Hear from Our Customers
Most Broomall homes were built in the 1950s and 1960s solid houses, good bones, but backyards that haven’t changed much since the builder walked off the lot. If you’ve been in your home for ten or fifteen years and the patio still looks exactly the same as when you moved in, you’re not alone. The question isn’t whether your backyard could be better. It’s whether you’re ready to stop putting it off.
A well-built outdoor kitchen changes how you use your property from April through October. It’s where your family ends up on a Saturday afternoon, where you host without the in-and-out shuffle between the kitchen and the yard, and where the value of your home becomes visible in a way that a coat of paint never quite achieves. With Broomall median sale prices pushing $695,000 and rising, this isn’t just a lifestyle upgrade it’s a financially sound decision on a home that’s already proving its worth.
Here’s what a lot of homeowners don’t think about until after the fact: Marple Township sits within both the Crum Creek and Darby Creek watersheds, and the clay-heavy soils throughout the area don’t drain freely. An outdoor kitchen built without proper base preparation and drainage engineering will settle, heave, and pool water after a few freeze-thaw cycles. Delaware County winters aren’t brutal every year, but they’re consistent enough temperatures cycling through 32°F repeatedly from December through February that the materials and the base underneath them have to be built for it. When that’s done right, your outdoor kitchen looks just as good in year ten as it did the first summer.
We’re based in Aston and have been working across Delaware County for over fifteen years. Marple Township whether you call it Marple or Broomall is squarely within the area we know well. That means we’re familiar with the township’s permit process, including the requirement that all contractors provide a Certificate of Insurance with Marple Township listed as the Certificate Holder. Most homeowners don’t know that detail until it becomes a problem mid-project.
Owner Renato Spennato is personally involved in every project. This isn’t a company where you meet someone at the consultation and then hand off to a crew you’ve never seen. The same team that designs your outdoor kitchen builds it, and the same people are accountable when it’s done. That’s not a promise it’s how we’re structured.
We’ve worked on properties throughout Delaware County from homes near the Lawrence Park corridor to yards backing up to creek-adjacent lots with real drainage challenges. We understand what the soil is like here in Marple, what the winters do to inferior materials, and what homeowners in this area actually expect when they spend serious money on a permanent outdoor structure.
It starts with a conversation, not a sales pitch. We want to understand how you actually use your backyard how many people you typically host, whether you need a full sink and refrigeration setup or a clean built-in grill station, what your yard’s sun exposure and grade look like, and what your realistic budget is. That conversation shapes the design, not the other way around.
Once we have a clear picture of your space and goals, we put together a detailed proposal scope, materials, and timeline before anything gets scheduled. The price in that proposal is the price on the final invoice. No change orders showing up mid-project because we underquoted to win the job.
From there, we handle permitting with Marple Township’s Code Enforcement department. Outdoor kitchen installations typically require a building permit and, depending on what’s included, separate permits for gas line connections, electrical, and plumbing. We manage that process, coordinate the required inspections, and keep the project moving. Because masonry work can’t safely be done below 40°F, timing matters projects contracted in the fall or winter are positioned to be ready before summer. If you’re thinking about an outdoor kitchen for next season, the best time to start the conversation is now, not April.
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Not every outdoor kitchen project looks the same, and it shouldn’t. Some Marple homeowners want a clean, functional built-in grill station that anchors their existing patio and finally gets rid of the freestanding propane grill they’ve been dragging around for years. Others want a fully equipped outdoor kitchen built-in grill, sink, refrigeration, storage, countertops, and a dedicated prep area that functions as a real room. We build both, and everything in between.
What doesn’t change regardless of scope is how we build the base. Marple’s clay soils and the drainage challenges throughout the Crum Creek and Darby Creek watersheds mean that proper grading, compacted gravel base, and drainage paths aren’t optional they’re what separates a structure that holds up through fifteen Pennsylvania winters from one that starts showing problems after three. We use frost-rated materials and construction methods calibrated specifically for Zone 7a conditions, which is what Delaware County requires.
Every project we build is fully permitted and inspected by Marple Township which matters more than most homeowners realize. The township conducts resale inspections, and unpermitted outdoor structures can surface as a liability when it’s time to sell. A fully permitted, code-compliant outdoor kitchen protects your investment on both ends: the day it’s built and the day you decide to move.
Yes and it’s more involved than a single permit. Marple Township’s Code Enforcement department requires a building permit for outdoor kitchen structures, and depending on what’s included in your build, you’ll likely need separate permits for gas line connections, electrical work, and plumbing. Each of those triggers its own inspection by the township.
There’s also a specific requirement that often catches contractors off guard: Marple Township requires all contractors general and subcontractors to provide a Certificate of Insurance with the township listed as the Certificate Holder. If your contractor isn’t familiar with that requirement, it can stall your project. We handle the full permit process, from application through final inspection, so you’re not managing that on your own or finding out about a compliance issue after the build is done. The township also conducts resale inspections, so an unpermitted structure can become a real problem when you go to sell fully permitted work protects you on both ends.
The honest range is wide anywhere from around $15,000 for a clean, well-built grill station with a stone or masonry surround, up to $50,000 or more for a fully equipped outdoor kitchen with a built-in grill, sink, refrigerator, countertops, dedicated storage, and specialty appliances like a pizza oven or side burners. Where your project falls within that range depends on the size of the structure, the materials you choose, and what appliances and utility connections are included.
In Broomall specifically, where median home values are sitting around $695,000 and rising, it’s worth thinking about this as a home value decision, not just a lifestyle one. Industry data consistently shows outdoor kitchens returning 55% to 100% of their cost at resale, and in a market where buyers are competing for homes, a high-quality outdoor kitchen is a legitimate differentiator. What we’d caution against is choosing a contractor based on the lowest bid in a market like this, a structure that fails in three winters because of cheap materials or a poorly prepared base isn’t a savings. It’s a much more expensive problem.
Delaware County sits in USDA Hardiness Zone 7a, which means winter temperatures regularly cycle through the freeze-thaw threshold water gets into micro-cracks in stone, concrete, and grout, freezes, expands, and mechanically breaks apart materials that aren’t rated for it. This happens repeatedly throughout December, January, and February, and it’s the primary reason outdoor kitchen structures built with non-frost-rated materials start showing visible deterioration within five to seven years.
For Marple specifically, the clay-heavy soils throughout the Crum Creek and Darby Creek watersheds add another layer to this. Clay doesn’t drain freely, which means moisture sits under and around the structure longer than it would in sandier soil. That makes base preparation compacted gravel, proper drainage paths, correct grading just as important as the materials on top. We use frost-rated stone veneer, marine-grade cabinetry, and properly engineered bases on every project. These aren’t premium upgrades they’re the minimum standard for building something that actually lasts in this climate.
From the initial consultation to the finished build, most outdoor kitchen projects run eight to sixteen weeks total and a significant portion of that time is front-loaded in the design, proposal, and permitting phase before any construction begins. The actual build, depending on scope, typically runs four to eight weeks once permits are approved and materials are on-site.
The biggest variable that catches homeowners off guard is timing. Masonry work cannot safely be performed below 40°F, which means the practical construction window in Marple runs from roughly April through October. If you want your outdoor kitchen ready for Memorial Day weekend, you need to be in the design and permitting phase by January or February at the latest not calling contractors in April hoping for a May completion. The homeowners who get the best results are the ones who plan ahead. If you’re thinking about next summer, the time to start the conversation is now.
In most cases, yes but it depends on the condition of the existing patio and whether it was built with a proper base. This is especially relevant in Broomall, where a lot of homes have original patios from the 1960s and 1970s. Those older slabs were often poured without the base depth or drainage engineering that a permanent outdoor kitchen structure requires. If the existing patio is showing cracks, uneven settling, or drainage problems, building a kitchen on top of it without addressing the base first is going to create problems down the road.
The first step is an honest assessment of what’s there. If the existing patio is structurally sound and properly graded, we can often work with it and save you the cost of a full demo and repour. If it’s not, we’ll tell you that upfront before you’ve committed to a build that’s going to have issues. We’d rather have that conversation early than have you dealing with a settling structure two years after we’ve finished.
The practical difference shows up in the details that only come from working in a specific area for a long time. Marple Township has permit requirements that aren’t identical to neighboring Springfield or Newtown Square including the COI requirement with the township as Certificate Holder, and a multi-permit process for structures that involve gas, electrical, and plumbing. A contractor who works across fifteen counties and treats Delaware County as one of many service areas may not know those specifics until they’re mid-project and something stalls.
Local knowledge also matters for the physical conditions of the build. The drainage challenges throughout the Crum Creek and Darby Creek watersheds, the clay soils that are common throughout Marple’s residential areas, the freeze-thaw patterns of Zone 7a these are things we learn by doing this work here for years, not by reading a spec sheet. We’ve been working in Delaware County for over fifteen years. Marple Township isn’t a new market we’re expanding into it’s part of the area we’ve built our business around.
