Garden bars, outdoor kitchens and pizza ovens in Wakefield
Bars, outdoor kitchens, barbecues and pizza ovens, built in brick and stone as part of the patio rather than bolted on afterwards. If you have seen something you like, bring us the photograph.
What people ask us for
Outdoor living has stopped being a summer fortnight and turned into something people build for properly, and the requests come in more or less the same shapes. A bar in the corner of the garden with a stone top and somewhere for the glasses. An outdoor kitchen with a run of worktop, space for the barbecue to sit in rather than on, and storage underneath. A brick built barbecue that stays put through the winter instead of being wheeled into the shed. A pizza oven, which is usually the one that starts the whole conversation. Then the lighting, which is what makes any of it usable after nine o'clock.
It stands on what a wall stands on
A brick barbecue with an oven on top of it is a serious weight, and a masonry pizza oven is heavier still once the dome and the hearth are in. That load cannot sit on a patio bed. It goes on its own concrete footing, dug at the same time as the rest of the groundwork, so nothing settles later and cracks the very joint you are looking at while you eat. This is why these features are far cheaper and far better built into a new patio than added to a finished one, and why we always ask about them at the survey even when nobody has mentioned them yet.
Where it goes matters more than what it is
The features that get used sit in the right place, and the ones that gather cobwebs are usually in the wrong one. So we walk the garden with you and think about where the sun is at seven in the evening rather than at midday, which way the smoke will drift and whose garden it drifts into, how far somebody has to carry a tray from the kitchen door, and whether the people cooking end up with their back to everyone else. Small things, and they decide whether the thing gets lit twice a summer or twice a week.
Heat and the sensible precautions
Anything with a live fire in it gets built to keep that fire where it belongs. Firebrick where the heat is, insulation behind it, and a flue tall enough and far enough from windows, gutters and overhanging branches that smoke and sparks go up. Timber fencing and dry hedging stay well clear. None of this is complicated, but it is the part a stack of nice looking bricks does not solve on its own.
Lighting and power
Recessed LED lighting set into a wall face is the detail people notice most in a finished garden, and it is nearly free to allow for while the walls are going up and impossible to add neatly afterwards. So we duct for it as we build, along with sockets and anything else you might want out there. The final connection to the mains is left to a qualified electrician to make and certify. Even if you are unsure, tell us the maybes and we will run the duct in anyway.
These jobs run longer than a straight patio and they are the sort where we are with you for a few weeks. Once we start, we stay until it is finished, and it is Mark and his own lads throughout rather than a sub-contract gang. There is finished work in the gallery, and you can ring or message us with a photograph of whatever it is you have seen.
Questions we get asked about this
Can a pizza oven go against the house wall or next to the fence?
Against a solid masonry house wall it often can, with the right build up and the flue taken well clear of any window, gutter or eaves. Hard against a timber fence, no, and we will say so on the day rather than build it and hope. Anything with a live fire in it needs air round it, a non combustible surround, and a flue high enough that smoke and sparks are going up rather than sideways into your neighbour's washing. Where a garden is tight we would sooner move the oven a couple of metres and design the seating round the new spot than squeeze it into a corner that will annoy you every time you light it.
Do we need drawings, or do you work it out with us?
You do not need drawings. Most people arrive with a photograph off the internet and a rough idea of where they want to stand with a drink, and that is plenty to start with. We come out, look at where the sun is in the evening, where the smoke will drift, how far it is to carry a tray from the kitchen, and what the patio can be worked round. Then we mark it out on the ground so you can walk round it before anything is built. Customers regularly tell us the ideas that came out of that conversation were not what they had asked for and were better. Ask us what we would do, we do not mind saying.
Can we have power and lights out there?
Yes, and the time to decide is before the walls go up, not after. While we are building we set the ducting, back boxes and cable routes into the brickwork and under the paving, which is straightforward at that stage and a real mess to retrofit once everything is pointed. LED lighting recessed into a wall face is the one people ask for most, and it makes far more difference to an evening than a floodlight does. The final connection to the mains is left for a qualified electrician to terminate and certify. Tell us at the survey where you might want a socket, a light or a speaker, even if it is a maybe, and we will duct for it anyway.
Tell us what you have in mind
Send the photograph that started it off and the postcode. We will come out at a time that suits you, mark it out on the ground and put a price in writing.