Cook on the Countertop?
Induction cooktops offer a clean look, but it’s not made for every surface.
Photo by Robert Linder from Unsplash
By K. Schipper
Everybody wants to add another profit center to the shop. And, over the years, it’s been done – with sinks and faucets, or cleaning and maintenance products, or even countertop repair and floor maintenance.
Now there’s a new kid on the block clamoring for the attention of shop owners: the integrated induction cooktop.
Some shops may already be familiar with drop-in induction cooktops. However, the integrated ones play to a fabrication shop’s strengths, not the least of which is requiring no cutout and installing the units with clips used for undermount sinks.
Their biggest issue is that integrated induction cooktops work better with some materials than others. They’re ideal under porcelain, while that lovely granite slab may need to be milled to bring it to the optimum thickness. And opinions are mixed on whether to install them under quartz.
Old Product, New Look
The concept behind induction cooktops isn’t new. The idea of cooking with an electromagnetic field was first patented in the United States in 1909, although it didn’t really come to the attention of the public until the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
Westinghouse was the first to bring out a model for home and commercial use in early 1970. Since that time, the traditional induction cooktop or range looks a lot like a glass-top electric model, except that it cooks via a magnetic field.
Their main attributes are that they are 5% to 10% more-efficient than conventional electric stoves and about three times more-efficient than gas stoves. Temperature is more-responsive to knob control than with traditional electric models, and induction models are safer because the burner won’t get hot unless there’s a magnetic pot or pan on it.
Since it’s estimated that up to 8% of this country is already cooking with an induction cooktop, it’s likely that many stone shops have already installed either a 30” or 36” glass-topped version as part of a kitchen job.
But what if no cutout was required? What if consumers could cook directly on their countertops, freeing up the space for any of the myriad other activities that tend to go on in kitchens when food prep isn’t the major focus?
A Spanish-based ceramic manufacturer came out with an induction system about the same time as Bunnell, Fla.-based Invisacook arrived on the market, and the idea has proven popular in Europe, according to Hans King, Invisacook senior vice president.
However, those European-based products have yet to make it to North America. For instance, Italy-based company, Lapitec, is anxious to bring its Lapitec Chef to the U.S. That company’s representative, Elena Guazzi, says it has been a slow process to get UL approval for the product, which she doesn’t expect to happen until 2024.
“We have worked in the meantime with Invisacook, and they have had, in their Staten Island [N.Y.] showroom, their integrated induction cooktop for the last three years, with Lapitec,” she says. “Their induction system works great with Lapitec.”
(Above) Induction transfers energy through a magnetic field to heat the pan without raising a surface to the same constant temperature. (Below) Induction elements designed to be installed under a countertop surface. (Illustration courtesy City of San Jose; photo courtesy Invisacook)
The Best Places
King attributes his partner, Invisacook President Curtis Cebello, with the impetus to bring its product to the U.S. market.
“When we learned about it [integrated induction cooktops], Curtis said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to make this simpler, easier and more efficient through thicker materials,’” King explains. “I provided my expertise in the stone industry, and he provided his knowledge of mechanics, and we designed a unit that’s able to be easily installed under any 12mm porcelain countertop.”
It doesn’t hurt that more people are turning to porcelain countertops, especially in trendy areas such as New York and California.
“By using this cooktop, it gives a seamless look which people love,” King says. “And a lot of people are trying to minimize their homes besides. They’re having smaller kitchens with less counterspace. Again, in places like New York where apartments can be tiny, it just gives countertop space that our customers really enjoy.”
However, that isn’t the only type of décor that’s put integrated induction cooktops in demand, as several Invisacook dealers make clear. Todd Taylor, owner of Superior Granite Worx in Grand Junction, Colo., says many of his clients are influenced by television shows that feature modern designs, especially from Scandinavia.
“Their kitchens are super-clean,” says Taylor. “Instead of having upper and lower cabinets with counterspace in between, they have entire walls of cabinets with a completely flat front, and they have separate countertops that they want to be clean. There’s nothing that sticks out or protrudes into the countertops.”
Both Taylor and David Gonzalez, accountability chief with Aracuz Granite in Phoenix, say it’s not a product for anyone who’s going for a more-traditional look.
“I don’t think we’ve put one in a traditional kitchen,” says Gonzalez.
It’s telling that the induction units are a popular item in high-end sports and entertainment venues. Joe Durfee, production manager at American Floor Covering, Inc., in East Hartford, Conn., says that company has installed cooktops and induction warmers in private suites.
“The appeal is that they’re mounted underneath the porcelain, so you don’t see them,” he says. “The architects love that clean look, so they try to make things as hidden as possible.”
Even for someone not interested in going to a full integrated induction cooktop for a kitchen, they can still have a place. Steve Wells, project manager for Premier Stone Design in St. Cloud, Minn., says he and his wife are redoing their own kitchen, and had planned to go with a full four-burner Invisacook system until they realized it would require an electrical upgrade.
Instead, they opted to put a two-burner unit in their kitchen island.
“We can show it off on the island and it gives us an additional cooktop when we’re entertaining,” Wells says. “It’s good for outdoor kitchens. We’ve also had someone doing it in their camper, and someone else in their houseboat.”
It’s also not necessarily a product for those watching their pennies. Those who retail them say that a four-burner Invisacook cooktop is going to retail for about three times the price of a conventional electric stove with oven and range. And, with Invisacook, the oven must be obtained separately.
Certainly, the response to the integrated induction cooktops varies by market. In Phoenix, Aracruz’s Gonzales says, “We started getting calls for them even before we had it in stock, and demand has been good.”
On the other side of the coin, Wells says he stumbled across Invisacook when he was researching new things to add to his operation. While he thought it would be a good opportunity, he’s had to build the demand himself.
“We have had a few people who’ve seen it on HGTV,” he says. “They look into it on the Invisacook website, see that we’re a distributor and they come in that way.”
Induction cooktops embedded in the countertop sit under approximately 12mm of surface, as shown in the cutaway view (above). However, the elements are unseen on the surface (below). (Photos courtesy Invisacook)
Easy Answers
Whether demand is small or great, the biggest question many fabricators come away with is what can it be put under and how? And, the answer isn’t truly, so to speak, set in stone.
King stresses that the best surface for an Invisacook is a 12mm porcelain or ceramic slab. Its biggest benefit is its consistency of performance. For granite projects where the client is looking at either a 2cm or 3cm slab, some preparation is required.
“Obviously, they have to have it milled out and prepared that way,” King says.
Wells agrees. Premier typically fabricates 3cm granite, and if a client chooses that route, the area for the induction cooktop needs to be milled down to about 1.5cm, a task he says adds about $80 to the cost of his work.
“We do try to influence the person looking at Invisacook to use a 12mm porcelain,” Wells says. “When they do want to use granite, Invisacook has a really good spiel on their granite warranty, and we have also come up with our own granite warranty that people have to sign off on.”
The main thing with that, he explains, is to get the buyer to commit to sealing the cooktop surface every 30-45 days to reduce the amount of staining possible.
King adds that not all granites will perform the same way.
“The biggest problem with natural stone is that we can’t guarantee every stone and how it’s going to work,” he says. “Especially if there’s any iron content, we just don’t know.”
The same is true if the customer is looking at a quartz surface.
“We don’t recommend using quartz at all,” says King. “It’s because of the resin base. We have tried it with an outdoor quartz version from Caesarstone® that was supposed to be very heat-resistant, but even that didn’t hold up to longevity tests.”
King adds that he’s confident in the future the company will develop some modifications that will allow it to be installed under quartz.
Aracruz’s Gonzales and Wells agree, as does at least one European manufacturer of large-format quartz slabs who says his company doesn’t want to carry the potential liability. However, Superior Granite’s Taylor says it’s part of his job to know what quartz products might work best.
“You have to be really careful,” Taylor says. “You should include it in the sales pitch. Unfortunately, when people are doing these things, they don’t have any concept of what’s going on. They just want something pink or whatever, and you must educate them and try to get them to the right spot.”
Selling in the commercial market, American’s Durfee says much the same thing.
“We make it known that using it with an induction cooktop or warmer will probably void the manufacturer’s warranty,” Durfee says. “Usually that’s enough to sway them away from it, but other times they don’t care. They just want what they want.”
With the right top, however, integrated induction cooktops aren’t difficult at all to install.
“There are two separate ways to do this,” says King. “They can either attach sink clips to the porcelain itself, then have the cooktop installed and drop it in, or the clips can be installed on the material and then you attach the unit from underneath.”
There’s no extra carpentry required, as the cooktop takes up the space of a cabinet drawer, and the Invisacook controller comes with a 1.5m cable so it can go into the countertop surface, the cabinet face, or in a drawer.
And, like the traditional kitchen stove, Invisacook is a plug-in appliance.
“As long as there’s an electrical outlet in there ahead of time, it makes the install easy,” King says. “That’s not the case with some European products that have to be hardwired.”
Wells agrees that it’s much like hanging an undermount sink. The only thing he advises is placing the cooktop so that there’s at least 1.5” gaps between the sides of the cooktop and the cabinet walls to allow for ventilation.
“It’s a really simple process,” he says.
As for problems after the installation, well, they’re exceedingly rare, according to both King and his dealers.
“A lot of times people will call us first to troubleshoot, but it’s usually little things people don’t realize,” says King. “We find a lot of people don’t buy the right cookware, so we tell them they need fully clad stainless-steel cookware for it to work to the best of its efficiency. But, if there is a problem, the dealer who did the installation would go out and do the repair or replacement.”
The Lapitec Chef system from Lapitec, which uses silicone mats as an additional protective surface with the company's porcelain-slab process, is still in the approval process by Underwriters Laboratories (UL). (Photo courtesy Lapitec)
Modena, Italy-based ABK Group S.p.A. in Modena, Italy, demonstrated its Cooking Surface Prime induction system during Coverings 2022 in Las Vegas this spring. The company only guarantees the system when using its own porcelain slabs, such as ABKSTONE® Port Gold. (Photo courtesy ABK Group)
