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Appliances Design Dilemma Kitchens

Going from exterior kitchen exhaust fan to hood

rgreenballinger

3 years ago

Our kitchen has a wall vent fan straight to outside, and from top to bottom is 15-25 inches above the cooktop. We are remodeling and plan to add an under-cabinet vented hood, but I can’t picture how the hood will connect to the current opening without the ducts showing since the hood is higher than the fan placement. Do we have to re-drywall to cover it?

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Comments (5)

everdebz
3 years ago
a bit curious.... bump
PRO
HALLETT & Co.
3 years ago
Yes. You will eliminate the current fan completely (drywall inside and siding on the exterior) then create a new penetration for the new fan higher on the wall or go up through the ceiling.
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Ok, I'll bite. My poor eyes don't get much from the picture, but combined with the narrative I'm seeing a future range hood whose benefit is ducting straight up (rather than putting in elbows) without compromising upper cabinet space. Beyond that, I await the particulars of the "bigger structure to come" to see how filtration, capture area, etc. is addressed without compromising height. Kind of what the others have asked. I love creative innovation, but at this point my small mind doesn't see much to compliment. Looking forward to the updates!
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I'm a little stumped but thought that you might appreciate a response. My guess is that grease will collect on the fan blades no matter what. What model hood is it? Are there filters and if so how often do you change or wash them? How often do you use the fan? Do you do much frying and sauteeing? I wonder if it's possible that due to light use and minimal fatty cooking methods the collection cups just haven't been filling up. Have you checked the outside vent? Is it clear or blocked? Personally I would think that if it was blocked you would be seeing a lot more grease and that it would be dripping from the blades and hood and the cups would be full. You might get better answers to this in the appliance forum. There are some extremely knowledgeable people about ventilation in there who know more than I. Hope this at least gets things started for you.
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The easiest way for them to run duct in a two-story house is between the floor joists in the ceiling above. Well, the easiest way is probably to run through upper cabinets, if you have them. You need to figure out which way those ceiling joists run - look in an upstairs register or at the joists in the basement or attic to get a good guess. If they go the right way your ducting could go up from the hood to the ceiling, turn a right angle to go between the joists, and go out through the wall. We had a guy from a fireplace shop come and look at our house. He had good suggestions for how to get to the outside from an interior wall, and it wasn't what we thought it was going to be, mostly because the joists ran in an inconvenient direction. We were ballpark-quoted in the $1000 neighborhood to go completely across the top of the kitchen and out the opposite brick wall, plus a second run of duct in another place, through another brick wall, for make-up air (required for a 401+ CFM hood in our area). I believe if we only had to do the single run, it'd have been about half that. Material costs are very low and the hard work in our case was getting through the masonry. Note that our estimate did not include patching up the ceiling after they cut a bunch of holes in it. We also have a recirculating microwave-hood and we hate it. The diffuser piece at the top on ours has broken so I get the breeze right in my forehead as I stand at the stove. We can't wait to have a proper outside-venting hood!
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Howdy, sorry for not responding sooner. I guess I'm not configured to forward the email notices. In regards to opaone's comments: Not sure what you might mean by a "real hood", but if it's a restaurant quality super duper hood - then no. The kitchen is tiny and unless I blow out an exterior wall it'll stay that way. The current hood is a standard 30" affair; it's only redeeming qualities are the nifty LEDs I installed and the 7" exhaust going out the top. The presence of so many 90° bends is exactly why I'd like to make a direct shot to the roof. What a horrid design! In regards to Austin Air's comments: The 5" space will easily fit the 11" x 3" oval (6" equivalent) duct I was planning on using. The furnace space is sealed and takes its make-up/combustion air from vents leading to the attic, which is ventilated through soffit vents and a large roof-mounted mushroom. Kitchen make-up air is currently not too much of an issue as the house is a "leaker" - I have yet to replace all the aluminium windows and sliders, but will surely install a vent/control/device to address make-up if/when I go with the through-the-roof range vent. What I'm leaning towards now, after posting this and asking around, is having my furnace replaced before doing the modification. I don't want to go through the work and then have Mr./Mrs./Ms. City Inspector Man/Woman/Person question the duct passing through the furnace closet. Another advantage would be the additional physical space gained by replacing the 1970s dinosaur-air-heater with a modern high-efficiency unit. They're so small now!! If I had me a moneytree, I'd plop a horizontal unit in the attic and solve all kinds of issues.
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rgreenballinger
Original Author
3 years ago
So there’s no way to use the current opening since it already goes through the exterior brick? I would love to find an interior solution if possible.
kaseki
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Best is to do it right and start from scratch, so to speak. However, in the interest of saving brick work, there would be some effectiveness if you (a) removed the blower and put a serious blower on the outside (sort of a side draft configuration) and then (b) put an enveloping hood without duct interface over the cooktop at, say 30 inches max from the hood bottom to the cooktop. It could have lights and fan control that would be wired to the exterior blower. The effect of the hood would be temporary capture, and if the breeze past the bottom was adequate, cooking plume effluent would tend to move to the wall port rather than into the room. You might test this with a cardboard hood shape and the existing blower with light steam generation at the cooktop. The existing blower is probably unable to deflect hot grease particles.

(c) The interior wall space from the existing blower port to hood might be used to provide a larger vent area by co-opting some of the inter-stud space. This would require sheet metal covering all combustibles, preferably spaced a bit. (Assume a grease fire.) And on that point, with or without any inter-stud refinements, lack of proper grease capture requires easy access to the duct to allow cleaning.

For the outside blower, one of the Broan/Wolf/Abbaka roof blowers, mounted on the wall, will blow downward. Some wall cleaning will be needed. If sightliness is not an issue, then a mini upblast blower could be used blowing outward and the wall would stay cleaner.

This scheme will be loud at full power, as will any hood with internal blowers. Best is to go upward to the roof, use a roof blower, and insert a silencer in between.
rgreenballinger
Original Author
3 years ago
Thanks!!

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