Your Allergy And Your Kitchen: Part 3

Ducted hoods
Some cooker (stove) hoods are ducted to the outside, thus ensuring that all combustion by-products and excess condensation are removed from the home. Air is sucked up from above the hob (cooktop) and passed through a grease filter before being expelled to the outside. The filter, which can be made of foam, metal, or special paper, must either be regularly washed or replaced, and the ductwork to the outside should be as short and straight as possible.

It is important to have an opening window or some other source of clean air, such as a window ventilator, to replace the air removed by a ducted hood. If not, the hood will suck air from the rest of the house along the path of least resistance. This may be down the open flue of a boiler or water heater in or near the kitchen, and the resulting replacement air would then be many times more polluted than that being exhausted.

Unlike balanced-flue appliances, an open flue uses air from the room for combustion, and then expels combustion by-products up a chimney or flue. Whenever an open-flued appliance is installed in a house with an extractor (exhaust) such as a hood, a test should be carried out to ensure that combustion by-products cannot be sucked back in. If you install a hood after gas appliances have been fitted, make sure this test is performed.

Recirculating hoods
There is no danger of air being sucked down an open flue by extractor (exhaust) hoods that recirulate air back into the kitchen via a filter. However, although these models do remove grease and odours, they do not remove excess moisture and thus do not reduce humidity. If you cannot replace the hood with a ducted type, make sure that there is good ventilation during cooking by opening a window or outside door; but keep the door to the rest of the home shut to prevent moisture escaping into other rooms. If you choose a new cooker (stove) or range hood, take the following into consideration:

• Noise level when switched on
• Variability of speed control
• Ease of cleaning/replacing filters and cleaning the hood itself
• Ducted models are preferable to recirculating types
  

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