[net.consumers] Need info on Range Hoods

gsl@lzmi.UUCP (10/24/84)

Does anyone have any experience with range hoods?
The intended use is to suck and filter out
grease, oil, smoke, steam, etc. etc. from the stove
in an apartment kitchen so that cooking smells
don't proliferate to other rooms.
Are they effective for this purpose? Any brands to choose? to avoid?
Thanks.
(I don't know whether anyone can mail me responses,
so the best way is to post them in net.consumers.)

mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney) (10/26/84)

The GE hood that goes with the GE stove in my apartment sucks
air through a charcoal filter and blows it out the top, back into the
kitchen.  It is reasonably effective at removing smoke, which is
the only smell that offends me enough to justify the noise of the fan.

I wish that I had an exhaust fan that would send the smoke outside.
This would not only improve the air quality, but would also keep the
kitchen cooler.
-- 

*** REPLACE THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR LINE ***

Jon Mauney    mcnc!ncsu!mauney    C.S. Dept, North Carolina State University

lutton@inmet.UUCP (10/30/84)

<>
There are two kinds of range hoods.  One kind vents to the outside.
This kind works.  But the stove has to be against an outside
wall and you have to cut a hole through it.  The other kind vents
back to the kitchen through a filter.  You have to replace the
filter every once in a while.  My apartment (11 years old when I
moved in) has this kind of range hood.  I don't know where
to get a new filter.  When I turn on the range hood it smells.
Probably nobody ever changed the filter.  I don't use the hood.

wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (10/30/84)

> There are two kinds of range hoods.  One kind vents to the outside.
> This kind works.  But the stove has to be against an outside
> wall and you have to cut a hole through it.  The other kind vents
> back to the kitchen through a filter.  You have to replace the
> filter every once in a while.  My apartment (11 years old when I
> moved in) has this kind of range hood.  I don't know where
> to get a new filter.  When I turn on the range hood it smells.
> Probably nobody ever changed the filter.  I don't use the hood.

Just thought I'd mention, if you didn't realize it, that the range hoods that
have an outside vent also use a filter. (At least some, like mine, do.) This
isn't to "clean" the air processed through the hood; it's to trap suspended
grease particles, which would otherwise build up in the vent tube and create 
a fire hazard.

This means that, every now and then, you have to remove this filter (usually
a simple task -- mine is held in place by a spring-and-groove arrangement)
and wash it thoroughly in hot sudsy water. They are usually made of some form
of metal mesh and will stand repeated washings. However, they are also
rather flimsily constructed. Mine is a thin aluminum channel frame around
a sandwich of wire mesh and a tangle of metal strips (sort of like aluminum
linguini). If you wash this vigorously, the channel bends and lets the raw 
edges of the aluminum mesh slip out. It is then a tedious task to get the
whole thing back together. Eventually, after a decade or so, the thing will
probably fall apart. And, of course, by then the manufacturer of the hood
and the dealer from which you got it have disappeared into corporate heaven.

The moral of this cautionary tale is to buy at least one extra filter unit
WHEN YOU BUY THE RANGE HOOD. (If you got your hood when you bought your house,
as we did, and it was installed by the previous owners, you are probably
out of luck.) If the dealer doesn't or cannot supply extra filters, that's
probably a good reason not to buy that brand or model of range hood!
(If you are buying the kind with disposable, non-reusable filters, buy
a 20-year supply! [Can you be SURE you can find these a decade hence?])

Don't wory about having too many; if you sell the house or condo, you 
include what's left with the range hood.

Will Martin

USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin     or   ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA

jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre) (11/02/84)

I added one to the stove in the house I bought.  Not only does it
keep down odors and grease stains it also keeps the house cooler.

I do not like the ones that just filter the fumes and blow them back
into the room.  I suppose that cut down on grease and, if they have
a charcole filter, on odors.  But if you are talking about real amounts
of toxic gases than no way is some 6x10 filter going to handle it.

I suppose it makes a difference whether you have a gas or electric stove.
With electric you have only cooking odors and less waste heat.  A gas
stove produces fumes from the combustion as well as more waste heat.  (I
still like gas.)  Being able to exhaust the heat out of the house can
make cooking tolerable in the summer and reduce your air conditioner bill
if you have one.

					    Jerry Aguirre
{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!jerry