The work triangle joins the three things you use most while cooking — the sink, the stove and the fridge. The standard figures are that no single leg exceeds 2.7 m and that the three legs together do not exceed 7.9 m. Under that, cooking is a pivot; over it, every meal is a walk. Gridsnap measures the triangle on your plan and flags it when either limit is passed.
The numbers
| Measure | Limit |
|---|---|
| Any one leg (sink↔stove, stove↔fridge, fridge↔sink) | ≤ 2700 mm |
| The three legs added together | ≤ 7900 mm |
| Any one leg, practical minimum | ≥ 1200 mm |
The 7.9 m sum is 26 feet and the 2.7 m leg is 9 feet — the triangle is an American guideline, from the NKBA kitchen planning guidelines, and the metric figures are conversions rather than round numbers. That is why they look arbitrary.
The minimum matters as much as the maximum and is discussed less. A leg under about 1.2 m means two work centres are effectively on top of each other: no landing worktop between them, nowhere to put down a hot pan, and the fridge door opening into the cook.
Getting it right
- Put the sink between the fridge and the stove. The sequence you actually work in is fridge → prep → sink → prep → stove. A run laid out in that order makes the triangle fall out on its own.
- Nothing crosses the triangle. A tall unit, an island corner or a walking route through the middle of it is what turns a good triangle into a bad kitchen.
- Leave a landing worktop beside the sink and beside the stove. At least one side of each, or there is nowhere to put things down. This is the single most common fault in an otherwise well drawn kitchen.
- Keep the fridge off the stove. They should not be hard against each other — the heat costs the fridge efficiency and the appliance life.
- Don’t cook under a window. Flames, curtains and draughts, and there is nowhere to put an extract hood.
- One triangle per kitchen. A second sink on an island does not create a second triangle; it creates a second prep zone that has to sit outside the first one’s legs.
Gridsnap checks this automatically
The rule is kitchen-triangle, part of the Pro plan check. It needs at
least one Sink unit, one Stove and one Fridge on the floor; with
duplicates — an island sink, a second fridge — it judges the tightest
combination, so a well arranged core is not condemned by a distant spare
appliance.
The finding reads: “kitchen work triangle (sink–stove–fridge) spans 9.4 m — aim for ≤ 7.9 m total with each leg ≤ 2.7 m.”
Legs are measured centre to centre between the three items. The original guideline measures from the front centre of each appliance, so on 600 mm units Gridsnap’s figure runs up to about 300 mm long per leg. If your triangle is sitting right on the limit, that is the difference you are looking at.
The practice points above are enforced by a second Pro rule,
kitchen-practice: no worktop beside the sink or stove, the stove under a
window, and the fridge hard against the stove each get their own finding.
What this doesn’t do
- There is no minimum-leg check. A sink 400 mm from the stove passes. Only the 2.7 m and 7.9 m ceilings are tested.
- Nothing checks whether the triangle is crossed. A route or an island cutting through it is not flagged, even though it is the usual reason a numerically fine triangle works badly.
- Worktop length and storage volume are not measured. The plan check has nothing to say about whether you have enough counter or enough cupboards.
- A single-wall kitchen has no triangle to speak of. Three appliances in a straight run will usually pass the sum test and still cook badly; the aisle and landing rules are the useful ones there.