While being an integral part of your kitchen, which makes it important for it to look good and match the rest of your kitchen, your hood also has to fit your kitchens shape and be practical. After all, a cast stone range hood is responsible for getting rid of all the unwanted substances and smells- the by-products of your every-day kitchen activity. With that being said, I’m sure all of you already imagine how important it is to choose one that’s going to fulfill its role optimally. If it’s a wrong design, mismatched or just too small, suddenly your kitchen won’t be a very comfortable place to be at – especially if you cook a lot. On the other hand, apart from the technological and practical side of it, it still has to look good and match the design. Things to consider To spare you a headache, and make it easier for you to pick just the correct one, let’s see what should we keep in mind when we want to get us a new cast stone range hood.
Types We’ve already said that you have to pick a range hood that matches the space available to you – so what types are there to choose from?
Filters When you buy your range hood, there are two types when it comes to filtering and getting rid of substance – ducted and non-ducted.
Power The power with which a hood sucks the air inside of them is measured in CFM, which stands for cubic feet per minute. When you buy your range hood, that’s what you will see on the box – question is, how many CFMs do you need? To decide how powerful your range hood has to be, there are three things to take into account – the size of your cooking surface, the volume of your kitchen and the amount of heat produced by your cooking surface. Now, you might not be familiar with it, but there are things called BTU – which is an acronym for British thermal units. The BTU number of your oven or a cook top, or anything else you cook your meals at, is crucial for picking a range hood of correct size and power. Basically, we take the BTU number and divide it by 100 – and the result is how many CFMs should our range hood have, to be efficient enough to ventilate our interior. Still, that’s not enough. Another thing to consider is the volume of our kitchen – if it’s well above your average, mid-sized kitchen, our previous calculations might prove to be useless. What to do then? The formula is ft³/4 – let’s say you have a 15ft x 15ft x 8ft kitchen, which gives us 1800ft³ to be divided by 4, which is 450. And that’s the number of CFM we need. Okay, but both results are different, so which number of CFM is correct in the end? It’s simple – pick the higher number of these two, and that’s the lowest possible power of a range hood you should get, to efficiently ventilate your kitchen. Our advice to you is to pick something a bit stronger than that, and you should be golden. If you still happen to have troubles pinpointing the exact power of the range hood, needed for your kitchen, by all means give your local hood seller a call and ask him for a professional advice. Proper kitchen ventilation is no laughing matter, so better safe than sorry. We weren’t all born mathematicians, no shame in that. In case you do not know the CFM or BTU, you can count them in one of two ways. The first way to determine these numbers, is looking for their formulas online, but we prefer to use the second way – call the shop you got them from. No mistakes, easier, safer. Noise Another very important thing, when choosing your range hood, is to remember these things actually make sounds when they work. How loud does a range hood work is measured in sones? One sone is, more or less, the sound of a working refrigerator. Four ones are considered to be as loud, as a normal conversation. This should give you a rough idea of what we are dealing with here. Remember, that the higher your CFMs, the more sones your range hood is going to emit. On the other hand, a range hood with fewer CFMs that has to work on higher settings will also be way louder because working at full power usually makes appliances go extra loud. Our advice – pick a fan that has enough CFMs to efficiently ventilate your kitchen at normal settings. The rest is up to the price and quality – pick the one that you can afford, while trying to find one which generates as little sones as possible. Additional features As always, if you pay a bit more, you can get a range hood equipped with extra features, such as:
Design Finally, a few words about the looks of your range hood. As it is with appliances, practical aspect should come first – after all, if your kitchen is full of smoke after cooking, nobody can notice its design anyway. However, that does not mean you can’t make them efficient and gorgeous at the same time – these days, range hood producers do what they can to satisfy your aesthetic tastes. The bottom line is after you decide the power and type of your range hood, don’t just pick the first one that meets these parameters – there are plenty of hoods to pick from, and we’re sure you can find something cohesive with the rest of your kitchen. Price Obviously, the bigger and more efficient the range hood, the higher the price. The price range of range hoods is a very broad subject, because of all the different types and sizes of them. One advice we can give you, in this specific situation, is to not pay that much attention to it. Trust us – without a proper range hood, your kitchen life will soon turn to be a real nightmare, so it’s better to save money on something else than the range hood. It is really crucial to pick one that can efficiently get rid of all the smoke and odor, or else not only the kitchen is going to be full of them, but the entire house as well. It’s just not worth it to be stingy when it comes to your range hood. Final note That’s it – now you should have all the knowledge needed to pick the correct range hood to clear your kitchen air efficiently and with style. Our final advice to you is – if you still have any trouble at all, to pick the hood that can do its job well, get a professional to help you. Proper ventilation of not only your kitchen, but also your house, is what makes or breaks your everyday life, so take it all seriously, and spare yourself the shame of activating your fire alarm when cooking dinner.
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September 2017
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