There is a lot of talk about new ways to build an outdoor kitchen with these concrete panels. In the commercials they look like an amzing new and easier way to build your own outdoor kitchen to the average person. Let Willie the BBQ Coach share with you his expert opinion about this new way to build a diy outdoor kitchens and learn the shocking truth that may make you think twice before spending 10,000 plus dollars on one of these concrete panel outdoor kitchens. This video is a must see.
hi my name is will the barbecue coach and I’ve been building outdoor kitchen since 1998 I’m the inventor of barbecue coach cement board stucco that goes right onto cement board with no metal laugh I invented the connectors to make it easy to use stud and tracks to build barbecue islands and I have done everything possible to make it easy to build your own outdoor kitchen and no one knows how to build barbecue islands like I do this is five five reasons why I would not use concrete panel systems for my outdoor kitchen reason number one the price the price for is absolutely ridiculous they want over $10,000 for a small 7 foot straight Island and over $115,000 for a small L Island that’s not anywhere near the big size that I have here around me right now costing only a few thousand reason number two the trim they have this ridiculous trim that they have to put on all Corners to cover the seams of the cement board panels uh up against each other this doesn’t look professional it doesn’t really look like a finished product it looks cheesy see with a real outdoor kitchen and you’re using a stone veneer you have stone veneer corner pieces that cover the seam it looks natural with the stone or if you’re doing stucco you would wrap the stucco around the corners uh this ugly looking trim like this on the corners it just doesn’t look good it looks like you just uh settled for something that was fast and easy to hurry and get into your yard and honestly saying I would rather just have a a nice Fire magic Echelon grill for $10,000 than have a Cheesy looking uh outdoor kitchen because it was uh easy to do and they should be perfect it should look like the most beautiful outdoor kitchen that’s amazing and with that trim you’re just not going to get that nice finished look guys reason number three listen I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and I know all about uh having concrete panels and I even considered trying to invent a product with concrete panels but I didn’t want to do it for several reasons one they’re too heavy to ship and you would have to ship them in these large wooden crates that you can see here on their website that they use well when you get these big wooden crates who’s going to take it off your property you’re going to have to dismantle all this wood and you might even if you have a big kitchen you’ll need to get a dumpster or hire the Junk King to come out and haul all this crap away compared to where the way I do it with my system it’s shipped in little cardboard boxes that’s easy for you to throw away and doesn’t disrupt your whole property and we ship our products with with UPS ground trucks we with this product they’re going to bring those big 18wheeler semi trucks into your neighborhood they can crack the concrete and your neighbors don’t like it and some places they can’t even deliver so the delivery is no good for this type of product and uh there’s just too much debris that you have to ha away making it a big hassle reason number four a lot of these concrete panel manufact facturers they push on you to use their brand of appliances because in the manufacturing process it’s a lot easier if you have all these panels uh made uh with templates to fit your grill and your appliances now some do allow you to use your own brand of appliances but beware they’re going to first push on you not to use your brand and if you insist on it it’s going to slow down the manuf ufacturing process because now they have to get the cutout measurements for your specific Grill and it’s going to slow things up and you can be sure it’s going to take longer for you to get this concrete panel Outdoor Kitchen System that’s already taking several weeks to uh be built in the factory and shipped out with these big trucks it takes two weeks for delivery and God forbid if anything gets damaged during shipping you could have another DeLay So I really am a little bit uh hesitant about using concrete panel systems uh because of this problem that you can’t use whatever brand of appliances you want I mean they say you can but come on let’s be realistic they’re going to try to make use their brand reason number five I started looking at the warranty on some of these concrete panel manufacturer sites and I found some things that really concern me is because of the warning signs and their warranty posted on their website the things that uh concerned me was something about a 2year surface finishment warranty they’re only giving you two years for that finished surface H why is that is it because of uh something wrong with the Sun or something so I looked on the second page and they have a disclaimer and sure enough it says here that uh products damage by accident negligence misuse abuse fire flood improper installation acts of God neglect corrosion alteration or customization avoid your warranty here so let’s think about some of these things abuse so what is abuse like I said kids are playing around this kicking soccer balls into it and different things is that abuse and it it damages this thing also um corrosion well those metal brackets that are holding these panels together they can corrode over time time it’s possible and then it falls apart and then I didn’t like this it says due to high heat change in product appearances caused by normal weathering such exposure to sunlight and extreme weather not covered so in other words remember they’re taking concrete which is like a gray color and they’re staining at different colors like fake stone colors or whatever color you ordered they’re saying here that high heat because these do sit in the sun all day long is going to get discolored possibly so that’s something to worry about because what do you do buy a whole new panel and take it apart and replace a heavy concrete panel that comes on a big 18-wheeler truck because the traditional way of building an outdoor kitchen with stucco you could easily restuck it if something happen or if your stone veneer after 20 years gets discolored you could just um replace a couple pieces of stone or you could just recolor it so there’s uh this concrete panels it seems like there’s a problem with the heat and these are going to sit in the heat all the time and it it’s not going to look so nice when that gets discolored because they do have some beautiful ones on there when they first arrive like a nice dark brown color but if the Heat’s going to make that color wear wear down and not look so good uh I don’t know and if you’ve ever tried to paint concrete the paint just always bubbles off and that’s another thing is the Heat going to put cracks in here because I don’t know but I see concrete eventually it gets cracks from the heat especially if the batch just wasn’t perfect when they mixed it which can happen so there’s a lot of risk involved the price is very high uh the seams with the trim over it looks cheesy there’s just a lot of reasons the semi trucks it’s just not the best way to do it and honestly if it was that’s what I would sell I would manufacture concrete panels but but I just don’t think it’s the best um system to use it’s very it’s not great for custom to fit different Landscapes it’s not the best way to go that’s why I invented the the barbecue coach system with the steel tubes that are galvanized their heavy duty to make a real strong skeleton to support thousands of pounds of uh Stone real stone veneer con Creek counters and a split bar counters that’s another thing they don’t have a a raise split bar counter because how would they do that with their concrete panel so you’re also limited with that with and a lot of people they love these split bar counters with a couple uh bar stools behind it and so my system makes it very inexpensive with a welded frame uh for the split bar counters it’s super strong so I just when comparing my system to their system system my system you save a lot of money it’s way less price you can customize it to fit your landscape much easier if there’s any damage during shipping and the shipping comes on the little ground trucks not big semis you can easily we can send you a replacement part within days and you can get right back on the job where if a concrete panel damaged you’re could be set back for weeks maybe months I don’t know so so comparing concrete panel systems to my barbecue coach framing system I just don’t think I would pay 10 20 $30,000 for a concrete panel system that can take months for delivery when I can go with a better system that’s much much less expensive and get custom results that match my landscape perfectly with traditional uh Finishing Products like stone veneer stacco and not have any like weird Corner trim pieces or something that just doesn’t look traditional like your the outdoor kitchens we all love thank you