So soffits DO serve a purpose! Doh!

[atgcpaul]

Doing some investigational drilling in the 10" tall soffits above our kitchen cabinets and found that one of them actually wasn't just for show. The heating/duct trunk for the 2nd floor was hiding behind the 3/4" ply soffit. Good thing I used a 2 3/4" hole saw and not something smaller . Also a good thing I put it smack dab in the middle of the run and not in an inconspicuous spot.

My 3 year old walked into the kitchen and immediately said, "Daddy, why are there holeses up there?"

[Stytooner]

They aren't always used for mechanicals, but probably are more often than not.

I often see in some of those DIY shows LOML likes to watch, that they plan on removing those and increasing cabinet storage space. They are often overruled out of necessity. It was wise of you to drill the inspection holes.

Difference in terminology exists here too.
When you mentioned soffit, I immediately thought about the outside of the house under the eaves.

I have heard what you are referring to called bulkheads too. I consider bulkheads to be partitions built on boats or ships.

The feature between the ceiling and the top of the overhead cabinets is what I call fur downs. "How fur down do you want to start the cabinets?"

[capncarl]

I pulled a simular stunt when my wife wanted a 110 outlet on the other side of a wall. I removed the original outlet box and drilled 4 corner locating holes through the wall and installed the new back to back outlet where she wanted it. I though it curious that the wall had a large solid piece of wood it in. Later that year she tried to pull out the pocket door in that wall and it only moved a little. It seems that I had cut throught the door and installed an electrical outlet in the door. It stays shut now. I wonder if the new owners of that house ever figured it out?
capncarl

[atgcpaul]

I pulled a simular stunt when my wife wanted a 110 outlet on the other side of a wall. I removed the original outlet box and drilled 4 corner locating holes through the wall and installed the new back to back outlet where she wanted it. I though it curious that the wall had a large solid piece of wood it in. Later that year she tried to pull out the pocket door in that wall and it only moved a little. It seems that I had cut throught the door and installed an electrical outlet in the door. It stays shut now. I wonder if the new owners of that house ever figured it out?
capncarl

OK, I feel better now.

[chopnhack]

I pulled a simular stunt when my wife wanted a 110 outlet on the other side of a wall. I removed the original outlet box and drilled 4 corner locating holes through the wall and installed the new back to back outlet where she wanted it. I though it curious that the wall had a large solid piece of wood it in. Later that year she tried to pull out the pocket door in that wall and it only moved a little. It seems that I had cut throught the door and installed an electrical outlet in the door. It stays shut now. I wonder if the new owners of that house ever figured it out?
capncarl

ROFL


LOL, I did put a screw through the wall and into a pocket door once myself..

[vaking]

I don't find soffits particularly attractive and I don't think anybody puts them up only because they like how it looks. I think soffits are always made to hide something, like an air duct. Another story is that people sometime like uniformity, so if they have an air duct in one place that they need to hide, they will put soffits throughout the whole kitchen just for consistency. But if you see soffits - you can usually assume that there will something behind you don't want to expose.

I recently remodeled my kitchen and relocated stove and exhaust hood. I had to run a duct from that hood to exterior wall - about 5 feet run over couple kitchen cabinets. I then built a soffit to cover that duct.
My kitchen cabinets end at about 7' with a height of ceiling in the kitchen slightly above 8', so I have about a foot of space above cabinets. I thought about building soffits everywhere but decided against it. As they say - uniformity is a sign of a limited mind.

[Stytooner]

Soffits also leave no flat surface for grease and dust to settle on that would rarely be seen, so rarely cleaned. Soffits in a kitchen with a high ceiling look out of place to me. We only had one request from a Family that was built shorter than average to install soffits needlessly.
They wanted low overhead cabinets.
Those soffits were about 40" tall with 30" tall overheads. Odd looking.

Some wanted very tall overheads even though there was no easy way to reach the top of the uppers without a ladder.
Sometimes those had double stack doors.

[atgcpaul]

I have soffits over every bank of cabinets--I suppose for uniformity--even though it was only necessary in one area. I couldn't reach over the existing top shelf of our cabinets without a step ladder, but our kitchen is tight enough that I will relish having that extra 10" of space back even if the cabinet tops aren't even.

When my dad and I remodeled their kitchen, we put the cabinets up to the ceiling after taking out the soffits. The builder ran the electric wire in the soffit rather than through the studs. I not only had to drill a hole in each stud for the wire, but had to splice in an extra length of wire because the soffit allowed for a shorter route.