It's pretty common knowledge that the heart of the home is the kitchen, but did you ever stop to think that kitchen range hoods are the heart of the kitchen? It's true; with a healthy range hood, the rest of your kitchen, and the rest of your home for that matter, can carry on doing good things and entertaining guests. Without a good heart (a good kitchen range hood)... things may appear to be OK on the outside, but there is a nastiness that is going on unseen that can lead to health problems and general discomfort. I guess in a way you could also consider kitchen range hoods to be like the liver, filtering out the nasties... but we'll keep the analogy to kitchen range hoods are the heart of the kitchen.
So what exactly does a range hood do? Lots! Let's take a look at what happens when you're cooking on your stove top.
I'm sure if you're ever cooked bacon or a hamburger or any other kind of meat in a stove top frying pan, you've noticed that there is a lot of grease spatter around on the stove and back splash areas. Well guess what? That's only the grease spatter you're seeing! There is plenty more where that came from. On a microscopic level, small enough and light enough to float around the kitchen and settle on pretty much anything and everything around. Probably even traveling well outside of the kitchen area, too. And with that thin, microscopic layer of grease everywhere, don't you think that dirt, dust, allergens, microbes and who knows what else aren't just having a field day clinging to everything because of the grease? You bet they are! And so far we've only talked about the grease. There is also general moisture coming from your food, and smoke, and odors...
So what is a person to do about all this? The answer shouldn't surprise you at this point; kitchen range hoods.
Sitting above the cooking surface of your stove, range hoods act as a giant vacuum to help suck up the air coming off your stovetop, along with everything that comes along with it. In other words, the grease, moisture, smoke, odors and all the rest. There are several different types of kitchen hoods, both in materials and operationally. And of course, like so many things in and around the house and kitchen in particular, there are many different styles you can choose from to make sure your hood fits your decor the way you want it to.
The typical materials that kitchen hoods are made from include stainless steel, tile (ceramic), and paneled, if you want to match wood cabinetry in your kitchen. They also come in various sizes and you'll want to find one that matches the size of your stovetop. This is all aesthetics. The more critical components you'll need to consider are the functional operation of your exhaust hood.
There are basically two ways these things can work; either ventilating or non-ventilating (recirculating). If you are building a kitchen from scratch for a new house, you can probably make the choice of which way you want to go. A ventilating exhaust hood needs to connect up with a duct system so that the air can eventually make it to the outside. This is the preferable route to take. However, it's not always possible to connect a hood to duct work. When this is the case, you can utilize a recirculating system.
With a recirculating exhaust hood, air is pulled up into, and through a set of filters to trap the grease and smoke, etc. However, once it passes through the filters, the 'cleaned' air comes right back into the kitchen. So you will not be able to eliminate the moisture that is coming out of the food, and you won't be able to cool the kitchen down either, since the hot air is just 'recirculating'. Don't misunderstand though, this is better than nothing. The filters will still grab a lot of those 'nasties' we referred to earlier, and they can easily be washed down and cleaned with some simple soap and water (don't use harsh abrasives on the filters. Just wash, rinse, let dry and re-install).
No matter which method your choose when it comes to kitchen range hoods, the most important take-away is for you to be sure you have some kind of exhaust and/or filter system above your stove top and that you use it. Get a good kitchen range hood and keep the heart of your home healthy!