Another issue that has been taking a lot of time is the range hood. Ok, how hard can it be to pick out a hood for the stove? Really hard!
The stoves and now vent/hoods are becoming enormous. Professional style and almost restaurant grade stoves for homes are quite the rage. I have a “professional” range, but I love to cook. We have food allergies and so we rarely eat out. So my stove gets a workout. OK, OK, I am justifying it. Now for the hood, I have to find one that operates at or under 100cfm. What does that mean? The fan is pulling 100 cubic feet of air per minute. The hoods are now so large and pulling so much air that the few 100cfm hoods that I found look apartment size. It would be lost on the wall.
I could go with a vent-less hood that has charcoal filters that pulls the air through the filters and then the “cleaned air” is re-circulated into the house. I have a hard time figuring that cooking fish and other strong smelling dishes that I fix wouldn’t linger and infiltrate our house and furniture. So the vent-less hood is not an option for us.
So what to do about the hood? The big problem is that our house will be so well sealed that it could lead to depressurization with a large hood with a big cfm. What is depressurization? It is when the air pressure is less than the air pressure outside the house.
What happens in a regular house when there is a hood with a large cfm (lets say 400cfm or more) is that the great quantity of air being pulled out it needs to be replaced because of depressurization. So if your windows are closed and you are running the big hood over your stove, a lot of air, be it heated or air-conditioned, is being sucked out of your house. To make the pressure even, air will have to come into the house from somewhere else. Where? From your fireplace, ceilings, walls, even the ground. This can increase problems in your home. If it is damp outside, moisture will be brought through the walls and ceiling along with the air and cause mold. From the ground gases could be drawn in, such as radon gas. The furnace may have to have another vent from the outside put on to control the airflow so it doesn't destabilize the heating system. Here are a couple of links to sites about hoods and air pressure. Check out the cfms on the stove hoods. Bigger isn’t better.
We finally found a hood but we have to find out the lowest cfm it will pull. The highest is 400cfm so we are hoping that that the low will be around 100cfm. I could always run the hood on the slowest speed with the window slightly open or have someone replace the motor with a smaller one. So there are options out there.
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