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I will be doing some kitchen remodeling soon including installing a new range hood to vent outside.
I’ve found that I should have about 400cfm+ for my gas stove. I’m sure that what I have now is much less than that (just a little fan on the wall that vents outside).
At any rate, it seems to me that a better venting system would draw air in from outside into the stove area, which would then exhaust with the heat, grease, and steam from the stove-top and oven. Without such, at a rate of 400+cfm I’m either causing a vacuum in my house (reducing the venting efficiency), or am otherwise exhausting my air conditioned household air (increasing my energy consumption to heat or cool the house).
I found some information about this for a furnace, but not yet about a kitchen stove.
Anyone know anything about doing this? Where would I look to get more information?
Thanks
Ray
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Location: Ra-cha-cha, NY
What Terre said, but I would add that I have a 4-speed hood with a very powerful fan and large duct. I run it on low speed, which you can barely hear, when boiling water or cooking things that mostly just give off heat and vapor (plus it's a NG cook top) when the A/C is on. I leave it off in the winter, as the heat and vapor are welcome. But for smokey, smelly, and/or greasy, it can pull a lot of air (nothing gets around it on high, even from the front burners), so having some flow rate choices is a good thing. And yes, we crack the kitchen door when a lot of air is needed, as it's best (IMO) to bring in the makeup air where it's needed rather than pulling air in through the windows and cracks and crevices all over the house.
Tom
“This place smells like that odd combination of flop sweat, hopelessness, aaaand feet"
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Yes, the extra heat is welcome in the winter, but the extra other stuff we can do without regardless of season. Plus we've had to clean enough grease off the walls and ceiling in our kitchen that I don't want to do that again. We used to have a ceiling fan in the kitchen and that thing would get heavily caked and require cleaning at least a couple times a year.
A few times a month my wife will get into doing some heavy cooking. A few times a year she makes huge batches of lasagna (no, I'm not giving any away here
, but if I could spare some for the great advice I get here, I would
).
When these things occur the heat gets to be a lot and opening the back door next to the stove is still not adequate given the weak exhaust we currently have and if it's during the heat of summer it doesn't help with the heat in the house. We do a lot of outdoor grilling all year, but still need adequate exhaust for the stove when it's needed. Being that I'm about to do some kitchen remodel, it's the best time to take care of this.
I know I would not actually generate a "vacuum", but it would still fight to pull air through the house from wherever and I'd rather not do that and lose the energy even if it's being pulled through with ease.
I guess I'll just look into options to install some sort of an air inlet that can be actuated along with the exhaust fan, or on a separate switch.
If anyone has any specific ideas on that I'd appreciate it.
Thanks
Ray
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Okay - what's up with boiling ribs?
Why the hell would anyone boil ribs?
What is this referring to?
Ray