Vent hood over island - How complicated?
wintertime
15 years ago
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wintertime
15 years agoRelated Discussions
Island range hood with venting challenges
Comments (9)Many people don't know that they can improve their kitchen experience with better design. Island cooking can work, if you have enough room to actually prep on the island. Unfortunately, most people don't have enough room to make it work well. With a standard 30" range, you need 9" on one side and 12" on the other to serve as your emergency landing zone. Then, if you want to prep there, add 36" to the 12" side. That's 87", minimum to have an island cooking zone., without any overhang for seating. (Plus the other depth should be at least 36" without seating or 48" on the other side of the range if you want seating there.) And that doesn't count any aisle space, or overhang for seating. If you want it to be social. However, that also doesn't leave you with access to water without twisting back and forth to the sink. Water is far more critical to your prep activities (70%) than access to the cooking zone (that 10% time). If you want to add in a prep sink to make the perfect "cockpit" where you don't have to twist back and forth and take minimal steps, then you're adding in another 24" at least. That's 111" without any overhang for seating. Want seating? Then add in another 15" on one end. Now, you're at 126". Can't forget aisle widths! Add in 48" for someone to squeeze past that person seated on the end, and that's if that end is to a wall without cabinets. That's 174" needed for your island and clearance on one side of it. Add in the aisle on the other side (42") and you need 216" of space to do a galley. If you've got cabinets on one of the walls, like an L configuration with island, then your kitchen needs to be 241" or 20' in length to do an island cooktop with water on it successfully. Do the math for YOUR space. Sure, you can make compromises and not have water on the island, as long as you have that 9"/12" emergency landing space and the 36" prep space, but it starts to get really crowded if you want seating and the right aisle clearance. The usual compromise is to have the island be the cooking zone only. And sure, you can do that......but it won't be the social experience that you envision with your back turned to it most of the time doing the prep elsewhere. Or you can try to crowd yourself and prep next to the cooking zone without enough space to really do that right. And that becomes an exercise in frustration. It's a "before" kitchen to make compromises like that, not an "after" kitchen!...See MoreOver-the-island exhaust vent question
Comments (4)I just had a conversation with my kitchen designer who has consulted with his HVAC person. Here's what he told me -- he said that every 90-degree bend adds 5 linear feet of ducting. That means that the 4 bends plus the distance from the hood to the outside will total about 35 linear feet of ducting. He told me that an exhaust fan of 300 to 400 CFM will adequately vent cooking odors and steam. Keeping in mind that this is over an island, does this seem like adequate exhaust ventilation?...See MoreKitchen Help! Does a Vent Hood Over a Living Room Facing Counter Work?
Comments (15)I don't find island hoods as offensive as Sina seems to. I've included some inspiration photos below. Yes, there are some potential issues putting a cooktop on a peninsula or island. One of the biggest is ventilation, since a lot of people opt for down-draft ventilation, which is not very effective and produces the kinds of problems OneRidgeOff reported. Using and island hood will adequate capture area will address that. The other key issue is safety. There is more traffic around an island or peninsula, and often seating, which puts non-cooks in closer proximity to the danger zone than is usually true if the cooktop is on the perimeter. This isn't insurmountable, but you need to be mindful to have enough of a buffer between the cooktop and wakways and seating. Both the pic below do this well: the first looks like it has at least 2 ft, maybe 30 inches of counter behind the cooktop and similar on either side. The second uses the raised bar as a buffer between counter seating and the cooktop, and the cooktop is at least 2 ft from either end of the island....See MoreHow to add a controllable alternate vent to a 10" vent hood duct run
Comments (8)I'm not sure I understand the intent of some of the comments. As I stated in the original post we blow hot air out of the upstairs windows while simultaneously opening all the downstairs windows to allow cool air to replace it. This method fills the house with cool air from the bottom up in the early morning when the outside air is coolest. I considered a whole house fan as we installed this in our last house and it worked quite well. Same principle - open all the windows downstairs while the fan blows the hot air out. I'm not sure how this got turned into an issue with not getting enough fresh air into our homes - we live in a mild climate and open windows to bring in fresh air all the time. This house has blown in insulation in the attic that is very light and is easily disturbed so I fear that an unducted whole-house fan would eventually cause the insulation to clog the attic vents. I suppose a ducted whole-house fan would work and I understand the reasoning behind separating functions. Since it seldom gets really hot we typically only do this for a small percentage of the days during the summer and it seemed to only have to run for about an hour so I thought it might be a good case for dual purpose. I just thought there might be some clever solution that could accomplish this without a lot of effort and expense. Thanks for the input so far....See Moresailormann
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