boiler for individual heating: safety standards
There are no documents stating that a gas boiler cannot be hidden. However, there are requirements for its installation that must be met:
- The room where the boiler will be located must have a window and a door.It should be well ventilated.
- The boiler must not be installed closer than 30 cm next to a sink, stove or refrigerator.
- When sewing into a closet, it is important to pay attention that it does not have a bottom or a top. The door should preferably be lattice.
- The walls of the cabinet or niche must be lined with fire-resistant material.
- Between the boiler and the walls there must be an air gap of at least 3 cm on all sides.
- The room must be equipped with a gas leak detector.
- The power of the hidden boiler should not exceed 60 kW.
- The boiler must be freely accessible. It cannot be firmly mounted into the wall.
Important: do not neglect these safety rules for the sake of an aesthetic appearance.
Despite the fact that there are many of these requirements, their compliance is possible with various design solutions.
How to hide a gas boiler in the kitchen: the best ideas
How you can hide a gas boiler is limited only by your imagination. If you rarely design anything yourself or do it yourself, then you can turn to ready-made design solutions. They vary both in complexity and cost, which expands their choice to suit every taste and color.
We hide it in the kitchen set
Sewing a gas boiler into a kitchen set is one of the most ergonomic solutions. Moreover, this can be planned at the stage of purchasing or modeling the set itself, which will ensure ideal concealment of the boiler without unnecessary problems. This is especially true for those who rarely interact with construction tools themselves or are unsure of getting a good result.
Integrating a boiler into an already purchased set is much more difficult and not always possible, so it is advisable to decide in advance whether it is necessary. Often there is simply not enough height, width or depth of the cabinet to safely accommodate the boiler. In this case, it is advised to completely remove one of the elements of the headset and install a new one. But it is not necessary to do this. If you have free space, you can simply sheathe the top of the boiler to match the design of the kitchen unit.
Hiding with drywall
Self-cladding often comes down to tearing down the boiler using plasterboard or chipboard. It is not difficult to carry out this work by following the following algorithm of actions:
- Measurements are taken of the boiler and the necessary parameters of the new cabinet are calculated, taking into account air gaps.
- The side walls are cut out in accordance with the measurements taken.
- Provide the walls with the required number of holes for furniture curtains.
- Using a level, fasten the walls of the future cabinet.
- There is no need to install a back wall.
- Secure the slats and, hooking the fasteners onto them, hang the cabinet door on the curtains. For better ergonomics, it is worth ordering it from the same salon where you purchased the kitchen set. This will make it possible to make the cabinet for the gas boiler look as if it came with the entire kitchen set.
- The resulting structure carefully hides the boiler and secures it.
Important: upon completion of installation, you need to make sure that the measurements and calculations are carried out correctly, and that the necessary air gaps are adequately provided.
Using a niche in the wall
Using a niche in the wall is probably the simplest option, in which all construction work comes down to making and attaching the door (if you need it).
However, specially preparing a niche for a boiler is not so easy. If you are thinking about purchasing a boiler at the repair stage, then yes, in most cases this will not be difficult for you. But it is impossible to fit the boiler to an existing niche. If its dimensions do not meet the requirements, then you cannot even dismantle it, as in the case of a kitchen set.
If you are still the happy owner of a niche in the wall, the dimensions of which allow you to place a gas boiler in it, then give preference to this method, since it is the most durable and cost-effective option. You can order the door from the company that manufactured the kitchen set, or if you have the materials, you can make it yourself. You can do without a door altogether by decorating the gas boiler in an interesting way.
Kitchen design with gas boiler
Before moving on to the idea of installing a gas boiler, it is important to decide whether you will hide it somehow, and if so, how. This can affect both the choice of the boiler itself (they are wall-mounted and floor-mounted) and the entire kitchen design. You shouldn’t do everything in a hurry: repairs, like buying a headset, are often done for more than one year, and it is important that you feel comfortable being in the room on which you spent a lot of time and effort.
- You can easily come up with a design yourself if you are not lacking in creative abilities, or you can make your choice based on ready-made options that are actively used in everyday life.
- Looking at some kitchen designs, you can’t even tell that a gas boiler may be hidden inside one of the cabinets: either a wall-mounted one, small in size, or a floor-mounted one, which is distinguished by its bulkiness.
- If there is a niche in a non-residential premises, be sure to consider it as an option where you can hide the boiler.
- By showing innovative thinking, you can make a gas boiler almost one of the main design elements.
- Or you can simply decorate it nicely, emphasizing the style of the kitchen.
Some users arrange the kitchen in such a way that they do not need to hide the boiler at all - it fits perfectly into the design in its original design.