Do you cook? IF the kitchen is for show, then of course, you don't need a hood. YOu'll never have to do anything other than have the maid wipe the accumulated dust off of everything.

I like the smell of cooking too! But not the next day. And the next day. And the day after. And the smell of garlic or fish or the yucky smell that a house gets after frying stuff a couple of days later. THe grease goes rancid---and it's in your couch and drapes. Even boiling foods releases essential oils to travel the air currents and end up in your soft furnishings. Better to get rid of all of that!

And I don't like to clean! Sure, I'll clean, but I like to maximize the effort. That means not adding to the load. Those oil particals that even boiling releases will travel to the hard surfaces in your kitchen and oil attracts and holds on to dirt. It creates crud that is difficult to remove. Much like living in a smoker's home that has been there 20 years, you really don't notice the accumulated yuck until you are trying to prepare the home for resale and you go to wash the walls and the "white" walls were really yellow with nicotine. An unvented home of a cook will have crud everywhere in the kitchen. Mine did, and it was even "vented"---obviously poorly.

Choosing your cooking appliance and vent goes hand in glove together. You can't have a properly functioning kitchen if one is absent or mismatched with the other. How many BTUs your range has will determine how many CFUs you will need for proper ventilation, but a great deal of choosing your vent has to do with your personal style. You need to educate yourself on the technical aspects of the issue while at the same time exploring your own personal design aesthetic.

your not really smelling the cooking that lingers, it's the grease.
Just a little FYI. Some cabinet manufacturer's void the warranty on the cabinets if they are damaged by moisture. You won't see an issue right away but 3-4 years later, when doors, shelves, at other things start to warp, that is cuased by not having ventilation for cooking

Thank you LWO for your comprehensive response -- just what I needed. I actually haven't done much cooking in the past bc I've never had enough time, and bc I had a crummy kitchen and appliances, so my starting to cook more and my new kitchen are a new chapter.

I installed appropriate kitchen ventilation (didn't have any in the old kitchen), and I haven't set off my smoke detector in over a year and a half!

I desparately wanted a hood so I wouldn't have the heat, grease, etc but was scared to death that all that money would be wasted on just 'another pretty face'. It has proven to be one of the hardest working appliances in the kitchen - & worth every cent! If you've never had one, you may not know what you're missing, but once it's installed, you'll never go back to being ventless.

I waited 12 years to be able to afford a top performing vent hood (and the installation costs). I'll echoe antiquesilver by saying that it is was worth every penny. Make sure you get one that has the power and capture area to do the job of quickly removing the smoke and grease. With a hood with good lighting you'll see all the smoke and grease being sucked up from your stove top as you cook and you'll appreciate its function.

the Q has been asked before, here. In previous threads some people said they were happy without a hood. They don't cook smelly things, or fry anything.

It's always a good idea to have an antisplatter screen over your frypan even WITH a powerful hood operating on high. Microscopic grease particles remain suspended in air forever, or for as long as that air is in your house.

20 years ago I can remember me and my wife standing in the front yard choking and coughing to death. My poor wife had been unsuspectingly sitting in the living room when this even occurred she ran first I tried to get them out of the oil then I abandoned ship. I had just heated a wok (very hot) added the oil and thrown in about 6 dried chilies they turned into smoke the type used in chemical warfare ( I had about 280 CFM exhaust hood running). I couldnÂt remember if I cut the wok off and I did the belly crawl back in to check the burner and open the back door. It took about 10 minutes for the air to clear so we could go back in the house. Exhaust hoods are worth the money. I have an 800CFM one now with a bluestar range. I like thick rare steaks I cook them full blast on the burner and use a blowtorch on the sides to cook the fat I really need a little bit larger hood than the 800CFM. I have a kitchen window for makeup air.

davidro1:

You indirectly raise an interesting question: What is the effect on the effluent stream when an anti-splatter screen is used over a fry pan, particularly when used over induction where there is no gas flame generating its own upwelling effluent bounding the pan effluent?

All the technical studies I've found, including those using Schlieren photography to show the air flow, have been for open pans and fry surfaces, not screened ones. I wonder whether the grease particles are merely reduced with the remainder rising as usual, or the remainder spread out more due to a lower velocity of the effluent leaving the screen.

kas

our house was built in the 50's and we have the original cabinets and "hood" which is not really a hood but something that supposedly sucks the smoke up. Well, it doesn't work so we don't technically have a hood and I can't wait to get one. Anything we cook permeates the house. We can't even cook fish. Also, we have cabinets above the stove and when I boil water, water beads on the cabinets and drips into the food if I'm not there ot wipe it. I know it sounds gross --we do keep our cabinets clean but who knows what's in the paint that was used on the cabinets.

Great anecdotes.

Kas, an anti-splatter screen has to be (partially) removed several times during cooking.
There may be no point in studying the effluent stream when an anti-splatter screen is used over a fry pan.
The useful effects get annulled every time you open up to move the food.

Far far in the future there may be frying pans with levers incorporated into the sides at several places around the radius.
So you can bat the food around while seeing through somehow, perhaps from the side.
Like pinball, and more useful too.
Q : Is there some mechanical way that is guaranteed to remove grease particles while they are close to the pan?
Like, getting them to merge into bigger ones & let gravity overcome them.
Grease follows the law of gravity once it's in big enough droplets.
Perhaps a cone-shaped or parabola-shaped antisplatter screen would let steamed grease rise, air suspended, and then coalesce.
As larger drops of fluid, its mass would succumb to the law.
Kas, let me know how that works. Please!

But...the antispatter screen is supposed to protect your lily white hands, not the cabinets, right?

davidro1:

(Apologies to the OP, some of us can get carried away on the topic of ventilation)

The problem with capture and containment is that it is very difficult to do at the pan and still observe the food. A stack of different sized particle collectors, starting with baffles, then packed ball bearings, then screens, all canted above 45-degrees to the horizontal to drain the grease, would collect a lot of grease down to quite small particle sizes. This could be topped by an activated charcoal filter to capture most of the remaining odor causing chemicals.

Or, intense UV would break up everything into simple gases, but one would have to cook in a space suit. I fear we will be waiting a long time before the millenia-old concept of venting the effluent is overcome by something completely different.

kas

Well, my hood works a lot better at removing it all than the opening in the middle of the tepee.

We have an induction cooktop in our island and 9' ceilings and no vent hood. Before induction, we had a gas cooktop with a downdraft vent hood.

Our smoke detector went off a lot more with the gas cooktop and downdraft vent than with induction. In fact, I think our smoke detector has gone off only twice in 3 years.

If the cooktop was in the perimeter, under wall cabinets, definitely I would get a vent hood.

We are planning to install a 36" induction cooktop. Cooktop will be along a wall (not island) but plan to have 42" opening over the cooktop and then cabinets on either side of that. If we plan to have no cabinets over the cooktop, do we still need a hood. For example, is the hood not just to protect the cabinets but also for air quality, etc?

Yes, the hood is for removing smoke, heat, steam, grease and odors from the air.

So it seems, based on the consensus here, that the answer to the OP's question is yes. You do need a hood.

I know people provide formulas for how many CFMs you should have based on your BTUs. What is required/ suggested for induction cooktops? Same CFMs, less CFMs? What is the minimum filter depth (actually, what distance from wall out to front of cooktop) you would entertain for proper ventilation?

We have a Wolf range in a small kitchen with no hood in a small old house with lots of windows. Would I like to have a hood? Yeah! Can I cook all sorts of stuff without one? Yup.

OP never specified whether (s)he has a gas or electric cooktop.

That would be a huge factor in my book.

The difference, effluent wise, between cooking with gas and cooking with induction is that with induction one doesn't have to vent the gas combustion products. Effluent up velocity and volume will be a bit less, but the greasy part from the pan will be about the same. For numerical values, search the web for:

Thermal plumes of kitchen appliances: part 2 cooking mode, Kosonen Risto, Koskela Hannu, Saarinen Pekka

kas

My second home did not have a hood. The old lady just opened the window. Well, that lasted one meal and I installed the hood, and exhaust through the roof. It's not so expensive get it done.

I happen to love mine and use it almost every time I cook (I have a 36" Zephyr hood over an induction range).

Now, I will tell you the norm where I live is most definitely OTR microwaves. Everyone in my extended family has one and they all have gas ranges except one.

Also, we had a gas cooktop when I was growing up with a vent hood -- never used the thing because it was too noisy.

So, if you won't turn it on it is of no use.

I will also add that no apartment or condo that I've seen has outside venting available and the people there still manage to cook just fine.

So, only get one if you are sure you will use it.

IMO, it doesn't matter if you have electric or gas--you need a good hood. I have a smoothtop randiant cooktop (standard 30") with a dinky GE hood (no idea of CFMs but it's not much--just standard builders grade in average home). Although I do use this hood to try to keep the gunk out of the air, the tops of my cupboards are coated with grease if I don't SCRUB them a couple of times/year (should probably do them more). BTW, I cook pretty much every day, but I seldom fry. When I redo my kitchen, I won't be getting a hood with less than 600 cfm whether I get a 30 or 36" gas or induction cooktop because I don't want this gunk in the air or on my walls and cupboards!