Dissipating kitchen cooking/greasy odors - through clever design
homey_bird
9 years ago
Featured Answer
Sort by:Oldest
Comments (13)
User
9 years ago
debrak_2008
9 years agoRelated Discussions
electric cook tops on an island
Comments (44)Jujulu, there are all kinds of different island setups, just as there are all kinds of perimeter setups, and each have their pros and cons. The safety issues that are spoken of about island cooktops aren't about who is walking behind you. That's equal no matter which surface the cooktop is on, and has to do with other considerations in kitchen design. One important factor we talk about is putting the stove in a protected position. That is one where people aren't always walking by where they'll get smacked with hot pans, walk into open oven doors, startle the cook, or tug on mommy's shirt when she's holding a hot pan. Your island cooktop is obviously positioned well in your kitchen to be able to protect against the last. In my friend's kitchen, it's positioned where people coming from a couple of different directions could sneak up on the cook, even though the cook has panoramic view of most of the kitchen and the breakfast room. The same dichotomy could happen with a perimeter stove--in one position it could be well protected with the cook aware of the comings and goings, and in another position it could be at the axis of all bad things happening. The bigger dangers with island cooktops, especially gas ones, come from how people gather around. There is often seating or leaning space across from the cooktop, whence a glass of wine can be knocked over into the flames. Or spilled milk can put out the flames and they can reignite with a whoosh. It can seem to work perfectly for years, then a drop of water hits the pan and a big spatter hits a kid right in the face and causes ER trips and scars. All this stuff happens. People try to guard against it. Personally, I wouldn't want to see all the spatter I clean off of my backsplash and counters by the stove to be all over my kitchen and kids, but if it's just crud and not burning, then it's the same issue of cleaning up. I almost never fry, mind you. I get spatter from soups and stews (bubbly things) and sometimes even sautes, and when it hits me, it hurts! You have to have a big enough island that you can protect the pots and burners from interference by people walking on the non-cooking sides. Not people just walking by, but the errant golf clubs, leaping out of arms cats, bags of groceries plopped down near the active stove, etc. Add to that, people tend not to keep the surfaces on islands as clear as they do either side of a perimeter cooktop. That is, they don't give it so much space of honor in an island, and all of a sudden, Junior pushes away the juice which pushes the napkin holder which pushes the pile of junk mail right into the stove. So when you're making your island big enough for the walkers around, you have to make it that much bigger for the sitters down. All this can be done. People who are careful can make anything work. Statistically, people spend very little time actually facing the wall tending the stove while they're cooking, and much more time prepping, which is part of why--excluding the better position for venting and containing spatter--most people like the model of a perimeter stove with a prep area on an island across from it. The island helps protect the position of the stove, while offering the cook an open area to work in. For some people, however, the pivot way of working isn't a good option, or just doesn't fit their druthers. They, like you, prefer to work next to the stove, rather than across from it. There are also people who poke at their cooking food too much, interfering with the cooking, rather than helping it, but I'm not accusing you of that. You obviously prefer your setup, and aren't bothered by whatever smells and dirt you have without a good (or switched on) vent. If you're happy with what you have, we're not judging you for making your choice. All of the preceding is for information and full of "usually" and generalizations. None of it may apply to your own kitchen and cooking style, or you've made other compensations to deal with the issues. All the best for your new kitchen. Edeevee, you give me too much credit. I didn't make the tiles--they're commercially available artisan made. I just arranged them. You can go into any good tile store, or website, and choose beautiful tiles too. If the tile didn't work out and I had to use all green soapstone, this--Erin Adams for Ann Sacks and available as is--would have been my backsplash: Edit: Sorry. That's not in the budget. I just love it so jumped at a chance to post it, and wish I had an excuse to redo my bathroom and use it. :) My friends used grab bag, builder grade, glossy tiles and some ingenuity, to make amazing art tiling. I promise you, their budget was a lot smaller than yours. Some alternatives to the living finish of copper include stainless--and there are some great textured stainless sheets out now, far beyond diamond plate, if you want something with a little punch. Still very economical. You could go sleek with glass. You could even use back painted glass. It would cost a lot more, but you could also cut out as much of the wall behind the stove as possible and install a glass wall instead and use the view as your backsplash and see it behind the hood. Or just a fixed window between the hood and the top of the stove. Or you could search the art departments near you and see if someone is studying tile and wants to trade experience for materials. :) This post was edited by plllog on Sat, Apr 12, 14 at 16:59...See MoreFish Odor in Home for 2 days!!! Do I have the right size hood?
Comments (20)Well, a hood can be designed to do whatever you want it to do within the limits of physics (or more precisely, fluid dynamics). Removal of most of the grease particulate spectrum and any non-grease particles composing smoke, along with excess moisture, are primary functions of kitchen cooktop ventilation. In the process, all odors that are entrained in the rising and hopefully captured and contained effluent are also removed. Obviously, if an odor generator is removed from under the hood, or the hood is turned off, then odor is not captured and contained. The capture and containment process is aided by the uprising velocity of the cooking effluent and (where applicable) gas burner combustion products. A pile of room temperature cilantro on top of a cold cooktop will out-gas in all directions, and if either the air motion locally, or cilantro oil molecular propagation speed is higher than the hood air velocity at the cooktop surface (generally very low, even on full power) then one will smell cilantro throughout the kitchen. I might argue that is welcome, but other odors may not be so nice. For eshmh: My velocity values are derived from peak thermal plume velocities as described by "Thermal plumes of kitchen appliances: Cooking mode," Kosonen, Koskela, and Saarinen, in Elsevier B.V., Energy and Buildings, and attempt to account for the effect of baffles on moderating the blower air velocity averaged over the baffle space relative to the peak cooking plume velocity shown in this reference. A similar velocity approach is one of the sizing methods described by Greenheck in their document, available on-line, KVSApplDesign_catalog.pdf. Due to the necessity to capture and contain effluent from any burner when it impacts the baffles, even with the other burners off, the air velocity entering the baffles has to be high enough at any point under the baffles. Hence, we can design for one burner's peak plume velocity and achieve good capture and containment even if all burners are operating. However, the cooking plume velocity shape (measured transverse to "up") is rather like a peaked-up Gaussian function, and has significant width tails that may easily exceed the hood horizontal size at the hood height under some conditions. Capture of all the plume all of the time is unlikely with most space limited residential kitchen hoods. Conversely, the total plumes' mass rate of rise with all burners operating will be less than the total mass air flow through the baffles from the hood blower so long as the velocity of the hood air is high enough to preclude peak plume reflection off of the baffles and into the kitchen. This is because we designed the velocity to deal with the peak plume velocities which exist over only part of the zone into which the plume rises. If the hood velocity at the baffles is too low, then reflection occurs at the baffles, leading to effluent spillage, as shown below. (From CKV_Design_Guide_2_031504.pdf, (c) 2002 by the California Energy Commission.) kas...See MoreWeek 173 - Kitchen design ideas that you love. Why?
Comments (49)My mom designed her kitchen in 1970. She has almost all drawers. The cabinet between cooktop and sink has doors--with pullout shelves for pots and pans. Perfect. There's a unit in the peninsula. On the kitchen side, they are drawers. On the breakfast room side, there are doors that open to the back side of the drawers, so you can grab the kitchen towel (for a spill) or a serving accessory (that was put away from the dishwasher on the other side, or forgotten in setting out the service). The corner of a peninsula is often wasted space (I know it is in my builder-kitchen). In Moms, the four drawers hold placemats, napkins, tablecloth, crossword, pens, batteries, and little binoculars (what IS that bird on the pond? Which kid is carving tracks in the lawn on the minibike?) Another cabinet door has the pullouts for the in-counter blender accessories' in the island. Gotta tell ya, I appreciated my mom's ingenuity ever since I've lived in builders' kitchens. Mom also has a pull-out cutting board. A shallow reach-in pantry, next to a deeper pantry for bigger items, and another shallow reach-in pantry in the hall for special occasion items. Bookshelves for cookbooks, notebooks (she kept careful notes of parties and dinners), an area for baking needs, a serving cart that is stored under the kitchen island (and matches it). Her cabinets have (HOUZZ-cringe here) wood-look Formica veneers with fingertip cutouts, no knobs/handles. Easy to clean. No worries of "will water dripping off my fingers make my cabinets dirty?" Do what you want to Formica, it holds up. In all, I'd say my favorite kitchen design is thought. THINK about how you live, cook, entertain, store, WHAT do you cook and store, WHO do you cook for, entertain for. THATs what drives your kitchen design. Is mom's kitchen "on trend" decor-wise? Nope. Was it ever? Well, maybe in the 70s. But boy, it works. (But, the dishwasher doesn't work. It can't be replaced. My mom was 5', so she designed her kitchen with lower-than-normal base cabinets. In those days there was no ADA or DishDrawers, so the dishwasher was installed below floor level and, for some reason, cemented in. After 47 years their miracle-worker repairman said he couldn't make the last repair. It had been living off of reclaimed parts for years anyway. Ah well, it's just mom and the caregiver now, not a lot of dishes, so the dishdrainer, 62 years old but with a new drainboard under it, is doing just fine.)...See MoreDoes your kitchen inhibit the way you cook?
Comments (40)I'm late to this party, but I have to say, such easily cleaned surfaces as granite and stainless steel would not prevent me from cooking, though if I were tired, I might just wipe up visible residue with a sponge and do a proper cleaning the next day (or have a helper do it). The exception is eggplants. One of my reasons for getting a small gas top to go with my induction was for charring eggplants, but stainless is not as easy to clean as enamel, and the grate is really heavy, so I have a tendency to stick eggplants in the broiler on a pyroceram pie plate that goes in the dishwasher, instead. But if the oven were otherwise engaged, I'd use the gas flames. The kitchen that came with the house was horrible to cook in. The stove and fridge were a hike apart. The dishwasher was a few steps away from the sink. The kitchen was a G shape within a room, trapping the cook, or forcing a '60's spy movie leap over the peninsula. I spent a long time designing and implementing my current kitchen, which is a U with umlaut, and has cabinetry instead of blank walls. Things are spaced right and there's good work flow. The main single cook working zone ("triangle" +) is compact and efficient, but I've also had six cooks and various schmoozers in there comfortably. If your kitchen is bugging you so much, you might seriously consider a remodel. If the cabinets are in good shape, you might be able to reuse them, and might even be able to recut the granite. Get induction! You could put paper (newspaper, paper towels, parchment, butcher paper) all over your spatter area and just roll up the mess and put it away. If that's not in the cards, get a high powered portable induction unit that will put out enough power for your sears, and put that on the paper, or perhaps a piece of Formica (i.e., plastic) skin that's easy to wash and store with the baking boards. Even as it stands now, you can make an apron for your gas cooktop out of something like Masonite covered with stainless steel. Make a flat piece to cover the counter all around it for the space the spatter reaches, and hide it in the garage or something unless you're searing. You can even get fancy and make a backsplash of sorts to stand up, or perhaps even adapt a wind protector from an outdoor grill. Having a protector that you can just dump in the sink to wash or hose off the next day is far superior to avoiding the cooking!! Embrace your kitchen! Allow it to serve you. Do whatever you need to to keep it from bugging you....See Morehomey_bird
9 years agoUser
9 years agopalimpsest
9 years agodebrak_2008
9 years agobeachem
9 years agoamg765
9 years agoUser
9 years agoUser
9 years agoBuehl
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoBuehl
9 years ago
Related Stories
KITCHEN DESIGNPersonal Style: 50 Clever Real-Life Kitchen Design Details
Get ideas from savvy homeowners who have a knack for creating kitchens celebrating personal style
Full Story
KITCHEN APPLIANCESLove to Cook? You Need a Fan. Find the Right Kind for You
Don't send budget dollars up in smoke when you need new kitchen ventilation. Here are 9 top types to consider
Full Story
KITCHEN STORAGEPulling Power: Clever Drawer Tactics for a Kitchen
It’s not how many drawers you have in your kitchen; it’s how they work for you
Full Story
HEALTHY HOMEDetox Your Kitchen for the Healthiest Cooking
Maybe you buy organic or even grow your own. But if your kitchen is toxic, you're only halfway to healthy
Full Story
KITCHEN DESIGNKitchen of the Week: Function and Flow Come First
A designer helps a passionate cook and her family plan out every detail for cooking, storage and gathering
Full Story
MOST POPULAR6 Kitchen Flooring Materials to Boost Your Cooking Comfort
Give your joints a break while you're standing at the stove, with these resilient and beautiful materials for kitchen floors
Full Story
SMALL KITCHENS12 Genius Design Moves for Small Kitchens
These space-enhancing tricks can make compact cooking zones look and feel larger
Full Story
THE HARDWORKING HOMEClever Ways to Rethink the Linen Closet
The Hardworking Home: Get rid of those toppling piles with these ideas for organizing bedding, towels and more
Full Story
LAUNDRY ROOMSClever Ways to Hide a Laundry Station
When you don’t have a whole room to devote to the wash, use these solutions to tuck the machines out of view
Full Story
KITCHEN DESIGNBirch Plywood Keeps Things Light in a Cotswolds Kitchen
A country kitchen is packed with clever design details — including an island on wheels — that give it a modern yet natural look
Full Story
cookncarpenter