A new boiler fitted inside a kitchen wall cupboard, with the cupboard kept and cut round the pipework.
Can a boiler go in a kitchen cupboard?
Yes, if the cupboard leaves the space the boiler’s maker asks for around it for air and servicing, the flue has a clear route outside, and the pipework can reach. The shelves usually come out and the base is cut round the pipes. London City Plumbers arranges the boiler itself with the gas engineers we work with.
The first photograph is the after. The new white boiler hangs inside the corner wall cupboard with both doors open, a white ribbed duct behind it and the copper pipework dropping below.
The second is the before: the same cupboard empty, the wall below it stripped back to plaster, and the pipe ends waiting.
A boiler in a cupboard
Plenty of kitchens hide the boiler in a wall cupboard, and plenty of people want it kept that way when the boiler is changed. It can be done, but the cupboard has to suit the boiler, not the other way round. The new boiler needs room around it for air and for servicing, the flue needs a clear way out through the wall or the ceiling, and the pipework below has to reach without a tangle. The shelves come out, the base is cut round the pipes, and the back is opened where the flue goes through. Every boiler’s instructions state the gaps it needs either side, above and below, and some cupboards are simply too tight for the boiler a home needs, in which case the boiler goes on the wall beside them and the cupboard stays a cupboard. Our side is the cupboard work, the pipework, the condensate and the controls. The boiler itself is something we arrange. Gas work is carried out by Gas Safe registered engineers we work with. They show you their Gas Safe ID card, and any certificate for the work comes from them.
That is how a boiler in a kitchen cupboard stays in the cupboard.
Old size, new size
A new boiler is often smaller than the one it replaces, which helps in a cupboard. Where it is bigger, or its pipe connections sit in a different place, the base and the back are cut again to suit, and the pipe runs below are reworked so they rise straight into it.
The cupboard kept
Here the corner wall cupboard was kept, its base cut round the pipework.
The boiler sits in the corner, with the hinges and both doors still on, and the copper pipework runs up the stripped wall into the bottom of it.
Keeping the cupboard keeps the kitchen looking as it did, with the boiler out of sight behind the doors and out of the way of knocks and of steam off the hob.
Boilers we have fitted
We wrote up a combi boiler on a bare wall and a conventional to combi conversion before, and our boiler installations page says more about choosing one.
Ring 07546 185778 and say where the boiler is now, and send a photograph of the cupboard with its doors open if you can.
