Are you just wanting to know if our hoods get greasy on the front and top...facing out into the kitchen? If that's what you want to know, yes, mine does. It's a mammoth 48" hood with 1200 CFM over a 48" rangetop, and I am very happy with how it draws steam, smoke, odors, etc...But the hood does get a greasy film on it over time.

How deep is your hood? Mine is only 19" deep and it does get greasy on the front. I would expect that a 27" deep hood that covers the front burners better wouldn't get as greasy on the front. Everyone always talks about oversizing the width, but I'm convinced the depth from front to back is more important.

My hood has never been wiped on the front/top except for dust. I have a 56" wide hood liner in a custom mantle over the Miele deep fat fryer and 36" Caldera. It sits 33" above the cooking surface. It is 1400 CFM and "by george it sucks!". I have posted pics of the stirfrying and deep fat frying. It definitely meets the HOGS requirement for hoods. The wood framework is 24" deep and the hood unit itself inside is 22". SO it covers and captures all. The baffles get very greasy and go in the diswasher every Sunday night. I am really pleased. It is a Tradewind liner, for future info. c

i have a 36" wide 24" deep hood over a 30" range and, yes, it gets greasy on the front and sides.

it's gonna happen. there's no way that these things can capture every little grease particle. restaurant hoods with silly amounts of power and huge canopies still get greasy on the front.

Nope you are not correct in this instance edlakin. My hood has been used every day for over 1 1/2 yrs and I can tell you that there is not the first drop of grease residue on it. It is not a "silly " amount of power and is not a "huge canopy". I did give the wrong size in width though...it is 54" wide .It is adequate for the way we cook and is quiet and efficient. Just because I got a product that works correctly is no reason to imply that it doesn't. c

A pic of my beautiful and efficient hood by Tradewind.

not a speck of grease, eh? not even on that right side where there's no overhang? ok. i believe you.

(btw, i love how you made the chimney 'disappear' into the wall and your hood appears to just kind of float in space. nice detail.)

The hood is 24" deep. Granted, the wifey does primarily use the front burners more often than the rear burners....

And the grates are in the rear. And yes, there is a buildup that seeps out of the front crease where the bottom front edge was.

I was just moreso surprised the entire front hood *being so high, away from the stove & the top obstructing it* would get greasy as well.

thanks guys for you response.

Wood hoods do not have that quality possessed by metal hoods that causes airborne grease to condense on them. My metal hood needs the outside and inside degreased after every two or three cooking sessions.
Casey

We got a Miele hood. It's great. No glass to look greasy or hazy, it's relatively quiet, does the job and, in close to a year, aside from dropping the actual filters in the dishwasher periodically, I haven't had to do more cleaning than wiping the dust from the top and the fingerprints from the area around the buttons on the front.

For an application over a peninsula where we want to look past it at the TV occasionally it's also very minimal and gets relatively "invisible" after a while.

In this picture there's a trim piece at the bottom of the chute that hasn't been lifted up to the ceiling yet so it has an even more sleek profile than you see here.

This has been interesting so far as it's not something that's been discussed. Are metal hoods really more prone to getting dirty than wood, as Somebreuil suggests? Do they show it more? Or less? Trailrunner and Imrainey's hoods both have vertical and horizontal surfaces. No one's mentioned the ones with slanted panels, metal or wood. How much of a factor would that be?

That's an interesting question, rosie. I wonder if the airborne grease is condensing and falling as it gets cooler and heavier and resting on slanted surfaces. I have a commercial insert in a box over a 60" Vulcan behemoth. The range comes out 36" from the wall (it was built out 6" on all sides to meet code) and the hood only comes out 24". To add insult to injury, there is a 12" warming shelf blocking the back burners. Point is, there's a lot of smoke/stem/grease that can't find its way to the hood. Said warming shelf gets nasty, but the vertical box of the hood is totally grease free. I just checked. I don't think I've ever wiped it down (gross) in the 3 years we've been in this house. Hmmm.

I'd be curious about this too - we have a Best by Broan, and all the angled surfaces collect grease...it sits back a ways as well, so I only use the back center burner for any stir frying etc, but the front of the hood still collects grease. The chimney portion definitely does not get as much grease (then again, it's up much higher and is blocked by the rest of the hood).

The front does get mucky. But on mine, on my original post, the vertical front is around 18" high. The entire front get's get condensed oil on it and then the dust just clings to it....

I've noticed this when it get's grimey and I start seeing dust buildup on the vertical front if it's been awhile and I'm too lazy to crawl up on a chair and wipe it down.

However, what is interesting...is the buildup as part of the discussion. The leftside cabinet is clean. The rightside is clean. However, on the outermost door edge on the right side of that cabinet, probably 3 inches right below the hood develops a slight grime.

And this is part of my overall perplexing question...on whether the hood is doing it's job or not. I've even googled to see if they have *tools that measure CFM* , and they do exist and they are terribly expensive.

Then again, I can nitpick all day as I've started analyzing the hood and even taken a carpenters square.

As far as cleaning, I normally use SS cleaning solution on the exterior.

I do take the baffle filters off and take some Lysol, etc and do spray and wipe/degrease the motor and also the interior rails where the baffle filters sit. Grease does buildup in these areas. I am changing my bulbs out 2X a year, not because they are broken, but because grease builds up. Why it builds up is because ti's not a sealed system in there, and as air draws, it is also drawing air from any clearance hole around the bulbs, etc.

No grease here. I have 36" Zephyr Milano over 36"induction.

I'm in ENVY for all you guys that are grease free

What are all ya'll using for cookware. 5QT stockpots ;-)

Can both baffles and filters go into the dishwasher? Are they equally easy to remove and clean?

Actually the baffle filters replace the stock *mesh * filter.
Easy to remove and clean...just stick them in the DW for cleanup.

OK due to a previous poster's comments I went back and checked again. I was armed with cleaner and rags and....nothing...nada...not a bit of grease. Yes, there was dust. This is an 1890 house, and we have dust. OK so I checked all my open shelves...nope nothing but dust. We have 11 ft ceilings in the kitchen and I used the extension duster too, dust yep but no grease. So I am standing by my original post. If you have an efficient and properly sized hood placed appropriately over your cooking area then you will NOT have ANY grease. ( excuse the capitals) . My baffles get AWFUL. But that is what they are there for.

We use cast iron skillets, a 37 yr old steel wok, stainless pots...everything in the way of cooking stuff you can imagine. Also we are the only folks with a built in deep fat fryer, that I know of and we use it regularly. So if you have a good hood you ain't got any greasy residue on your hood or any surrounding areas. Enough said. c

The ductwork is a whole 'nother debate. The caliber of homes/kitchens we're discussing on THS is of a different beast, but I suspect ALOT of homes have the accordian style aluminum ducts as well which is a grease magnet.

I had to check mine to see if it was truly grease-free too. It wasn't actually. The metal surface around the filters on the bottom had grease I could feel but not see. The metal is a grey color that blends in with the rest of the brushed steel but it's a smooth enameled surface that just doesn't show it. ...and, assumedly, cause I haven't done it yet, could be wiped up pretty easily.

I fire stuff up and get some real splatters and smoke all the time. I think the deal is having enough cubic meters/hour (or whatever it is) to draw it through the filters. I'm really pleased with the job the Miele does.

It also has an indicator to remind me to clean the filters. I'll have to remember to take that as an indicator that I need to wipe the bottom surface as well.

Grease on the bottom facing the burners and on the insides doesn't count. The issue is how well the various types and installations of hoods are doing at confining grease to those areas.

Rosie is right , the question is are you getting grease in your house....on the walls, cabs , furniture etc. That was the reason that I was checking all the surfaces in the areas surrounding the cooktop and hood.

My baffles get very greasy and I run them 1xw in the dishwasher. I also wipe out the area where the duct begins and the surface covered by the baffles while I have them out. There is very little to wipe out in that area unless I let the baffles go for more than a week then there is more.

The reason there is more if I let the baffles go longer is that their surface is maxed out and the residual goes past thus getting on the inner surfaces.

Neesie you are wrong. Sorry but you are. My son is a chef and I have helped clean his hood system many times. Number one you have to have the heavy duct work just like for a/c, and I do, not flex duct. Number two you must have the hood fan on high and running prior to starting cooking., best is at least 5 minutes to get the air flow going. Number three you must continue to run it for a short length of time after cooking has ceased. Number four baffles must be clean, in the restaurant we do them every night. Number 5 the oil used must be clean in the fryer...we change at least 1xweek and we are open 4 nights a week.

This is not rocket science but common sense. imrainey is correct , if you have sufficient cfm for the kind of cooking you do then the grease is captured where it is supposed to be...on the baffles...not in the duct work. If the duct work is getting full of grease, which leads to kitchen fires, then the users of the system are not doing so correctly or the system is not strong enough or both.

You can easily tell if your home system is doing well by wiping down adjacent surfaces and seeing what you have on the rag. c