FIRA’s three-year kitchen study is complete
FIRA, The Furniture Industry Research Association, has completed its three-year real life study on how kitchens in UK Households are used. The study was designed to find out how families in households across the UK used their kitchens in comparison to kitchens in Europe. The key findings of this study will be beneficial to the UK Kitchen industry and will have a significant impact on the future design, manufacturing and installation of kitchens.
The study was set up by FIRA in association with Blum UK, a furniture fittings company in Austria which has been carrying out kitchen research for the past 25 years. Monitoring equipment including sensors and six digit counters were fitted into 20 UK Kitchens to observe the usage of drawers, doors and lift systems over a three-year period.
FIRA International’s technical development manager, Dr Peter Beele explained that “this study is the first three-year study of its kind in the UK and will help us gain an in-depth understanding of how kitchens are used in comparison with the rest of Europe. Information about how a family treats a kitchen is of vital importance to design, manufacture and installation. This data will help identify trends in the way family life is changing and enable us to look at areas that would benefit from improvement and innovation.”
The FIRA study focused on loads applied to doors and drawers, cycles of doors, drawers and lift systems, and the changes in usage over time.
The results of kitchen drawer usage reveal that 19 % of drawer space is used for provisions, followed closely by utilities (18%), then pots and flatware (14%). Rubbish storage only occupies 3% of drawer space; however, the rubbish drawer was found to be the most used part of the kitchen.
Austrian kitchen drawers on average held 30-50kg of contents, which is well within kitchen furniture standards. However, many UK kitchen drawers held well over 50kg of contents, revealing that UK kitchen users placed much heavier items such as crockery into their drawers. Hinges, drawer cycles and lifting systems were used more than expected, exceeding current kitchen furniture standards.
The results demonstrate how kitchen use is evolving and how kitchen usage in the UK varies to usage in other parts of Europe. Most importantly, the study has provided valuable information on the current Standard for kitchen equipment (BS6222 part 2 Domestic kitchens equipment – structural strength), highlighting that the standards – especially for the lifting systems and the weight of drawer content- are in need of revision. The kitchens which took part in the study will continue to be monitored.
