A range hood is an essential but often overlooked kitchen appliance. It will keep the air fresh and safe inside the kitchen while cooking. This appliance can remove smoke, steam, odor, and heat. It will also trap grease so it doesn’t stick to your walls, cabinets, and appliances.
What Does a Range Hood Bring to Your Kitchen?
When asked about the importance of a range hood in the kitchen, mechanical engineer Colin Young explains, “Range hoods are installed to ventilate cooking areas. They remove smoke and other vapors to keep the air breathable and the kitchen space clean. They normally have filters and fans to move and clean the air.”
Several types are available on the market and can be installed in the ceiling, wall, or other parts of the cooking area. All of them will bring various benefits when installed in your kitchen.
Air Purification
The best range hoods can improve the air quality in the kitchen, keeping the air in your home healthy and clean. Cooking in the kitchen can produce excess steam or harmful smoke. A range hood will remove all these fumes and replace them with fresh air from elsewhere in the home.
A properly cleaned range hood will constantly purify the air and ventilate the kitchen to make your home healthier. Proper kitchen ventilation can reduce dirt buildup, eliminating the threat of bacteria and the invasion of unwanted pests inside your home.
Read More: How to Clean a Range Hood
Cooking Odor Reduction
A range hood can also reduce odors when cooking in the kitchen. Without one, odor from your food preparation, caused by oil and food particles, will stay longer than necessary and settle on the cooking surface. A range hood’s presence will remove the air contaminants that cause these odors and keep your home smelling fresh.
Helps in Kitchen Maintenance
If you have the budget, installing a range hood in your kitchen’s wall, ceiling, or under cabinet can help maintain the area’s overall maintenance. This appliance’s ability to trap grease and other cooking residue can minimize the dirt sticking to the cabinetry, countertop, stovetop, kitchen island, floors, and other parts, reducing your time cleaning and maintaining the kitchen.
Enhance Kitchen Aesthetic
When a range hood complements the design of your cooking area, it can enhance the overall look and feel, helping add to the area’s ambiance. Today, several models are built with beautiful designs that can help make your kitchen stand out.
A wall-mounted range hood, for example, provides a sleek, modern look, while island range hoods are best suited for open-concept cooking areas. Meanwhile, customized range hoods allow homeowners to personalize the design, materials, and finishes to match the kitchen design and color. Beyond improving functionality, a well-chosen range hood enhances the overall aesthetic appeal of your kitchen.
How Does a Range Hood Work?
Capturing Air Particles
The range hood will capture all the air particles produced while cooking. The smoke, steam, and odors from your stove or cooktop will be drawn to the vent system. The blower, an essential component of this appliance, will be responsible for pulling these air particles into the hood.
Filtration
Once the air particles are inside the kitchen range hood, they will undergo the process of filtration. The grease filter, a metal component found on the hood’s underside, will trap the grease, dust, and other dirt particles, preventing them from settling in your cooking area.
Since every kitchen is unique, range hoods are designed to accommodate many spaces and functions. The filtration process of a range hood depends on the type installed in your kitchen. To understand these ventilation systems, you need to be familiar with the two general classifications of this kitchen appliance according to its ventilation options: ducted and ductless range hoods.
Ducted Range Hood
A ducted range hood will filter the air by installing ductwork that runs through your wall or ceiling and ejects it outside your home. This process will remove steam, odors, and smoke from the kitchen and from the house entirely. A ducted hood is practical for kitchens that are used in a lot of cooking activities but require a more difficult installation process.
Learn more about range hood ventilation here:
- How to Install a Range Hood Vent Through the Wall
- How to Install a Range Hood Vent Through the Ceiling
Ductless Range Hood
On the other hand, a ductless hood will recirculate the filtered air back into the kitchen. The range hood venting process is still the same, trapping the grease, smoke, and other air particles. But after the air filtration process, this recirculating hood will release the now clean air inside your home, not to the outside.
This type of range hood is best suited in condominium units, apartments, and other living spaces where installing a ducted appliance is not feasible. In addition, a ductless hood is easy to install and is a good choice for home renters who can’t do permanent renovations.
Convertible Range Hood
Today, many range hoods have been built to function with these two ventilation options, making them versatile for different types of kitchen configurations. Convertible range hoods can be installed with both ductwork to vent air outside and charcoal filters to recirculate air back into the kitchen.
Learn More: Types of Range Hoods
Understanding Air Flow
Range hoods are rated by the amount of air they move in cubic feet per minute or CFM. The higher the CFM of your hood, the faster the air can move. For example, an appliance with higher CFM ratings, like those rated at 600 to 900, is ideal if you own a kitchen that is being used frequently, has a large area, and uses powerful gas cooktops. These range hoods, however, can be noisier and consume more energy.
On the other hand, range hoods with lower CFM ratings, such as those rated 200 to 300 CFM, are suitable for cooktops with minimal heat output and smaller kitchens. This type is quieter and more energy-efficient but cannot handle heavy-duty cooking.
Choosing the right CFM for your kitchen depends on various factors, such as the size and the space layout. Having the proper airflow around the kitchen improves the efficiency of the range hood, which can help make your kitchen environment healthier and more pleasant.
Additional Features
Aside from cleaning the air in your kitchen, a range hood is also equipped with other features that enhance its functionality. Many range hoods come with integrated lights that help illuminate your kitchen while cooking or just create an ambiance in the kitchen when it is not in use. Some models even come with halogen lighting that can be used at night.
Range hoods have control panels that include on/off controls for the blower and lights. Many models have knobs for variable blower speeds and brightness control. The controls are usually located on the canopy for easy access.
More advanced range hoods come with automatic sensors that turn the blower on automatically once a heat buildup is detected around the kitchen appliance. This feature reduces manual operation and optimizes the ventilation process inside your kitchen. Some models are built to operate quietly, reducing the noise during cooking.
Read more range hood articles:
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Main Image Credit: Dino Paccino / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
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