I think you're maybe not considering that that's the height of the front of the drawer, or the space (rough opening)for the drawer, rather than the clearance? I'm afraid you won't really have that much height inside, since the bottom of the drawer rarely sits down all the way in the drawer space.

I have frameless cabs and I just measured one of my pots and pans drawers. A drawer that is 10 1/2" on the face only has 8 1/2" clearance inside, which is barely tall enough for my 8 qt stockpot.

You need to measure how much clearance you have INSIDE the drawer. Depending on how they mount the drawers and how they build the drawer boxes, you might not have as much room as you think. We used 3 drawer base cabinets for our pots and pans and it works great. good luck!

Duh! That's what I was missing! I didn't realize the space loss was so substantial. Thanks! Back to the 3-drawer cabinet I go.

i plan to but my tallest pot is 5"!

You need to measure how much clearance you have INSIDE the drawer.

Don't make a decision either way till you do. Every manufacturer is different. There MAY be enough room in a 4-drawer stack. Probably not, but don't switch back to three till you find out for sure.

Get your tape measure and your tallest pot and go to the showroom.

I had 2 drawer pot/pan drawers in my last house and it was awesome. I will do that again in my current remodel. That way there it can hold my large stockpot.

I have always been impressed by the pot drawer in my old Whirlpool range. If I invert lids so they are upside down and if I stack carefully, I can fit most of a set of old fashioned Farberware pans into it plus my pressure cooker and a couple oddball pieces, although the stock pot and another large pot and one big lid are housed elsewhere.

The drawer is 8 inches deep on the inside from bottom of drawer to top of opening hole, but there is space above the drawer opening, so I can maneuver items that get wedged wrong.

Modern pans seem to be more cumbersome, though. Mine are lightweight and compact in scope.

pickle2 I have 4 drawers.
Two have a 15"h drawer front on them,
Two are internal drawers. You see them once you pull on the 15"h drawer front that hides them. They can be pulled open at the same time or not, depending on the clasp position.

Dimensions:
In one set (deep drawer and shallow internal drawer) the distances are 10.75"h and 3"h
In another set (deep drawer + shallow internal drawer) the distances are 8.375"h and 4.75"h ;
I've not had these drawers long enough yet to know if the spacing is right for my needs.
I could screw the internal drawer higher or lower if I wanted more or less space in the deep drawer.

How:
I got standard Ikea cabinets.
I removed the bottom plate of the Ikea cabinet cube.
I put the cabinet feet under the side panels.
I have thus created a larger volume.
I got standard Ikea drawers (ie. Tandembox by Blum)
I screwed the (Ikea Tandembox Blum drawer front) hardware onto 15"h fronts.
Each drawer has a base that is about 1/2" thick; two drawer floors take up 1"h
This leaves about 13.875" available for each combination of two drawers.
In one of my two drawer sets I have a bit less height available because a steel support takes up some room at the top; it was installed to give additional support to my counter at the cut for the cooktop.

You could do the same thing with 4 separate drawer fronts.
I didn't do this because my entire kitchen looks like it has two drawers everywhere; this keeps the lines lined up, and it reduces the visual complexity.
Behind the drawer front there is a lot happening: in another cabinet I have my kitchen sink and drain, which fit into this 14.25" height.

hth
-d

p.s. My drawer fronts are a bit less than 15" (Askome doors turned sideways). This leaves a bit of space under the counter for fingers to grab the drawer front. No need for handles. The counter overhang is large enough to stop direct line of sight into the inside of the drawers.

Pickle, if your pot drawers are under a cooktop (I can't remember your plan) then you also need to account for the depth of the cooktop.

OTOH, you might be able to do four drawers, depending on the measurements, if you do a shallow drawer for utensils, another shallow drawer for baking dishes or skillets, and then two deeper drawers.

I went for three, graduated drawers all around, but might have done well to have a stack like that. I have some things more stacked than I'd prefer.

Davidro1--do you have any pics of these cool drawers? They sound very interesting.

here is an album on photobucket :
http://s731.photobucket.com/albums/ww316/Davidro1/Horizontality%20Maximus%20in%20new%20kitchen%20design/

I'll see if I can link the right code into this message to get one of the photos to display below.
Here goes:

!
This image shows the alcove or recess behind the cooktop, mentioned in another thread earlier today, on the appliances forum.

hth
-d

Davidro1, very cool hack of IKEA drawers.

I have a call out to my cabinet folks to find out about drawer heights. I have maybe 1-2 tall pots. My stock pot and roaster could live in my blind corner. Otherwise my pots tend toward the wide and shallow...saute pans and frying pans. Things that take up horizontal real estate. I also hate nesting things. Just lazy about it. If the 4-drawer configuration works out, that would be ideal.

Plllog, I have a range so no need to figure in a cooktop. I needed counterspace more than I needed wall ovens (though I would have loved to have a cooktop with wall ovens).

Pickle, something I sort of wish I'd thought of is vertical skillet/giant lid storage in a drawer. If I'd made my bottom drawer just a few inches taller and put in some dividers, I could put the stockpot on one end and just file my big flat items.