How are barbecues, picnic settings and park furniture installed?

Park furniture is the most used and least designed part of most public open space projects.

It is also the part the public judges the project by, because a seat that wobbles or a barbecue that does not work is visible to everybody who uses the park.

Footings and fixing

Every item is fixed, and the fixing is the part that decides whether it survives.

**Cast-in footings** for seats, tables and bins, sized for the item and for the way it will be used, including being stood on, leaned on and climbed.

**Slab mounted** where there is an existing hardstand, with anchors sized and installed into sound concrete rather than into a thin topping.

**Tamper-resistant fixings** throughout, because exposed standard bolts on public furniture are removed. The finish and fixing logic is the same as in [graffiti resistance and anti-vandalism treatments](/answers/graffiti-resistance-and-anti-vandalism-treatments).

Loose furniture in a public park is furniture that moves or disappears, which is why almost nothing in a council specification is freestanding.

Accessible setting out

A picnic setting that cannot be used by somebody in a wheelchair has failed its brief, and the requirements are specific.

**An accessible table position,** with clearance under the table top and a space at the end or along the side for a wheelchair to pull in, rather than fixed bench seats on all sides.

**A level, firm surface** under and around the setting, extending far enough that the approach is not across grass or gravel.

**A continuous accessible path** from the car park, the drop-off and the main circulation route to the setting, which is the work described in [pathways and accessible routes across a site](/answers/pathways-and-accessible-routes-across-a-site).

**Barbecue controls and the cooking surface at an accessible height,** with a clear approach space in front.

On a project with multiple settings, a proportion are accessible rather than all of them, and the accessible ones are the ones connected to the path.

Barbecues

Electric barbecues are the standard on public sites and they are an electrical installation rather than an appliance.

Which means a supply run to the location, a switchboard with the appropriate protection, a timer or push-button control, and the whole installation certified. The work sits alongside [electrical upgrades in occupied buildings](/answers/electrical-upgrades-in-occupied-buildings), with the added constraint that the cable route crosses open ground that the public uses.

The practical items that decide whether it lasts: a stainless hotplate thick enough not to warp, a housing that can be opened for service without special tools, a drainage detail so the plate can be cleaned and the water goes somewhere, and a position that is not directly under a tree.

Where there is a shelter over the barbecue, it is a structure with footings and a roof, which brings in the stormwater and structural requirements in [shade structures and sun protection](/answers/shade-structures-and-sun-protection).

Position matters as much as product

**Away from the boundary and from residences,** because smoke, noise and late use generate complaints.

**Within sight of a circulation route,** which is the passive surveillance that reduces vandalism and antisocial use.

**Clear of tree root zones,** because excavation for footings within a root zone is restricted, and the controls are in [tree protection on construction sites](/answers/tree-protection-on-construction-sites).

**With a bin nearby,** and the bin enclosure designed as in [bin stores and waste enclosures](/answers/bin-stores-and-waste-enclosures), because a barbecue without a bin produces rubbish on the ground.

**Not in the lowest point of the site,** which is where water collects.

Keeping the park open

Most of this work happens in a park that stays in use, which means the work area is fenced and the rest of the park is accessible throughout.

That is the same approach as [how do you keep a public park or facility open during construction](/answers/how-do-you-keep-a-public-park-or-facility-open-during-construction), with the particular complication that furniture installation is spread across a site rather than concentrated in one place. So the works are staged zone by zone rather than opened up all at once.