# Laundry room counter height?



## kcrossley2 (Dec 17, 2006)

I'm having some cabinets and a countertop installed in our laundry room. We currently have a front load washer and dryer. How much space should I allow between the bottom of the countertop and the top of the appliances, which are about 39" high?

Thanks,
Kelly


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## Maintenance 6 (Feb 26, 2008)

Since I assume you are running the counter over top of the appliances, then you need to allow enough room to reach back to the wall to shut off the water supply to the washer when something fails.


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## kcrossley2 (Dec 17, 2006)

Yep, already thought of that.


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## NateHanson (Apr 15, 2007)

We mounted our countertop 1/2" over the top of our front-load machines. There is access at the back of the counter for all the mechanicals behind the machines. 

I can't imagine a countertop higher than 40 inches being of much use, really, unless you are unusually tall. Above that height and it's not really a countertop (useful for doing work), it's a shelf (good for storing stuff).

So I'd put the counter right at the top of the machines (leave a small gap so the machines don't vibrate against the countertop). Figure out the access to the back some other way. It's a huge waste of useful space to leave a 6" gap between the washer and counter for the remote chance that you'll need to shut off the water to the machine in an emergency. And even if you did, do you really think you could reach it through that little slot? Do you have monkey arms? :thumbup:


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## kcrossley2 (Dec 17, 2006)

No monkey arms here, although that could be useful from time to time. How much space did you leave between your front loaders and each other and the wall?


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## troubleseeker (Sep 25, 2006)

Maintenance 6 said:


> Since I assume you are running the counter over top of the appliances, then you need to allow enough room to reach back to the wall to shut off the water supply to the washer when something fails.


Most likely will still need to provide access through the countertop, as the machine connections are almost always low enough to be behind the machine, so you will not only have to reach 30" back, but 4 or 5 " down. A simple drop in lid with a finger hole, supported by a rabitted lip will work fine.


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## NateHanson (Apr 15, 2007)

kcrossley2 said:


> No monkey arms here, although that could be useful from time to time. How much space did you leave between your front loaders and each other and the wall?


My washer and dryer are just a quarter inch from eachother. They're about 5" from the back wall, and each is about 8" or so from the side wall.


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## Lansing (May 8, 2008)

We put the taps and drain pipe higher 3"to4" than the washer top at the back and with globe ? shutoff valves to shut off the water fast if something happened...Set the taps at a 45 degree angle so the washer pipes would fit back closer to the wall without the machin hitting them or causing a leak...I put all the counters at 36" high, 24" out so you could use them...Added in a single S sink as well...Used a 3/4" space between each machine and at the edge of the counters...The dryer is vented through the wall with 12" only of flex pipe attached to a galvanised metal pipe that goes outside...We can move the dryer enough out from the wall if we need to with that...The opening on the dryer and in the wall were matched up right on as well to be able to do this...Cheaper to dry the wet clothes the shorter the line...Hope this helps someone...


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