Ten Reasons To Have A Range Hood

A range hood is an appliance that hangs above the stove, and provides additional light when you cook, and a fan so that the steam doesn’t blow into your face. Read on to learn the top ten reasons to get a range hood.

• On top of the safety and health benefits, the comfort and ease in cleaning and cooking, the reduction of grime and smells, range hoods also increase the value of your home. Updated kitchens add close to 80 percent of the expense to the value of a house. The nicer the range hood, the higher the attractiveness of the room, and ultimately, of the house. Additionally, by removing the airborne pollutants, the range hood keeps kitchen cabinets looking new longer, and prevents cooking smells from settling into the soft furnishings around the house, which also contributes to the overall “look and feel” of the house, as well as its attractiveness to potential buyers.
• The range hood is part of your kitchen design. Range hoods come in countless styles and custom designs, making it easy to find one that fits any kitchen. They can be blended into the existing layout of the kitchen, or created to stand out as the central showpiece. Gone are the days when the phrase “range hood” was a large, bulky metal box with a noisy fan. Today’s high-end kitchen hoods provide quiet performance while looking great.
• When cleaning the hard-to-reach areas of the kitchen, behind the stove, or above the cabinets, there is often a sticky film coated with dust. This is caused by the grease and excess moisture in the air from cooking without a range hood. By removing mositure and grease, range hoods cut down the time you spend cleaning. Some models even have timers, providing an additional fifteen minutes of ventilation after cooking to further prevent that greasy residue. As an added benefit, removing the moisture and grease helps to prevent the growth of mold and bacteria.
• The position of an overhead range hood provides the best lighting for cooking and you can choose what fits your needs best. Some high-end designer range hoods offer an array of lighting effects. If you’re looking to really make an impression, high-end range hood manufacturers offer some of the world’s most advanced range hoods that feature creative lighting effects, built-in LCD displays and other display qualities.
• How often do attention-getting recipes quickly become forgotten once it’s realized how messy and foul-smelling the actual cooking process will be? Range hoods give you more freedom to experiment with those restaurant-quality dishes you’ve been dying to try.
• Due to the smells, the stuffiness and steam, cooking can be a less than pleasurable experience. Range hoods significantly reduce those factors, so that cooking doesn’t have to be such an arduous task. Blasts of heat? Gone. Steam clouds? Sucked into the range hood instead of blowing in your face as wel las droplets of grease absorbed by the range hood’s filters.
• By acting as a filter, cleaning hazardous pollutants, range hoods offer protection to everyone in the household. Without a range hood, everyone in the kitchen and surrounding rooms would be subjected to throat, eye and nose irritation and potential CO poisoning. The range hood offers more safety benefits than almost any other appliance.
• There is a reason for the old adage, “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Cooking produces a lot of heat, as well as generating steam and smoke. Range hoods provide relief for the cook and protection to the kitchen by cooling off the area.
• Heating equipment and cooking appliances are the main source of carbon monoxide poisoning.Without proper ventilation, carbon monoxide can cause flu-like symptoms during short-term exposure, and difficulty breathing or even death with long-term exposure. It is required for homes to have carbon monoxide detectors in most states.
• The most important job of the range hood is to filter out and remove hazardous air pollutants that come from cooking. Smoke, grease, and steam caused by cooking remain in the kitchen, coating the walls and being inhaled by the chef.
  The operation of a typical range hood can be simply described in 3 steps:
  1. The blower (“fan” or “motor”) creates suction that draws the polluted air into the range hood.
  2. The metal grease filters (usually mesh cassettes, or “baffle” type filters on some models) capture the airborne grease particles.
  3. If the hood is installed with an outside duct (recommended), the polluted air is carried out of the house; if the hood is installed in “ductless” or “recirculating” mode, an additional charcoal filter absorbs the odors, and then the cleaned air is returned to the kitchen.