Value of recirculating hood for 30" gas range vs no hood?
lathyrus
9 years ago
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kaseki
9 years agosjhockeyfan325
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Smaller range hood insert 30” versus 39” gas cooktop.
Comments (13)In order to not repeat myself re hundred's of other hood-related threads, I'll just comment on this assertion: "Just saying that the middle burners may get more suction then the outer ones." There is no effective level of suction at the cooktop. There is airflow at the hood entry aperture and perhaps slightly lower corresponding pressure. While the most suction is likely at the baffles, it can't be lower than the total pressure loss in the system, normally less than 2 inches of water (0.07 PSI) to move any air. Hoods collect and expel the effluent that rises and reaches the hood aperture, plus a smidgen past the edges, by entraining the rising and expanding cooking plumes into the air flow created by the hood system blower. If pans on the middle burners are better collected, it is only because they have the most hood overlap. Unrelated to hoods, but relevant to long-term safety, one hopes that the cooktop installation manual allows zero clearance to combustibles above the cooktop at the back, or that the wall is non-combustible all the way through. Generally, island trim configurations are not intended for operation next to a wall....See MoreRecirculating range hoods with good filtration
Comments (9)Most people seriously underestimate just how much grease is aerosolized during normal operations of their stove. We see the splatter of big droplets that needs to be cleaned up from counters next to the stove when frying a steak, but we never make the connection that even more grease finds its way up into the air; and this even happens if you don't pan fry. Just normal steam distillation carries fat particles with it. So, unless you literally don't use your stove for anything other than boiling plain water, you will have grease that needs to go somewhere. Have you ever cleaned the top of cabinets in a house that uses a recirculating hood (or even an externally-venting hood that is undersized). It's a thick filthy layer of built up grease. And that's just whatever got deposited up there. The rest circled back around into your living space. And no, none of this requires that you operate a fry kitchen. It just needs you to use your kitchen for two or three meals every day. Small amounts add up over time. Humans are just really bad at estimating quantities for things that they can't see. Properly sized baffle filters can do an amazing job at removing the bulk of these fat particles. Mesh filters are frequently undersized, are much less effective by design, and clog over time. So, you get fooled into thinking that there is less grease in your cooking effluents than there really is. I used to live in a place that had an Asian-style centrifugal vent hood design. It flings the fat particles to the side and then requires you wash them off later. It would stop and request a clean cycle ever 8 hours of use. I thought that was crazy frequently, as I had no way to actually see the internals and verify how much fat had built up. But now that I have a hood with baffles, I can actually look at the separated fat. It's a lot more than you'd imagine, no matter what was cooked that week....See MoreCavaliere range hood - recirculating kit
Comments (5)I'm not aware of a truly optimal recirculation system, although I'm sure that theoretically some complex of filters could be arranged to nearly perfectly remove effluent from the captured cooking plumes. On the basis of reports here, the Vent-a-Hood ARS seems to be satisfactory, if not optimal (in the sense of effluent removal without regard to cost). Broan/Best have recirculating products, but no reports have been posted here. In general, you want a hood that overlaps the cooking plumes, which requires overlapping the cooktop, and sufficient velocity into the baffle space to ensure containment of the plumes by entraining them into the air moving into the baffle slots. Ejection outside is the best means of further filtering. (For gentle, low plume velocity cooking, mesh filtering can work (with outside ducting) but still requires a larger than cooktop hood.) So, if you didn't already have a hood, then you could go through the simple process I've outlined dozens of times to establish hood size, desired CFM, rated CFM, etc. Then, try to find a recirculating hood that accomplishes that and also performs decent filtering of odor, grease, and other effluent. I don't think the consensus here supports recirculating gas cooktop plumes due to the difficulty of removing all the harmful trace compounds in the combustion products. Induction cooktop filtering might be OK. Opening windows to dilute any contaminants escaping the filtering is also useful, except in highly polluted cities. In any case, there are many factors that mitigate against striving for optimality of performance, including cost, space, and aesthetics, so I'm not going to be fanatically strict about what YOU should do....See Morerecirculating range hood for induction range
Comments (3)We have a induction cooktop with a Zepher recirculating hood. It has a charcoal filter and also the metal mesh filters that I wash in the dishwasher. It is fine for most things, but if your searing meat at a high temp it isn’t strong enough to remove the smoke generated. I have a window nearby so that helps in this situation. I would have still preferred one with an outside vent. We live in a condo so that was not possible....See Morekaseki
9 years agolathyrus
9 years agokaseki
9 years agohomepro01
9 years agokaseki
9 years agolathyrus
9 years ago
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