Stainless steel range hoods – A complete Shoppers guide

Are you planning to buy a Stainless steel range hood? Or for that matter just a range hood and are not sure that which one to go for. Then the good news is that you have just landed at the right place. Buying a stainless steel range hood may not be a big brainer of sorts but definitely it requires some amount of research before you actually go for one. Let’s take a structured approach in towards choosing the right quality of range hood.

It’s so much to read here…

That does sound tedious, but then I’ll repeat my favorite phrase, “Better be aware, than ending up in despair”. Also in case you are just off without initial research then remember that you’ll always be taken for a ride and with so many options available you’ll end up choosing the costliest one which may or may not suit your actual requirements.

What are the functions of a range hood?

That’s a good question. A range hood is used not only to remove the heated air including poisonous gases like carbon monoxide coming out from your preparations but also remove the moisture laden air right out of your kitchen. Also with time there is a lot of grease that accumulates on the filter. So one function that can be looked for is the proper disposal of grease. Keeping this in mind, we should define the features that we should look for in a range hood.
Features of a good stainless steel range hood

This can be discussed under following heads:

The right Size

The first and the foremost thing that should be kept in mind is the size of the hood that you are purchasing. Hoods come in typical size in range 30, 36 and 42 inches in width with 12-inch depth which is designed to fit in with typical upper cabinets. However, you need to make sure that in case you have cabinets right over your cook tops then it has sufficient room for the range hood you are looking to buy.

The type of range hood

Based on functioning, range hoods can be divided into two types, one that ventilates air out and the other that recirculates the air through filter. A range hood that ventilates the air out is recommended. The recirculation type range hoods may be a cheap buy but it does not serve the purpose of removing moisture. So it should be avoided.

Range hood fans

The most important component of a range hood is the fan. The unit of ventilation is CFM which indicates Cubic Feet per minute of air movement. The higher the CFM, better is the ventilation provided. Here once again you need to take in consideration your cooking habit and the size of your kitchen before selecting the power of fan. Coming to the number of fins, a multi fin fan, also known as centrifugal fan is much more effective than the traditional one because it’s proven that a centrifugal fan has higher CFM as opposed to traditional fan at same motor speed. One more thing that needs to be kept in mind is the control knob of fan. One should prefer Range hood with control knobs at the bottom with three control speeds.

The right Filter

Filters are in for removing the poisonous gases. But with time they start collecting lot of grease. If not6 cleaned at right intervals, the grease just starts to drip off from it! Some brands of range hoods come with catchment which is in the shape of bowls to prevent such dripping, but then they definitely attract good cost. While taking filter into account, one thing that should definitely be kept in mind is cleaning of filter. Also, we should insist for carbon filters made up of metal mesh preferably of stainless steel. Also the filters of your stainless steel range hood should be easily replaceable.

“Noiseless” consideration

With heat already getting to your nerves, you may not want the noise created by fan to become yet another irritating factor. Noise is usually measured in sones. You can always ask for the right sones specification for your grill. To give you an estimate, normal talking is 4 sones. For your information, the noise created by the fan is in direct proportion to CFM.

Light up

Stainless steel range hoods with integrated lights are fun to work with. However, the lights should be of optimum intensity. High power lights may just end up hurting your eyes and create unnecessary heat.

Stainless steel quality consideration

Usually 430 series stainless steel is used to construct the body of stainless steel range hood. This is because of the ductility offered by this series. Another feature is the gauge, which indicated the measurement of its thickness. The best one for range hood is 18 gauge (and costliest too). Be careful of those brands that bend the steel to serve the purpose with lower quality steel. The issue with bending is that it allows moisture and grease to infiltrate into the cracks and the body of range hood.

Maintenance

Something that maintains your kitchen well needs to be maintained as well. This is where stainless steel range hoods score. With stainless steel exteriors and filters, the maintenance of exteriors is almost left to your discretion. However, the filter needs to be cleaned in regular interval. If your range hood is ventilating type, you should also make sure that the open end of ducts are not accumulating lot of grease.

Coming to the maintenance of Fans. The blower tends to develop grease deposits on the fins. These should be cleaned regularly. However, the centrifugal fans are nearly immune to such deposits and thus your task is really cut short.

A word of caution here is that before you actually get down to cleaning of your range hood; make sure that the appliance is unplugged. Also do not spray the cleaner in at sensitive parts like sockets, etc.

So currently that was all. I did intentionally drop topics like installation and few more cause I have tried to keep the article as concise as possible and of course free of fluff!!! Do let me know in case you have any suggestions on the article and if my research was helpful to you!