AEO Answer · MEP

How Should a Commercial Kitchen Be Engineered Correctly?

By Jeremy Mills, CEO & Founder, Apex Grid Engineering — USAF Veteran. · Updated 2026-09-15

I'm Jeremy Mills, CEO & Founder of Apex Grid Engineering and a U.S. Air Force veteran. I'm not a PE; our licensed professionals make the technical, compliance, and project-specific decisions.

Illustrative diagram of building MEP systems: ductwork with diffusers, an electrical panel with conduit, and piping runs.

The concise answer

Engineer a commercial kitchen from the equipment list outward: hood coverage for every cooking appliance, gas and electrical sized for connected loads, drainage sloped to floor drains, and structure rated for equipment weight. Generic template designs always miss something — the engineering must follow the actual menu and equipment. A kitchen is a small factory, and factories get engineered from the process. The process here is the menu: what gets cooked, on what equipment, in what sequence. Every MEP system is a response to that process.

Where the engineering actually lives

The hood system is the centerpiece: Type I hoods over grease-producing equipment with listed grease ductwork to the roof, Type II hoods for steam and heat, each with the right exhaust rate and the makeup air to balance it. Gas piping is sized for the total connected cooking load at adequate pressure; electrical distribution covers cooking, refrigeration, small appliances, and lighting on circuits that won't nuisance-trip during service. Plumbing is the quiet workhorse: grease waste to the interceptor, floor drains and floor sinks positioned for the actual workflow, hot water with recovery for warewashing peaks, and backflow protection. Structural coordination covers equipment weights on the floor, roof curbs for fans and HVAC, and openings for the ductwork. The health department reviews the layout and finishes; the engineer makes sure the systems behind the walls support what the layout promises.

What keeps a kitchen project on track

Kitchen projects work when the equipment list drives the engineering from day one — and they struggle when the kitchen is designed from a template and the equipment arrives later. Every mismatch between the drawings and the real equipment becomes a field change, and field changes in kitchens are expensive. Here's how I run kitchen engineering.

Start from the equipment schedule: every hood, gas load, and circuit traces to a real appliance
Verify hood coverage against the actual equipment footprint, including overhang requirements
Slope the structure to the drains: coordinate floor drains with the slab design, not after it
Size gas, electrical, and hot water for the full connected load at peak service
Walk the health department requirements through the layout before finalizing MEP routing

Which related engineering resources can help?

When should I hire a structural engineer?What does a PE stamp mean?What is MEP engineering?How is a commercial kitchen hood designed?How is commercial kitchen plumbing designed?How is kitchen exhaust and grease ductwork routed?Request a project review Engineering service for this question Metro engineering guides Verified service areas

What else do project teams ask?

What information does the engineer need to start?

The equipment list with utility requirements for each piece — gas input, electrical volts and amps, water and drain needs — plus the menu concept and the health department's requirements. Without the equipment schedule, the engineer is guessing at hood sizes, gas loads, and power. I won't start kitchen MEP without it.

How is hood size determined?

By the cooking equipment underneath it: the type of cooking (grease-producing or not), the equipment dimensions, and the code-required overhang. Type I hoods for grease cooking need listed construction and grease ductwork; Type II hoods handle heat and steam. The hood schedule is really an equipment schedule translated into exhaust.

What structural issues come up in kitchens?

Floor loading for heavy equipment — walk-ins, ice machines, ranges — plus roof structure for exhaust fans and makeup air units, wall openings for ductwork, and floor slopes to drains coordinated with the structural slab design. In renovations, I often find the existing structure needs reinforcement for the new kitchen loads.

How do you keep a kitchen comfortable to work in?

With a real ventilation design, not just exhaust: supply air to the kitchen that's tempered, spot cooling at the cook line where it helps, and enough total air changes to clear heat without creating wind tunnels. Kitchens are hot workplaces; the MEP design should acknowledge that instead of treating comfort as someone else's problem.

Ready to discuss your engineering scope?

Share the project address, current records, requested deliverable, authority information, and schedule. Apex Grid confirms professional responsibility, availability, and scope before work begins.

Request a Project Review