Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Kitchen with no hood


lindag

Recommended Posts

There are charcoal filter fans that doesnt need a vent, it just remove fat and sum such.  Franke sells them here in Europe and Eletrolux used too.

Cheese is you friend, Cheese will take care of you, Cheese will never betray you, But blue mold will kill me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm, maybe there is an answer.  Next month (after the hearing season is pretty much over) I'm having my furnace replaced;  the folks doing the work are HVAC experts and I will consult them about creating a vent.  At least I'll get an answer, yay or nay, once and for all and I can put the whole subject to rest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm, maybe there is an answer.  Next month (after the hearing season is pretty much over) I'm having my furnace replaced;  the folks doing the work are HVAC experts and I will consult them about creating a vent.  At least I'll get an answer, yay or nay, once and for all and I can put the whole subject to rest.

Very wise. Once you can answer

Can it be done?

At what cost in terms of dollars and disruption?

you will be in a position to make a decision that works best for you.

  • Like 1

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Echoing Hassouni and Mitch: just live with it. You've done so for nine years!

 

I deep-fry, wok-cook, do long slow braises, roast chile peppers and just about everything else known to man in a NYC apartment kitchen with no hood. It's a non-windowed pass-through kitchen that goes to the bathroom corridor at one end, and the dining nook off the living room at the other.

 

I do everything that Hassouni describes, and just accept the fact that my place is going to smell like cooking food most of the time… really, there are worse things in life!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Echoing Hassouni and Mitch: just live with it. You've done so for nine years!

 

I deep-fry, wok-cook, do long slow braises, roast chile peppers and just about everything else known to man in a NYC apartment kitchen with no hood. It's a non-windowed pass-through kitchen that goes to the bathroom corridor at one end, and the dining nook off the living room at the other.

 

I do everything that Hassouni describes, and just accept the fact that my place is going to smell like cooking food most of the time… really, there are worse things in life!

You said exactly what I was attempting to say. What is so wrong with the smell of food except for very few items that may be just a personal quirk. Bad fish, stale cabbage but even these dissipate. Just as we have been brainwashed to fear our food either because it's Germy or Fatty so we are being brainwashed to believe everything should smell of nothing or of something artificially made to resemble sandalwood or somesuch thing. I agree that the grease can be a challenge but anybody who's coped with it for years knows what they are up against. Love it when my family walks in after I have cooked something and says, "It always smells so good in here, Mom". And they are not talking about Airwick.
  • Like 2

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've lived with this issue for many years.

The smells don't bother me, what bothers me is the fatty film that tends to form on stuff in the kitchen, especially up high.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The smell doesn't bother me at all. The fatty film is annoying but can be handled. My main problem is that the humidity from boiling stuff I guess has ruined my cabinets unfortunately.

 

I've lived with this issue for many years.

The smells don't bother me, what bothers me is the fatty film that tends to form on stuff in the kitchen, especially up high.

 

The problem can be minimized by installing a recirculating non-venting hood with a good grease filter, and a removable high speed window fan.

 

dcarch

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I live in an apartment and have a stove hood that recirculates the grease.  The stove backs an external wall, so I am not sure exactly why there is no vent to the outside.  A clue might be that after thirty five years of living here the State has mandated bathrooms be vented to the outside air.

 

Indeed State inspectors are coming by this week to approve the work.

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The problem can be minimized by installing a recirculating non-venting hood with a good grease filter, and a removable high speed window fan.

 

dcarch

 

 

 

I have one of those worthless things!!!!  :wacko:

  • Like 1

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have one of those worthless things!!!!  :wacko:

I have one of those too, and they are useless.  Basically mine just blows the vapor and grease onto my cabinetry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If your ceiling is high enough, there is one option to get the venting to an exterior wall.

Yesterday I visited friends who live in an "adobe" house built in the 1920s, clay tile roof and all.  Their range is on an inside wall and they added a range hood a few years ago and the ductwork is inside an insulated false "beam" that goes from the interior wall above the range to an exterior wall and outside there is a round vent opening with louvers that open when the power is on and closes when off to prevent the wind blowing in. 

It is an attractive design element in the kitchen and the way it is finished, there is no indication that it is not a solid piece of wood. 

The man who did the work told them that He had installed many similar "beams" in mid-century modern kitchen with cathedral ceilings, etc., where there are no attics in which to run ductwork. 

Their ceiling height is somewhat uneven, about 9' at the exterior wall and 9'8" at the interior wall but it is not readily apparant to casual observers. (I didn't notice it.)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have one of those too, and they are useless.  Basically mine just blows the vapor and grease onto my cabinetry.

 

There is no reason why a well designed grease filter should not work.

 

A well designed one is one with a very big surface area for the filter and a reasonable fan to draw air through it.

 

The problem with many is too small a filter and too small or too big a fan.

 

dcarch

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To update:

Yesterday I spoke with my HVAC rep about adding a vent to my existing equipment.

I have an over-the-range microwave with a recirculating vent system.

He tells me that they can open up the wall behind my existing m/w and create a down-draft vent into the crawlspace and out an exterior wall.  Despite that down draft vents aren't nearly as efficient as a true hood, I'm thinking this would be a very good solution where there really isn't anything else I can do.

Any thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I insisted on an outside venting hood in this house, the builder installed by their own dumbiness a popup downdraft - i.e. I have both.

 

the side/downdraft is not effective - I would not pay a penny for one.

the side/downdraft does goof up gas burner flames at any speed above the lowest - making it totally unsuited for its purpose.

Edited by AlaMoi (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the last two years I've don a lot of "investigating" into household hoods, and here's my observations

 

Basically there are only three types of hoods available for the residential market, all of these require outside ducting. 

 

The first, and most common the the plain fan-in-a-box with two flimsy screens.  And I mean flimsy, thin guage aluminum frames with a thin layer of  furnace-filter type material sandwiched between two aluminum screens.  When the filters become clogged, f.o.g. (FATS, OILS, GREASE) it  drips down on your stove.  To prevent this, you take the screens out and hose them down with hot water in your sink.  This is where I take issue, you are washing down the equivalent of two or three tbspns of bacon grease down your sink.  This is not smart.  But I said the screens are flimsy, and the screen frames will fatigue and sag, and ultimately drop out of the hood--usually within two years.  In other words you have to buy replacements.  Again, I take issue with this, as G.E. wants to charge me $147.00 for the pair of screens for a $180.00 hood.  The same system is used on hoods in the $80. to $500.00 range, with most of the money being spent on cosmetics like s/s skins, halogen lighting, and s/s shaft cladding.  I have examined at least three units from each price range (Including Ikea's range in the +-$400 range) and the filters are almost identical in construction--flimsy.  

 

The second type is the Asian style that has two fans poking out the underside  of the hood, and some kind of a grease entrapment system that allows the grease to drip into two removable cups.  This is smart, you don't need to dump the grease into the sink....  However the "guts" if you will,  of the internal workings of the hood are plastic, and the f.o.g.. will attack, fatigue and corrode the plastic tubes that drip into the cups, so that in about 7-9 years you need to replace the whole unit.

 

The third type is extremely rare and fairly expensive. I've only seen two such units in the stores, both made in Europe, and both in the $5oo and up range in 30" widths  It is just another fan-in-a-box, but with commercial style filters.  Commercial style hood filters are nothing more than a robust s/s frame with a series of "C" shaped s/s baffles that nestle in each other.  In other words, grease laden air is blown across a very large surface area,  and it is the surface area that traps the grease.  The filters need to be taken down, sprayed with grease remover, and popped back in again.  However the filters are very robust and will never fatigue, sag, and pop out of the hoods.    

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...