How important is a range hood?

Range hoods help to improve your home's air quality. They eliminate airborne grease and excess moisture, which prevents the formation of a sticky film that eventually covers cupboards, floors, and even furniture. This sticky film attracts mold and bacteria.

What is a ducted range hood?

A ducted range hood vents air directly outdoors instead of sending it back out into the air in your home.

What is a ductless or recirculating range hood?

A ductless range hood sucks in the air from your cooking, puts it through a charcoal filter, and recirculates it back out into the air in your home.

Do you need a hood vent with a gas stove?

It's recommended to use a hood vent. If you don't use one, odors build up over time and cause your home to smell.

Are recirculating range hoods effective?

They do filter some cooking odors and grease from the air, but overall is they're nowhere near as useful. They don't remove heat and humidity, so they won't help cool your kitchen down while you cook.

What is a good range hood cfm?

If it's attached to a wall, 100 cubic feet per minute(cfm) per linear foot. If the range hood is over an island, you will use 150 cfm/linear foot.

Do you really need a range hood?

When you cook or sear something in a pan, ultra-fine particles go into the air. These are not ordinary particles; they blend with other airborne chemicals and create a heavy induced chemical that is dangerous to breathe in. Range hoods help with this by pulling the air up into the hood and filtering or venting it to the outdoors.

Are ductless range hoods good?

They are more versatile in that you can place them wherever you want in your kitchen. However, they won't help with humidity created by cooking, they require more power to run, and you need to remember to clean their filter out.

In-Depth Product Guide

Range Hood

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A range hood is an exhaust fan that is placed above a stovetop to ventilate moisture, cooking odors, airborne grease, and combustion gases from a kitchen.

To earn an Energy Star rating, your range hood must abide by specific efficacy, sound, and airflow ratings. These are all crucial factors in selecting the best range hood for your home.

Some range hoods don't exhaust air to the outdoors, but instead, circulate air through a filter. While these aren't ideal for removing moisture and heat from a kitchen, they may be the right choice in other situations. For example, they may work for a retrofit where it would be challenging to install exhaust ductwork between the stove location and the outdoors.

Exhaust fans can cause a backdraft of lethal, combustion gases such as carbon monoxide from fuel-fired appliances such as natural gas or oil furnaces or water heaters and wood stoves. In these situations, it is essential to have a carbon monoxide detector installed in the house and to avoid using multiple exhaust fans simultaneously. This is of particular concern in airtight homes. If a problem is suspected, a blower-door technician can be consulted to conduct a depressurization limit test to determine the level of danger.

Range hoods with an Energy Star rating provide good energy efficiency by using high performance motors and improved blade design.