Mark Mitten  0:02  
Are you a nice lady from Arizona with an intelligent and informative home design podcast, you would approach it up with a little East Coast attitude, maybe save a few lives while you're at it, then you'd better call Paul.

Nancy  0:21  
Welcome back to home design chat with Nancy. If you're remodeling or building a new home, you don't want to miss these podcasts we share information about every component of your home, you'll learn about tile appliances, cabinets, paint, flooring, lighting, we cover it all. Well, today is December 15. And if you're looking at your calendar, you have 10 more days till Christmas and time is really going by fast. One of the greatest challenges for a kitchen designer is to create a design that the customer appreciates aesthetically and simultaneously provides them with a functionally well designed kitchen. It's equally difficult to just not make any mistakes. And sadly, there's something very few kitchen designers can actually accomplish. Well, is your kitchen designer designing a dangerous kitchen for you. And we're gonna find out because my special guest is Paul maxillary. Paul is the president of mainline kitchen design. And that's located in Ballard Kenwood, Pennsylvania, probably they're having snow and we're having somebody five degrees. But Paul, thank you so much for taking your time to talk to us. Oh,

Paul McAlary  1:32  
thank you, Nancy. It's a pleasure being on your podcast, you know, having a podcast ourselves, we appreciate the forum and the opportunity to get our name out there too. So yeah, so as far as kitchens go, if you go to insure ask insurance companies, they will tell you that the kitchen is the most dangerous room in the house.

Nancy  1:52  
But right next to the bathtub where people usually break their hip when they're coming out, okay.

Paul McAlary  1:58  
And then the bathtub too, it's a lot of times that they're breaking their hip, they're older, if they're in their bathtub, they should have shower bars, right?

Nancy  2:05  
Now they should change it to a walk in shower, we know that well

Paul McAlary  2:09  
that that would be even better. But if they can't afford to do that, or whatever, at least if they have shower bars all over the place, they'll be less likely to they'll be less likely to fall. Same thing as kitchens as far as kitchens go, you can make kitchens dangerous, a million different ways. And it can be some something as simple as just even putting a light switch in the wrong location. You know, if you're coming in from outside and it's dark out, and you've been maybe it's a new home, or you've never been in that home before and you're the first one walking through the door, you might be fumbling around trying to find a light switch. And in the process, step on a dog dish fall over break your fracture or stall, break your hip, do whatever. But even a light switch can make something dangerous. In some one of the blogs, I wrote in one of the speeches that I give all the time, I talk about what are the 10 most or nine most really dangerous things that you can do in your kitchen. And, you know, most of these things will have the potential I guess to kill you. So

Nancy  3:08  
I know you're gonna go through them. And I just want people to start using your imagination because this is not a video, it's an audio. So Paul is going to explain the different scenarios of what can be dangerous in the kitchen, and you just have to use your imagination as he's talking. So go for it, Paul.

Paul McAlary  3:27  
That's good advice. I have to do that more on my podcast.

Nancy  3:30  
I used to have a radio show. And before my first show, somebody gave me a hint. He said Don't forget radio is theater of the mind. You have to explain everything. And then people can imagine it if they have an imagination. Some people don't. But hopefully everybody listening to this podcast has an imagination. So where do we start?

Paul McAlary  3:52  
As kitchen designers, we have to have an imagination otherwise we can't be good at our jobs. That's true. The dangerous kitchen design flaw that I list first or speak about usually first is putting figures that are flammable, close to your cooktop burners. And that happens a lot. You'll see it where people will have a cooktop that's right next to their oven cabinet. So they'll have like a double oven cabinet. And then the next cabinet over is a cooktop. So if you put a big flat pot or a big spaghetti pot on top of the stove, and you have a gas cooktop, flattening out the flames, the flames will actually be licking the sides of the oven cabinet. So I mean, that's a terrible thing. And typically

Nancy  4:32  
the oven cabinet is wood. Yeah. Which is a very combustible material.

Paul McAlary  4:38  
Sure. So I mean, that's an old fashioned way to set your house on fire. Who knows how many homes got set on fire from that nowadays? Sometimes in the most expensive kitchens, they'll create these hearts. Some people call them grados with the hood actually comes all the way down to the countertop. I know you've seen it, but possibly actually

Nancy  4:58  
two weeks blame is a little bit better, we'll say the hood is above the cooktop, but then it has legs that are sitting on the countertop. And people think it's so cute because they have little doors and little drawers. And you don't realize that this is very dangerous. Go ahead, I didn't want to interrupt you. But I'm using my imagination,

Paul McAlary  5:19  
you're doing a better job of this great describing than I am. So I appreciate it. So yeah, so exactly that. And it's, it's doubly dangerous, because not only are these legs always too close to the burners, but then when you put a pot on the back burner, you can't turn the handle out, because the leg is in the way. So that means the handle has to go back over the burner on the other side. So if you don't set your house on fire, you'll be burning your hands trying if you have all the you know, if you have a couple of burners on at the same time, you'll be reaching across burners to get the handles of your pots or pans.

Nancy  5:53  
And not only that I'm a clean freak. And I always tell people, if you're going to fry anything, or whatever you're going to do, you're going to end up having to clean the sides of those legs that are coming down, you're and it'll eventually people will get tired of that now somebody came up with that idea. And it really caught on. But aesthetically, it's adorable. Functionally, it's terrible. So yeah,

Paul McAlary  6:18  
it's terrible, functionally and dangerous, though the combination of the two, so that would be my number one date. My first though usually the first dangerous thing that I discuss, a lot of these things have to do with fire, because that's one of the most dangerous things happen in the kitchen. So the second, the second example, that I usually list is having the range too close to or underneath a window. And you know, that can be dangerous and damage the window but can be dangerous for a lot of reasons. So, you know, when I have customers, what's one

Nancy  6:54  
of the reasons because I had a look that up years ago, and they said, well the pilot like blowout if you open the window, that's why they didn't want a window above the cooktop or the the range. Um, but now they have electric ignitions. So why do we not want a window above and I've seen this on TV kitchens. And sometimes let's face it, when I watch a TV show, the first thing I'm looking at is the kitchen. Sure. And if you ever watched Madam Secretary, she's got some really good points in our kitchen. It's kind of like I want to say galley kitchen. But it's a narrow kitchen and they stuck an island in there, it was too narrow. So they have a 24 inch deep Island and they have a cooktop and a sink. All right, but on the so the sink is on the side, then they have the island on this side, they put two stacks of double ovens and a refrigerator. You can't go in there, open it up, and then you're blocking everything

Paul McAlary  7:56  
up is only in a 24 inch deep cabinet. Yeah, heaven forbid isn't a gas cooktop,

Nancy  8:02  
I believe it is

Paul McAlary  8:03  
you're facing the other direction. I mean, it's one thing when you're standing at the cooktop on the side that you work at, because you're expecting that. But if you're standing at the back side, maybe looking in the cabinets on the other side of the island, you could be setting your hair or your clothing on fire by leaning up against you know, that's illegal, actually, you're supposed to have a recording to build in code nine inches of countertop in between the back of the cooktop. And the

Nancy  8:29  
What do you enjoy the countertop? Or the countertop? Yeah, yeah. So this is a cute kitchen, because at the end of the kitchen, they have their eating area. And the whole back wall is open shelving, books and whatever, aesthetically cute kitchen but every time I mean I don't watch it anymore, but the few times I watched it, I thought that I don't know how they work. Of course, it's a TV set. But there are people who will say to you, I like that kitchen. Can we do that? And you have to go? Yeah, we can do it to a certain point. But this kitchen doesn't really work. And you have to explain because we are marriage counselors. And we have to explain safety codes and all this other stuff. So there's more to designing a kitchen,

Paul McAlary  9:10  
or most of the kitchens on television are incredibly dangerous. So it's not just that one as early as I Love Lucy. And I Love Lucy, the stove was underneath the window, and there were curtains on the window. So you have a fire on the stove and then it jumps to the curtains. Everybody you know is going to be burned up. But all the most famous TV shows all have kitchens that are illegal. So when I was a kid a Brady Bunch

Nancy  9:36  
when I was a kid I watched I Love Lucy every week, not figure out how she could take a loaf of bread. That's 20 feet. Here I am seven years old and I'm going how does she do that?

Paul McAlary  9:52  
Having a cooktop underneath the window doesn't break Building Code nor in a lot of places would the building inspector object to you having a bathroom door open right on your kitchen table or right onto your cooking surface or right onto someplace else. But it doesn't mean that they're not terrible ideas. So for instance, when our customers want to put their cooktop underneath their window, they'll promise not to put curtains on the window or blinds on the window. When you're trying to hit when you turn the burners on the since hot air rises, it depressurizes the area in front of the burners. So what actually happens is you turn the burners on, if you have blinds going all the way down, it pulls the blinds forward into the room. And so it makes them easy to ignite. So I mean, that's one common way. But even if you're not planning on putting curtains on the window, it doesn't mean that after you move out because you know better that the people that buy your home aren't going to do it. They might not think about it, we've replaced several people's kitchens that thankfully, nobody died. But they had home fires. And the homebuyers started from having their cooktop either underneath the window, or right next to the window. So here's a

Nancy  11:06  
stupid question, Paul, if they do have because I've never seen it in reality, if they have a window above their cooktop, where's their hood, where's their ventilation system,

Paul McAlary  11:16  
that's another problem, of course, too. So they might then have a downdraft or they might, a lot of them have no hood and open a window, they open, they could open the window. And then if they have, if they have a pilotless they don't have a pilot was burner, now they've got a real problem, because if it blows out the pilot, if they have an old fashioned pilot, now you've got gas accumulating, you think you're boiling your spaghetti water on the stove, meanwhile, you're creating a bomb. But the other thing too is you probably wouldn't have this as much as we would here, what would have assumed it wouldn't have this problem at all. But for us, it gets really cold outside in the winter. So there'll be ice on the inside of the windows, sometimes,

Nancy  11:57  
I remember those days I used to live there, you're gonna get the scraper to scrape your windows or you can look outside.

Paul McAlary  12:04  
So if you have insulated glass on your window, and you have the outside temperature really cold, and the inside temperature is right next to the burners on your stove, the difference in the temperatures between those two things, a lot of times it's going to break the seal on your window. And then that's how your windows get all fogged up and you ruined your windows. So it's even another problem that you're just you have these expensive windows that you might have gotten. And now they're they're ruined because you put your cooktop, there's always better places to put your cooktop. And

Nancy  12:36  
so the solution to this one is don't even think about it. Yeah, don't think about

Paul McAlary  12:39  
it, don't do it. The customers that have done it. But maybe they're walls or stone walls that are 10 inches thick or 12 inches thick, and the windows are back set so that the windows and the window treatments and everything else are so far removed. And then maybe even the cabinets or the burners and everything are pulled forward a little bit so that you're not you know, you're not making things since such close proximity is as dangerous as it would be

Nancy  13:05  
maybe an induction cooktop would solve that problem. I

Paul McAlary  13:08  
hope that helps issue. Sure. By talking about

Nancy  13:12  
induction cooktops, I want to talk about Thermador Thermador is luxury appliances redefined to customize the bowl collections to suit your style. The masterpiece and the professional collections tell two distinct design stories, while providing every necessary ingredient required to personalize your home. Experience unparalleled innovation and performance across cooling cooking and dish care now featuring smart kitchen appliances enabled with home connect. So to learn more about what home Connect is, you can go to thermador.com or visit your local showroom where you can see touch and learn more about those Thermador experiences. Okay, what's our next one?

Paul McAlary  13:55  
So our next one and by the way, induction cooktops do take away a lot of this these dangers right? Yeah, yeah. You don't have open flames which is good and they heat up really fast. So you haven't really sacrifice the the one thing that people The reason people want

Nancy  14:10  
but I might say for people who don't realize this because I am a clean freak and you can have an induction cooktop and when you fry who likes to clean it. You put paper towel on your cooktop and then you get your frying pan and put it on top of the paper towel. Then when you're finished cooking you just roll up your paper towel you throw it away, and you're done.

Paul McAlary  14:30  
Yeah, another good reason I never even thought about doing that.

Nancy  14:34  
Oh yeah, I know. Well the cleaning. Okay, what's our next one?

Paul McAlary  14:39  
Our third one is having your range or your cooktop not next to a window but what if there's no cabinet and countertop on the side? What if it's what's called we call it kitchen designers. What if it's at the end of the run that the cabinet that the last thing on your countertop you have a bunch of countertop? Then you have your cooktop and there's no countertop or anything on this item that. And that sometimes is really the most dangerous thing of all, because a lot of times, the reason that there's nothing after the range, or after the cooktop, is because there's a door there, which means that when your stove is on or your cooktop is on, people are entering a room not paying attention, not even realizing that there's an open flame, possibly inches away from them. And if they have long hair, if they're just coming in, if it's in the wintertime, here, they're wearing, you know, loose clothing and, and big, you know, they could be coming in the back door of a house. And if you've got your stove on, and you're making a hot toddy or whatever you're doing, because it's cold outside, you're walking in with your scarf and everything else on and it's right next to the open flames. So it that's a huge danger.

Nancy  15:46  
And it doesn't have to be a door and going outside, it could be a doorway, just entering your living room or your dining room. I always think about the pot handles sticking out. And if you have little kids and they come in and hit that pot handle, that whole pot is gonna dump on them. Yeah.

Paul McAlary  16:04  
And it could be hot grease that could be calamitous.

Nancy  16:08  
Yeah, I was gonna say, even if it's not at the end of the run, if your pot handles are sticking forward, so that it's actually it could stick into your stomach or whatever, you have to take your pot handles and swing them around so that they're not in the way, because if you have little kids, they're gonna get hurt.

Paul McAlary  16:24  
Yeah, we have a customer just recently, that wanted to buy a $45,000 cabinet order from us with pretty expensive cabinetry. And they had in their existing kitchen, a cooktop that was right on an island, right at the corner of the island, so that there was no countertop on one side, and we wouldn't sell it to them. They were like, well, we have it. Now we just want the same thing again. And it doesn't make a difference, because we're not going to sell somebody, something that we know is going to be dangerous. Because if we warn them that it's going to be dangerous, and then they in fact, do injure themselves. As professionals, we're instantly liable. There's no way you can win a lawsuit with a customer, when you told them something was dangerous. But then you were so greedy, or so nonchalant about their own safety that you sold them that thing.

Nancy  17:10  
So I might add that kitchen designers don't just make pretty kitchens, we have to look at the safety and the function of the kitchen that we're designing. And if people don't listen to us, why don't they go to their butcher and have him design the kitchen? Sure. So we're doing this for a reason to make it a safe environment for your family. I wanted to throw that on to that customer of yours. So

Paul McAlary  17:35  
yeah, so I mean, I'm sure he has that now. And we'll hope that he's safe. But he didn't, we didn't let him buy his cabinets from us. Because I was like that one job doesn't matter that $40,000 is nothing compared to how much that lawsuit could have benefits child or family member was severely injured,

Nancy  17:52  
whatever, if somebody finds a kitchen designer, or maybe they're not a kitchen designer, they just sell cabinets, and they go along with these ideas that are not safe, I would say run to the real kitchen designer don't buy anything from somebody just because they're selling cabinets, and they're gonna do what you want to do, and it's wrong. So go to somebody who knows what they're doing.

Paul McAlary  18:15  
I mean, I would agree with that. And I would tell you to from a couple of fights that happened on LinkedIn, between myself and some other kitchen designers, that most kitchen designers probably think that if the customer wants it, and you warn them, then it's their job to protect themselves that they'll put the sale essentially, ahead of endangering the customer if the customer really wants it. And many kitchen designers when we were some people were defending not doing that, and having the ethics to not even sell kitchens to people. And a lot of people were making a lot of kitchen designers that were CK deeds. Were actually that certified kitchen designers. And Nancy, you're one I know. But in our profession, the people that were certified kitchen designers would defending just selling people, whatever they want, as long as they were warned,

Nancy  19:05  
yeah, well, you know, I'm gonna say that certified kitchen designers, we take tests, we have a lot of experience, but not to say that every kitchen designer knows what they're doing, just like not every doctor knows what he's doing. So you have to check them out, find out what they do. But I also was going to say that if somebody sells a kitchen that we feel you and I feel would not be safe. And the person who sold it is just thinking of making the sale because the customer wants it. If something happens, they will be named in a lawsuit. Sure. So they don't think that far in advance. But

Paul McAlary  19:43  
no, and they do sometimes think that actually if they get somebody to sign something saying that they've been warned, that alleviates them of the responsibility and in the area. In fact, it's the opposite. That if you warn somebody as a professional, and you make them sign something saying you've said that it's dangerous, and they're doing it anyway, you've already lost the lawsuit, because you've essentially admitted the fact that you did something unprofessional. So that's why you better be carrying some kind of professional liability insurance. And a lot of it.

Nancy  20:19  
Hey, I wanted to bring up this, Paul, we're talking about safety. And I know I talked to you before we started on air, microwaves that are set to high, this is my pet peeve. And I think my audience knows that I'm a little petite ish. So I'm not your average size. And the first thing I look at when I walk into a kitchen, or the first thing that I think of when I design a kitchen is the height of the microwave so that it's safe. Have you ever had a customer that said, No, I want it up 18 inches above the countertop? You got to be a basketball player to use it? Sure. So what do you do in that case, when they insist? Well,

Paul McAlary  21:01  
one of those people was my wife. And so I acquiesced to her, which means she's five feet even. And she wanted a microwave hood over her stove. And I wanted a microwave drawer. And so she for some reason, don't ask me why she wanted the microwave over the stove. And ultimately, as long as she was only using, she doesn't use the microwave for anything else. But like heating up reheating a cup of coffee. So as long as it's a well designed kitchen, I'm happy with it, it certainly isn't my when it's a customer and not my own life by I tried to dissuade them of it.

Nancy  21:41  
Yeah, I have recommended the microwave in a drawer many times because that solves the problem. A lot of times, especially with the new designs were doing away with so many of the wall cabinets. And people want open shelves or just plain walls, which I like the look of because sometimes we have too many cabinets in a kitchen. So the microwave drawer really solves the problem. Now, people out there don't know what we're talking about. Just you can go online, and you can Google it. And or you can go into a showroom and ask to see it. There's pros and cons on that. But definitely for shorter people. And also I might add for people in wheelchairs. And for the elderly, it's much easier to get something out of that microwave drawer then to raise the dish or whatever and put it into the microwave that's almost above your head,

Paul McAlary  22:32  
above your head and impossibly whatever's when you're taking it out is when it's really dangerous. Because then whatever's in it is hot. And then you can spill it on yourself.

Nancy  22:41  
And a lot of my customers have kids that are not four years old, but if they're eight, nine years old, they can use a microwave to do popcorn or whatever. And if you're using the microwave drawer, it's easier for them to reach them again having to climb on a chair, which we don't, we don't recommend that. Right. You know, if people are interested in microwave drawers, they can also go on monogram.com and put in microwave drawer monograms intelligent appliances are built to enhance your kitchen cuisine and beyond experience peace of mind convenience and an optimized performance with a smart age cue app, which elevates the way you interact with your home and appliances by allowing you to do things like preheating your oven from your phone, and checking how much time remains on your dishwashers cycle. So again, go to microwave comm sorry, go to monogram.com To learn more, or visit your local showroom. And don't forget to ask about the microwave drawer. Okay,

Paul McAlary  23:43  
and if you happen to be, have a wife like mine that wants a microwave hood, and you get a monogram microwave hood, nowadays, they have a TV screen on one of the new models that can not only show you your TV TV program, or recipes or other things on the face of your microwave, it will also show you what's cooking on your burners so you could be across the room and see if your pot needs to be stirred or anything else. So that was one of the things that was at Cape is the last time I there was a new GE Monogram. Microwave hood that had the face of the TV screen essentially was the face of the microwave.

Nancy  24:24  
So for those people who don't know Cabe is is actually a kitchen in Bath Industry show and once a year, they if anybody's going to introduce anything new is going to be there. Now it's not open to the public, but you can go on HGTV and you can watch the whole show. So you save the money and you know you don't have to pay the admission like we do or fly to wherever and you can watch that. Okay, so now where are we up to?

Paul McAlary  24:50  
We've knocked three and four together in one fell swoop. Number five is something that people wouldn't think of a lot of the time But you can't have wall cabinets on the wall without base cabinets or a countertop below them. So the countertop in the base cabinets that are below a wall cabinet, they protect people from being able to get underneath a cabinet and possibly stand up or bend over and to reach something and then stand up and fracture their skull on the cabinet above. So it's a typical thing we're used to people will want more cabinetry, and then they have drive to want more cabinetry, they will have the wall cabinets come out and they'll go past the cabinets that the past the base cabinets are past the countertop. And it's incredibly dangerous. In fact, I actually know someone personally, that was a carpenter. And from installing cabinets, you know, a lot of carpenters will install the wall cabinets first, and then we'll install the base cabinet. Second, will he installed the wall cabinets and then bent over and forgot. And when he stood up, fractured his skull on the wall cabinet that was above him. And he ended up permanently blinding him. He ruptured his optic nerve and was permanently blinded. So it's even more dangerous because at least he was a professional and sort of sort of, you know, knew what he was doing. But if you know if you have a wall cabinet coming out past where your your countertop is coming, there's going to be a kid, there's going to be somebody that's going to drop something on the floor bend over to pick it up and then hit their head possibly right on the corner of the cabinet. So that's another thing that's incredibly dangerous. And it certainly can kill you. I don't know if it in the only case I know of at least it only blinded somebody. But certainly people can hit their head all

Nancy  26:40  
the time. Yeah, good point. Good point. Okay, what else?

Paul McAlary  26:44  
Let's see. So I guess this one is one that you we see all the time as kitchen designers, people will have their cabinets and then they'll put their mold in on top of the cabinets and they'll start getting closer and closer to the ceiling without making it all the way up. And some point once you get to four or five inches, where heaven forbid three or two inches away from the ceiling with mauve and on top of your cabinets. Now that space that you've created is impossible to clean. So you can't even get up on top of a ladder or anything else and ever be able to get the vacuum cleaner or anything through that space that you've left to be able to clean on top of the cabinets. And so over decades and decades of time, you're just collecting dust and dust mites, and grease and everything else in that cavity that is impossible to clean over time. It's incredibly unhealthy to have all of that stuff that's not ever able to be cleaned or so we always say once you get close to the ceiling, your moldings and everything else needs to reach the entire way. So you should always and it certainly looks much more built in. So you know,

Nancy  27:55  
so they can either stack moldings, which solves the problem, or they could build a depending on the number of inches, they have a small soffit. Okay,

Paul McAlary  28:06  
so we do a lot of tray ceilings, which is where you have a soffit. If you have 10 foot high ceilings or nine foot high ceilings, and you're trying to save a little bit of money and not have the cabinet's go all the way up to a 10 foot high ceiling, you build a soffit that might be six inches or nine inches high around the whole perimeter of the room. And then your cabinetry doesn't have to be quite as high. But then you also create a nice cavity in the middle of the room where you can have additional moldings. And then if you even divide those that cavity up, that's what's called a coffered ceiling, where you divide the thing up in like beings or whatever into a chapter. So I

Nancy  28:41  
might add just as a design thing, but also functionally, if they're going to put a soffit in, they can extend the soffit past the wall cabinets, and they can put can lights in the soffit, which would then shine directly on their countertop. And that's called Task lighting. So if you have a problem with lighting, that's a good way to solve it.

Paul McAlary  29:01  
Sure. The next one we're going to do is probably one that if you're living in Phoenix, you don't have this problem. But if you're in cold environments, this was a huge problem maybe a decade ago, and that's that people started using professional appliances like Wolf and Viking appliances, and GE Monogram and very expensive, more commercial kind of appliances, maybe 15 years ago or so. And when they went to buy a hook for the commercial appliance, the appliance salespeople would sell them the hood that was sort of designed to go with that commercial appliance. But the commercial appliances were supposed to be going into a restaurant and restaurants have whole ventilation systems that are very different from a home. So when the appliance people were giving people these very powerful hoods, and the reason the hoods are so powerful in restaurants is not just to get rid of smoke and grease. It's that right restaurant cooking areas are very confined, there's usually lots of people working, which generates heat, and the burners and all the appliances are on the whole evening, the whole cooking shift. So it creates an incredible amount of heat. So the fans and the blowers on the hoods aren't really designed to get rid of the smoke in the grease as much as they're designed to get rid of the heat. So when people started buying these professional appliances, they were getting these hoods, some of which were 1200 cfm, which is cubic feet of air per minute that is getting pumped out of the person's house. And why that's a bad thing is that if you're in an area that's either hot, where in the summertime, all your windows are closed, and you have your air conditioning on that's that you are really cold like we are here in the wintertime, where our Heat is on, but all of our air conditioning is closed, then if you turn on your blower that's 1200 cfm, your whole house is an envelope that's completely sealed, because your windows are closed, tight. And so where does the air? Where does 1200 cubic feet of air come from when someone's windows and doors are closed? And the answer was the only thing that's open is whatever chimney that you have. So in your area, probably not as dangerous, because the only thing that might be venting outside would be the water heater. So the carbon monoxide that was going up the water heater vent is now being pulled into your house. But if you're in a really cold environment your whole heater is on or your fireplaces are on. And so all of that air just comes down and your whole house in a very cold environment gets filled with carbon monoxide rapidly. And the place it fills up first is usually in the basement, because that's where the heating system is. So your kids might be playing in the basement. And then the whole basement is instantly filled with carbon monoxide. So the first place that started to happen was where people were rich, and it was cold. And so people in Jackson Hole and families in Jackson Hole Wyoming were some of the first places to get really ill. But it started happening all over the country as people got more expensive appliances, and got heating systems that were you know, heat or venting systems that were too powerful. So now the federal government stepped in finally in 2011. And now you can't have a hood, more powerful than 400 cubic feet of air per minute, unless you have a replacement air system unless you have a way to take away the negative pressure that gets created by these things.

Nancy  32:34  
Interesting. And by the way, we don't have basements.

Paul McAlary  32:37  
Okay, well that so then it doesn't make a difference that if your water heater is on the first floor, you're filling up your first floor with a water heater, probably monoxide. But we make way more dangerous when a true when true when it's cold outside than and when it's warm outside.

Nancy  32:52  
I think we have one more issue, right? Yep,

Paul McAlary  32:55  
the last one would be a brand new thing that's, that is most dangerous for people that have very expensive inset or beaded inset cabinetry. It's really not a good idea for any cabinetry, ovens and microwave speed ovens. Things that get really hot that were are supposed to be maybe built into Wall tab to either wall cabinets, or more likely built into toll and cabinets weren't designed to have the oven made flush with the face of the cabinet. So when all those ovens were designed, they were designed to have the box of the oven recessed into the into the cabinet box, but the seal of the oven and the doors of the oven are all in front of the box. So I know you know when you design a kitchen I'm sure you keep the doors and the drawer fronts and stuff an inch or so at least away from the the seals of the ovens so that the heat doesn't come out of the oven and possibly ruin the finish on the cabinetry etc. Well, nowadays, if you were to take your oven and cut out the hole and recessed the whole oven into this the cavity so that the face of the door of the oven was even with the face of the oven of the oven cabinet. Then the seal for the oven is actually in back of the oven cabinet. And so when you turn on the oven and put it on the self cleaning cycle that goes up to 770 degrees, and heaven forbid the seal on the oven ever ceases to function at 100% because 770 degree heat will be pumping out of your oven directly into the box of the cabinet. And you know, it's going to ignite the cabinet pretty rapidly I would think so it's something that's happening now a lot and they show it in the appliance stores, but we won't ever sell it to a customer if a customer wants to have inset cabinetry they can or instead appliances will do a microwave inset because the temperature inside the microwaves don't get that hot, but we won't do an oven inset into the face But cabinet.

Nancy  35:00  
Interesting to know, I hope everybody is writing down these things. I want to add one more thing. I think it's dangerous when people have ovens and refrigerators without landing space. I think I was talking to you about that before. And one of the cutest kitchens on TV was Madame president's kitchen. But she actually, that's a cute kitchen. But don't ever pick any ideas or any thing, any design elements that she had, because that was very dangerous. So what we're talking about is when you have a refrigerator or an oven, and you don't have any place to put the stuff that you're taking out of the oven, that is dangerous, because you don't want to take that turkey out or that roast. And then where do you put it? If you don't have an island, I mean, you can turn around and you can put it on the island. But otherwise, I've seen these freestanding refrigerators. They're built in between two walls, and they're out in the back 40. I mean, where are you supposed to take your stuff and put it same with the ovens? So I think landing space. And we all know that when we deck when we design kitchens, we have to make it practical. So we have landing spaces. I have a client that I have been teaching her design 101. And so now she understands about landing spaces and where things should go. But it's designing a kitchen is not as simple as a lot of people think they think oh, yeah, you play with colors. How cute you know, you guys, not anybody can design a kitchen. Right, Paul?

Paul McAlary  36:35  
Oh, it's way harder than you think by created a kitchen intentionally that had, I think it was I think I knew about 28 major mistakes in it. And I did it for our kids, because they would make fun of me. And so to say, Well, anybody can design a kitchen. And so I designed a kitchen with all these mistakes in it. And I said, You guys are so smart, you got 1500 on the SATs, let's see, you'll find just some of the mistakes in this kitchen. And of course, the I told him, I'll give him 20 bucks for every one they found. And they could hardly find any. And there were seven or eight of them that I just rattled off here that could kill somebody. And then a whole bunch of other mistakes like the doors don't open and your dishwasher door can't come down or whatever these different problems are. And if you're a bad kitchen designer, automatically, you're making these, sometimes people hand me designs that are done in other places. And it's like I know how hard it was for me to get all of these mistakes in my design. It took me hours and hours and hours and hours to try to make mistakes. We're trying to do a good kitchen, and they have 15 mistakes, I can rattle off right off the bat looking at the design. So now it's hard. And unfortunately a lot of us are not a lot of us as kitchen designers are not particularly good at our jobs.

Nancy  37:51  
Yeah, I've told this story before, but I was working for a company where I was just doing countertops and cultured marble, but anyway, countertops in kitchens. And of course, as a designer, I would say these things. So this man designed his kitchen, I was going to do the countertops. And I said, you know you're not going to be able to open up your refrigerator because your island is too close to the perimeter cabinets. And he said, Well, this is the way I designed it. And I want it this way. And I said what are you a rocket scientist. And he was. So he insisted that his design is what he wanted. And I did the countertops with minimal overhang. And he couldn't open the door to the refrigerator after it was all said and done. So there you have it. I don't care if you're a rocket scientist, if you don't specialize in kitchen design, it's easy to make mistakes.

Paul McAlary  38:48  
We have a whole video that we do, where engineers a lot of times 10 I was an engineer in college. So and actually the person that plays the engineer in our video was an engineer as well. But engineers are notoriously tough customers for kitchen designers because they want to translate. They want their knowledge and expertise to translate into our field. And so so they come up with some of the wackiest and strangest things so that the video we have is very funny. It's trying to teach customers that they need our help. But it's also an inside joke for us as kitchen designers, because engineers can be such tough customers for us.

Nancy  39:26  
Oh, absolutely. Well, I want to say one thing about studio 41. And I might add that if you're not familiar with studio 41 They have 14 showrooms, but they mainly have their showrooms in Illinois and they do have one in Scottsdale. It's a complete solution for any kitchen or bath design project. They provide everything you need for your project from complimentary design services to the best quality products and innovations available in the industry. They have hundreds of top designs across plumbing fixtures, cabinets, and decorative hardware and the showrooms in Illinois also feature tile and windows which Scottsdale doesn't. So they can begin your project with a visit to one of studio 40 ones 14 premier Kitchen and Bath showrooms. And you can go to shop studio 40 one.com to find out the locations. And I might say that I have never seen such a great selection of cabinet hardware. They must have 1000s So I go there. Luckily, it's in Scottsdale, and I go there all the time. Bring my customers in, we pick out all of our plumbing, but also the cabinet. The cabinet hardware. This has been fun, Paul.

Paul McAlary  40:41  
Yeah, that was a pleasure. Yeah. It makes it it makes it easier. Because when you have a knowledgeable person to speak with, it's that much that much easier making a podcast.

Nancy  40:54  
Yes, yes, we will do this again. Hey, I would like that. Good. Have a happy holiday and happy holiday to everybody out there. I hope everybody enjoyed today's show. And please subscribe on the platform that you're using to listen to these podcasts. And don't forget to share them with your friends. As I've said all the time. We have so much information. You don't want to keep it a secret. And this information that we have today might save a life. So share it. If you want to learn more about me you can go to Nancy hugo.com and if you have any questions for me or for Paul, you can email me at Nancy at Nancy hugo.com. So again, Paul, have a happy holiday. We'll do this again in 2022. And everybody stay safe and have a great day. Thank you. Thank you

Mark Mitten  41:54  
Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with nationally claimed Kitchen Designer Paul maxillary. This podcast is brought to you by Brighton cabinetry, high quality custom cabinetry at competitive prices. For more kitchen cabinets and kitchen design, go to www dot mainline kitchen design.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai