Kitchen inspection is crucial for every homeowner to ensure their appliances are working correctly, sufficient ventilation, and no fire hazards. Kitchen accidents are common, and they are present in different ways, whether it is falling due to slippery floors, burns while cooking, fire due to appliances like your oven not working correctly, or even old outlets. Some we can’t always prevent ourselves from hitting our head with a cabinet when we forget to close them. But for the ones we can, we need to make sure our kitchen is as safe as possible by running a kitchen inspection.
Thus, we have compiled some opinions from experts on this topic for you to learn and ensure your kitchen is as safe as possible.
What are the best ventilation and lighting conditions for an indoor kitchen garden?
To optimize plant growth in an indoor kitchen garden, you want to make sure you have fresh, circulating air. You can get this from an open window, or by having a fan running near your garden. For lighting, leafy greens and herbs want anywhere between 12 to 16 hours of direct light a day, with flowering plants requiring a few hours less. Usually, a really bright window can suffice for some growth, but if you really want to up your grow game, indoor grow lights or a specialized indoor garden are your best bet!
– Christopher Di Grazia from Just Vertical
What safety precautions are crucial when grilling indoors?
- Do not use a gas or charcoal grill inside or in your garage. As tempting as it may be, charcoal and gas grills are only meant for outdoor use. If you really want to grill inside then you can invest in an electric grill.
- Make sure your grill, pans, and cooking area are clean before you start. You will be cooking with high heat and you do not want any food debris to catch fire.
- If you are using an Electric Grill, make sure you do not immerse it or expose the electrical plug to water when cleaning.
- While cooking, do not leave the grill unattended and make sure to keep children and pets away.
- Make sure to use a high smoke point oil to prevent flare-ups from the oil.
- Make sure you have good ventilation as steaks will smoke when you are grilling them. This could be turning the hood fan on high if it vents outdoors, opening windows, or cooking near an open window if you have a portable electric grill.
-Matt Crowley from Chicago Steak Company
What are the most important fire safety considerations while cooking outdoors?
First and foremost, making sure that the area you are planning to cook in is free of potential hazards is of paramount importance. This means that you should keep anything flammable away from the area, including fuel, bags of charcoal, kindling, everything.
This also means that you should pay attention to the surroundings. Whether you are cooking over a campfire, cranking up the barbecue on the patio, or firing up the smoker in the driveway, you should stay away from fences and wood decking, parked cars, and make sure that bushes and tree branches are well-clear of the cooking area.
You should have some way of putting out a fire just in case something goes sideways. A combination of a fire extinguisher is the best choice, but a smothering blanket or a bucket of water or sand can also be helpful. Never assume that the steps you’ve taken to prevent a fire from starting are going to be good enough.
Probably the most important thing to consider about fire safety is to make sure your equipment is in good working order. Replacing damaged propane lines, repairing faulty burners, and keeping sparks and burning coal contained will go a long way toward ensuring that you don’t accidentally start a fire
-Scott and Seth Perkins from The Bearded Butchers
What are some benefits of making sure your refrigerator is working at the right temperature?
A properly working fridge gives you peace of mind on two fronts: food safety and food quality. First, keeping your fridge temperature below the temperature danger zone will keep your food safe and slow the rate of spoilage. Second, and sometimes overlooked, is food quality. It’s important to keep the temperature well away from freezing—inadvertently freezing foods has negative effects on texture, not to mention convenience. Use a thermometer in your fridge to make sure it’s running in the right temperature window, shoot for 35°-38° F.
-Kyle Halvorson from ThermoWorks
What are some signs that could indicate your oven is not working properly?
A few signs that your oven is not working properly are incorrect temperature or baking times, weird noises or beeping, or weird smells. If you notice that it’s taking longer or shorter amounts of time to cook something in the oven, there may be a temperature issue or heating element issue. If your oven is making weird noises when it’s on or beeping constantly, there is probably something wrong. I came home from a trip and my oven was beeping constantly and blinking a number. After consulting the manual, the control panel had gone bad and needed to be replaced. Lastly, if your oven smells weird, especially if you have a gas oven, get it checked right away. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
-Emily Flint from Emily Fabulous
Lifespan for ovens: Can it still be fixed or is it time to replace it?
You can absolutely fix your broken oven (I’ve had mine repaired 3 times), but there isn’t a “one size fits all” answer here. Oven repair is not cheap and there comes a tipping point where the repair quote is so expensive that you might as well buy a new oven! My best advice is to save money every month so that you’re not caught off guard when it’s time to buy a new oven because that time will absolutely come.
-Aurelia Lambrechts from Philosophy of Yum
What are some things to take in consideration when designing a kitchen for a cooking business at home to avoid some of the most common safety hazards?
Electrical hazards associated with kitchen appliances would be one thing I will definitely look into. The most common electrical hazards in the kitchen include; poor or inadequate wiring, electrical items close to the water, overloading the system. I also highly recommend making sure the outlets in your kitchen are GFCI/AFCI and code compliant.
-Kevin Dorris from Modern Cabinets Direct
Before you let yourself get working to install your ideal kitchen, always consider and see all of the alignments you will need to prevent any accident. This way, when it comes to inspecting it, you’ll be good to go. Check the corresponding government site if you need more information about your state’s inspection process.