Right now, the crockpots have a ridiculously large collision size. The block placement of a lot of structures, and can't be placed near anything that is almost a tile away. You have to place your crockpots first, otherwise you have to hammer everything nearby ( e.g. icebox ) to place the rest of them.
I'm not sure why they have such a huge collision size, but I would like to see them reduced. They almost ruin every design that I have in mind, since I can't deploy near them.