new cooker clearance height problems

[emma]

My parents have just had an attempted installation of a new gas cooker

• hob - the type without the eye level grill, and the corgi installer refused to install it without major alterations to the cooker hood as the clearance above the cooker to the hood is 610mm. The hood is an unusual type, it slides out like a drawer and sits flush with the bottom of the cupboards, so any attempt to resite the hood would ruin the look of that side of the kitchen, if its even possible. BS clearance appears to be 760mm, this cooker requires 780mm according to the manual. Given a cooker of the same spec and similar appearance has been there for 8 years without problems it seems odd this has arisen now, have the regs changed that much in 8 years? Will a corgi fitter touch this install?

[Lobster]

Sounds correct to me that they wouldn't install it; it's against the regs. I don't know whether or not it would have been correct 8 years ago but really, it matters not.

I question whether the cooker hood was installed correctly... if you look at any modern kitchen - eg try the MFI site at

(or you'll see that every design of cooker hood has it's lowermost point well above the bottom of the wall cupboards. Typically you'll see wall mounted cupboards to the left and right of a hob, with a "step-up" in the eye-line to the cooker hood.

Is there a matched "decor panel" to the front of your cooker hood? If you remove it, what's behind it? Would there be scope for the actual appliance to be raised appropriately, and the decor panel cut down to size? Might need considerable work on the ducting, depending how that's done or it might be pretty straightforward (is it straight through the wall above the hob, or is it ducted elsewhere?) but I think you'll have to bite the bullet.

David