Choosing a Rangehood
Choosing a rangehood is tough. There are a variety of models in many styles to suit your kitchen and needs. Rangehoods are designed to remove odours, steam and greese from your kitchen. They do this by using one of two methods
- Ducting – which removes the air from the kitchen area and ducts it outside the house.
- Recirculation – which removes the grease an odour with a charcoal filter before recirculating the air.
Ducting
Ducting is the preferred method. Ducted range hoods suck the air out of the cooking area, through the ducting and out of the house via a flue. Ducted rangehoods use aluminium filters and should be removed regularly for cleaning. Ducted rangehoods should use the shortest and most direct route out of the house to ensure maximum efficiency.
Recirculation
Recirculation (meaning air is sucked in to the unit, cleaned and then redistributed to the area it came from) is used only if ducting is unable to be implemented. Charcoal filters need to be replaced regularly (every 4 months or so) to ensure they continue to filter the air as best they can.
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Rangehoods power is measured in cubic metres per hour (m3/hr) or litres per minute (litres/min). If you have an open plan kitchen you will need maximum power otherwise you may find the smell blows through the entire house. If you are using ducting, make sure you use semi-rigid or rigid ducting, only use flexible ducting if it cant be avoided and make sure its stretched as tight as possible. One thing to remember is that when air moves it makes noise, the more air you move the louder the noise. Noise will be further reduced if ducting follows a straight path rather than being redirected.
For more information on choosing a rangehood, click below.
