Range Hood Station

A kitchen exhaust system — the exhaust hoods above the stove line and everything behind them — is more than the hood that is visible. An exhaust hood captures the plume, an extractor fan moves it, ducting carries it out, and replacement air comes back in to make up what left. A system that fails usually fails on one of the parts nobody looked at rather than on the hood itself.

Extraction rate is set by what is cooked on the stoves beneath the hood and by the capture area, not by the size of the kitchen. Underspecified extraction leaves heat and vapour in the room; overspecified extraction pulls conditioned air out of the building faster than it can be replaced, which shows up as doors that are hard to open and burners that behave oddly.

Make-up air is the part most often missing. Every cubic metre extracted has to come back into the kitchen somewhere, and if that is not planned it arrives through gaps, corridors and dining rooms, dragging noise and smells with it.

Ducting route and length affect performance as much as fan selection. Long runs and multiple bends cost pressure, so the fan and the route need to be considered together rather than in sequence.