Wiring in the Kitchen: Three Electrical Questions for People Turning Old Buildings Into Restaurants

If you have purchased an old building and plan to turn it into a restaurant, there are thousands of tips and ideas you need to keep in mind. Here's a look at what you need to consider in terms of electricity in your kitchen. These questions will help you review the existing electrical system and make decisions about upgrades:

1. Are there outlets designed for appliances?

When you are putting heavy-duty commercial appliances in your kitchen, you need to ensure that the appliances have outlets that can support them. This means having an outlet backed by the right size wires and amperage capacities. In a residential kitchen, you may just have a unique outlet for your stove, but in a commercial kitchen, you are working with larger, more powerful machinery, and as a result, may need special outlets for your oven, stove and refrigerator, as well as possibly your dishwasher.

2. Are the appliance outlets connected to dedicated circuits?

If your kitchen has adequate outlets, you need to make sure they have their own dedicated circuits. If you put in a bunch of appliances, and the circuits seem to trip a lot, that is a sign that you don't have dedicated circuits. You should contact a commercial electrician to create dedicated appliance circuits for you.

To explain, when a large appliance shares a circuit with other devices, the appliance may draw too much power from the circuit. This can cause blown fuses, tripped circuit breakers and overheated wires. However, if the appliance has its own circuit, it helps to prevent these issues and ensures that you can run the appliance safely.

3. Do the outlets have ground fault circuit interrupters?

A ground fault circuit interrupter or GFCI is a safety device that prevents people from getting electrical shocks from outlets. GFCIs are especially important in industrial or commercial environments, and they are also paramount to safety in areas with a lot of water. Those two factors make them especially important in commercial kitchens.

Basically, a GFCI senses the current on both sides of the outlet. If there is even a slight difference, that indicates that power is leaking somewhere, and if that power were "leaking" into someone's body, that could cause them to be electrocuted. To prevent this, GFCIs stop the flow of current any time they sense equal input and output currents. If the outlets in your kitchen don't have GFCIs, you should replace them.

For more tips, contact a commercial electrical contractor, and have them look over the space you plan to turn into a restaurant.