Home/Mechanical/Reinventing the BBQ for a circular future

The BBQ with its lid up, looking into the firebox at four burners, the valves and the copper gas rail — Lid up: four burners, the valves and the gas rail, all reachable with the BBQ assembled.

Reinventing the BBQ for a circular future

ENGR2022, solo · SolidWorks · 2025

Cheap BBQs end up on the kerb within a few years, usually because of one small fault, and never in pieces a recycler can use. This is a four-burner gas BBQ designed to be repaired and taken apart instead, benchmarked against three Bunnings models, modelled in SolidWorks and drawn up in 39 A2 sheets.

The cooking surface

Instead of two or three heavy cast plates, the cooking surface is eight small pieces, four grates and four plates, and they all fit in a dishwasher.

The cooking frame with four pieces in place and four bays empty, dimensioned 78.4 by 48.8 cm — Eight segmented pieces dropped into a mild steel frame, 78.4 by 48.8 cm. Lift the surface and frame out to get at the burners.

One flat plate and one grate side by side, each 23.3 by 18.5 cm — 23.3 by 18.5 cm, 200 to 300 g, dinner-plate sized. Rearrange them for a custom cooking setup.

A single cooking plate with a crack across one corner — Crack one piece and only an eighth of the cooking surface needs replacing.

Built to come apart

Everything else follows the same idea. The bolts are standard M5 and M8 and reachable with the BBQ assembled. Duplicated parts mean nothing needs a left or right, and the castors, knobs and valves are off the shelf. There's no plastic, so it's over 99.99% recyclable by mass. I also plotted its carbon over 12 years against three retail BBQs and costed it at about $333 a unit in materials.

Exploded render of the upper assembly: lid, cooking pieces, frame, firebox panels, burners, valves, knobs, side tables — The upper assembly exploded. Parts separate easily for recycling at end of life.

The lower body with duplicated parts numbered one to six — The other duplicated parts, numbered 1 to 6. No left or right versions needed.

Four burners under flame tamers with gas, oxygen and flame annotated — Slot-cut burners spread the heat further than legacy burners with single drilled holes. A simple 90° angle-iron flame tamer sits over them.

Close view into the firebox from the side showing burners, valve bodies and knobs — Easy access to fixtures for disassembly, or for tightening during assembly.

The whole BBQ with overall dimensions marked — Cooking surface at 1 m, waist height, on lockable castors. 1.6 m wide with the side tables.

Drawing sheet: exploded view of the full assembly with a bill of materials listing part, drawing title, quantity, process and material — Exploded view, full assembly, with the bill of materials: part, title, quantity, process and material for all 27 items.

Drawing sheet: section view of the full assembly with the parts list — Section view, full assembly.

Drawing sheet: the burner, a stainless tube with saw-cut slots, dimensioned — Burner: 17 saw-cut slots, 1 by 8 mm, equally spaced.

Drawing sheet: the gas splitter feeding four valves, dimensioned — Gas splitter: equal length and equal diameter to each valve, for equal flow. Non-critical, manufacture to fit.

The posters

The assessment itself was six A2 posters.

Poster 1 of 6: Modular Cooking Surfaces — 1. Modular cooking surfaces.

Poster 2 of 6: Eco Assessment and End-of-Life, with material breakdown and CO2 chart — 2. Eco assessment and end of life.

Poster 3 of 6: Design for Disassembly and Design for Assembly — 3. Design for disassembly and assembly.

Poster 4 of 6: Innovative Design Aspects — 4. Innovative design aspects.

Poster 5 of 6: User Experience and Aesthetics — 5. User experience and aesthetics.

Poster 6 of 6: Everything Manufacturing, with material cost table and take-back loop — 6. Everything manufacturing: cost and take-back.

What I took from it

Designing for the end of a product's life shapes it from the start. Every choice here, from the eight-piece cooking surface to the bolts, came from asking how it would be repaired or taken apart. It also meant drawing up all 27 parts to AS 1100 on my own, each with its process, material and finish.

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