hood in the ceiling

10 years ago

Our kitchen designer has said that many are going to the hood in the ceiling for cooktops on an island so that you don't have it hanging in the middle of an open space. We rarely fry, mainly need it for steam for boiling. I even have friends who are forgoing the hood altogether. Thoughts? Does anyone have there hood inserted in the ceiling so that it is flat with the ceiling?

Featured Answer

kaseki

10 years ago

If you never cook you don't need a hood. If you only boil water you don't need a hood so long as you never burn anything and the amount of water put into the house atmosphere is not excessive. Otherwise, a means of capturing and containing the cooking plume effluent is needed.

A flush to the ceiling, or modest protrusion hood can work under these conditions:

The hood extends sufficiently beyond the cooking zone that effluent spreading from any pan base at a ten degree half angle is captured by the aperture.
There are minimal cross drafts
The air flow rate at the aperture is roughly 90 CFM/square foot of aperture. (Lower may work if the ceiling is high and the aperture is very large; data for rising effluent velocity at such heights is not available to me.) However, while a lower specific air flow rate may be sufficient for containment, the ability of baffles to extract grease may be impaired if the centrifugal rotation rate is too low. A different type of commercial filter may be needed, such as the "ball bearing" type.
The total flow rate needed for such a large area will require a commensurate make-up air flow rate.
Commercial "porous ceiling" systems exist and could be used effectively, but the entire system will have to meet its requirements of flow and make-up air.

kas

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Comments (7)

Sheila F
Original Author
10 years ago
It would be recessed into the ceiling and not hang down at all
practigal
10 years ago
To me a pop up hood would be better than no hood at all and better than the bathroom fan in the kitchen ceiling scenario.
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weedmeister
10 years ago
Similar to what cooking shows use. It is a strong blower and has panels around it that help to contain the effluent. They would be about a foot tall, can be decorated to match cabinetry or whatever.
plllog
10 years ago
Check out the Gaggenau one. That's made for residential use and probably works.

Any kitchen designer who recommends against a proper functional hood, however, doesn't deserve the designation. This is physics we're talking about. The more you try to mess with it, the more the laws of nature are going to bite back. Much better to get a real hood with real function and dress it up in the most beauteous feature housing you like.

If you smoke in the house, however, you may not notice the lack of a good hood, and you'll have plenty of other stuff in the air and clinging to the textiles and surfaces.
Sheila F
Original Author
10 years ago
Do the vents that come up from behind the cooktop work. We do vedry little frying. Our biggest issue is steam from boiling water.
kaseki
10 years ago
Steam from boiling water might be expected to have a lower rising velocity than grease from a considerably hotter-than-boiling pan surface, depending somewhat on whether gas combustion effluent is entrained in it or it is generated by an induction cooktop. This lower velocity would make it easier to deflect the steam toward a pop-up side-draft collection aperture. A pop-up side-draft vent of reasonable height should be effective against steam from the rear burners.

In general, however, away from the filter screen the velocity of air entering the side-draft is too low to deflect hot rising effluent, which can have an upward velocity of a meter per second. Hoods work not by sucking up cooking plumes from the cooking surfaces, but by capturing and containing the effluent that rises up to them. Making the rising effluent bend toward the side vent without a very high air flow is difficult.

As always, users will differ in their requirements for effectiveness, as well as aesthetics and affordability, and in particular, how much weight should be allocated to each. My preference is performance effectiveness, and consequently have a large hood over my cooking peninsula. For commercial establishments, adequate performance is mandatory.

kas