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The Joy of Kitchen Ventilation
By Kevin Wilson
Since I bought this house in 2005, there has never been a range hood - until now. When I moved, in there was an old range from the 1970's: with an eye level oven, white latex paint over harvest gold original color, and all the parts for its rotisserie accessory, it was a mixed blessing. I swapped it out for a much newer range with a convection oven and coil top (hate those smooth cooktops!). I planned to add a range hood, but the electrical hookup for it, while it had been there at one time, had been removed. Fast forward to the winter of 2010. We've been doing a lot of caulking, weatherstripping and sealing, and the old 1930's house is much tighter than it used to be. Combine that with a pretty low thermostat setting of 60F during the day, my daughter and her fish tanks living in the basement suite, a new metal roof, and only one ancient and balky bathroom fan in the whole house, and the result was major condensation not just on windows, but on walls as well where pictures or other stuff on the wall trapped air against a cold surface. Mold growing behind your artwork is not a good thing. A cheapo humidity meter from Radio Shack showed a relative humidity of 65 - 78%. Yikes! So I replaced the existing bathroom fan with a new, bigger and better one, removed hanging items from the coldest wall, and (considering the number of half-finished DIY house projects I already have going) got a local contractor to come in and install the range hood I had already bought. Man, is it ever nice! Even though this is your basic bottom of the line white hood with a fan and a light (no super-string stainless steel chimney-type kitchen bling, sorry!) it makes a huge difference, sucks up the steam like gangbusters, and we are now down to 50-55% RH. Still higher than I want, but a big improvement. We run the fan while washing dishes too, as it's only a few feet away. If you think you don't need a range hood, please think again: steam and grease can affect your family's health and your house structure without you ever realizing. It's a very worthwhile project, even if (as we did) you have to wrestle with getting power to the location and reposition structures outside to make a place for the vent to exit. |
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Thank you for sharing this information, Kevin. Your details really explain the need for a range hood and proper bathroom ventilation. Once mold gets into a home, the troubles will far exceed the cost of ventilation.
Keep up the good work.
Best wishes.
Frederick
The copyright for this content entitled "The Joy of Kitchen Ventilation" has been specified by the contributor as:
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If you use this content according to the license specified, you must link to the following URL:
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