Kitchen exhaust fan

[ameriken]

When it comes to this kind of stuff I'm about as useful as a hammer in a glass factory. We're finally looking into a exhaust hood/fan that we intend to vent to the outside. This is something we should have done a while ago as I've noticed a buildup of oil on top of the cabinets.

 

I've been doing a bit of research which seems to raise more questions than answers and I hope some of you more intelligent folks can help me out. Any suggestions for what CFM is sufficient for removing that oil vapor out of the house? Jie seems to think 900-1200 is a necessity.

 

I've also seen that there are some machines with a 600 CFM machine with an optional 1200 CFM exterior blower. Are the exterior blowers necessary or can one simply buy a model with a 1200 CFM machine?

 

We intend to mount it under the cabinet, and vent it through the cabinet through the exterior wall.

 

 

[Feathers268]

When we had our house in Sactown, I put in a 550 cfm hood that seemed to do fine. Unless your going to run the exhaust a few hundred feet outside, 900 or above might be overkill. I don't remember the name, but it was ordered through Best Buy. Home Depot and Lowes are also good places to order it from. Also, keep an eye on the exhaust duct size. Higher CFM might mean a larger duct.

Now for the impossible thought, with the right cookware, she can reduce the heat to the pan and thus reduce oil splater but if she is like Jen, that might be a hard sell.

[ameriken]

Now for the impossible thought, with the right cookware, she can reduce the heat to the pan and thus reduce oil splater but if she is like Jen, that might be a hard sell.

 

Thanks, maybe I can get her comfort level down to around 800. As for the cookware and reduced heat, yes...that is both an impossible thought and a hard sell.

[amberjack1234]

Contact Andrew on this one he is an expert on exhaust fans and he installed his own in his last home.

 

Larry

[ama537621]

LOL, The first thing my wife said when she turned on the stove was. Not enough flame is it broken?

 

Second thing was fan to slow house smells long time after I cook.

 

When we get back from out stay in China I am going to have to buy a bigger exhaust fan.

[Dennis143]

PACAIR (Taiwan made) also know in Chinese as Mama Le (mother is happy) is the exhaust fan of choice of most Asians. We bought and installed one in our kitchen. There are American brands that have high exhaust that can be bought too. My only caveat is that many kitchens have the microwave with a built in exhaust fan located above the stove which brings the fan much lower to the stove than by just installing a PACAIR or other flush mount brands. If I do it again, I will purchase a range hood that places the fan closer to the cooking surface.

[credzba]

I also suggest Pacair.

If you search the forums for pacair you will find a few older threads where vents and chinese cooking are discussed.

 

The amount of cfm exhaust you need is proportional to the amount of btu flame you have.

If you have a typical american stove top, your wife wont be happy ANYWAY, you just cannot get the pans hot enough to cook food like they expect.

If you get a stove top that puts out enough heat to make her feel like she has a Chinese stove, then you NEED 1000 cfm exhaust.

 

At our house, our cooking system is marginal, I'd say.

I bought a induction cooking burner that puts out 1250 watts of induction heat.

It is not as good as that blow torch my wife called a stove in China, but it put out more heat than our gas stove.

I drilled one of the orfices out on the gas stove so it puts out a little more heat.

 

I put in a pacair vent, and it draws about 750 cfm of air.

 

All together, the vent is about what is needed for the amount of heat we have, but it still is not really a good Chinese kitchen.

 

In short, your wife is probably right about the cfm, IF you have a Chinese blowtorch stove top.

If you have an american stovetop, the pacair with 750cfm is probably enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tonado]

We have a Pacair. It work very well.

[tsap seui]

There was a few large threads about this a few years ago., Ken. Pacair was the choice of the pros. I can't remember the prices but think it was over $1,500.

 

You can google Lowes or Home Depot for other options but until you get up into the $1,400 or $1.500 range you aren't going to find anything that pulls 600cfm. Even then many of the higher priced ones only pull 400cfm.

 

Doing home repairs and building I have put in many range hoods starting from scratch, literally. Dennis brought up a good point about getting the hood fan closer ot the cooking surface. Most hood fans are 30" wide as that is what the typical stove's width is. Kitchen wall cabinets come in 30X12", 30X15" and 30X18" heights....for the ones that would be used over a tyoical refrigerator or a typical stove (they do come in 36" wide also). If you need to get closer to the cooking surface,and if you can find a cabinet that looks like your current cabinets you could buy a taller cabinet to lower the hood. As well, an under the cabinet microwave can get you closer too. You have many options with this, like a tall hoodfan that looks like a restaurant would have.

 

In our current home I bought Wenyan a regular glasstop stove, we had a 12" tall wall cabinet so I bought a 15" high cabinet, and I ran the electric to put in a microwave unit that pulls 400cfm. I fabricated and ran the ductwork for it with the thought of the shortest run and largest size that would fit. I think we gave $300 or $350 for the microwave...on sale at Home Depot. They had much more expensive under the cabinet microwaves but they didn't pull the 400cfm of the one we bought.

Our microwave is closer to the cooktop yet far enough away for safety sake.

 

In CHina when we bought our home I gave Wenyan free rein to do as she wanted in her kitchen. Even told her ot buy the best stove she could.

 

Nope, my wife, I suspect, is not really Chinese. She didn't even buy a stove....she bought a nice one burner electric hot plate. I was amazed at this as I had read on Candle about how a Chinese woman had to have tremendous heat and 1,000 cfm to cook...I mean it had been drilled into my head, your Chinese wife must have 200,000btu's and 1,000cfms. LOL

 

In China I have eaten some really great meals off that electric hot plate. I am convinced my wife is untruthful about being Chinese. She could have bought anything she wanted to....which apparantley she did. We have a nice tall hood fan but I'll bet the fan only pulls 350cfm. It is a direct run to the outside of maybe 2 feet and we never had any problems. I asked her about "heat" and she said the hot plate was hot enough. Shrug...go figure.

 

So, our electric stove is more than hot enough for her in America, and the measly 400cfm microwave pulls out all the smells and oils. It is 16.5" from the stove top to the bottom of the wall hung microwave and then it is a 3" run out the back of the microwave to the outside vent.

 

I would have been happy to spend large gobs of money for a hoodfan and would have been happy to install a propane tank to run a gas stove...but but....we eat great, and didn't need to. I have no clue how she does it. We took the kitchen savings and put the money down on 3 houses with 6 apartments....lol

 

Pacair's are highly rated and will suck the chrome off a bumper hitch. Check them out. Look at your wall cabinet over the stove and see if it is at least 15" inches tall. If not you can get a taller wall cabinet, and/or put in a microwave unit, or put in one of those tall fan hoods that look so good and pull 1,000 cfm. I'd say the Pacair would be your best bet.

 

Options, in a home there are so many options. Good luck.

 

tsap seui

[Fu Lai]

Note: Normal woks must be able to get RED HOT if they are to be used correctly, typically about twice the flame of American stove models I owned (of course many make do with what they have). Hence the need for high flame and good ventilation for the smoke/steam. My girl's wok emits enough smoke and steam to be an environmental hazard matching any factory smokestack.

[credzba]

Tsap .. the Pacair is only $575, and they are claiming 960cfm.

Our local chinese market sells them (or used to) but you can also buy them direct.

http://www.pacairusa.com/mainThisRHProduct.php?ProductID=RL-30S&Category=RH

 

For the price, its a pretty good deal.

 

As for food, who care how its cooked, so long as the people eating it like it.

 

 

 

 

[Dennis143]

Tsap .. the Pacair is only $575, and they are claiming 960cfm.

Our local chinese market sells them (or used to) but you can also buy them direct.

http://www.pacairusa.com/mainThisRHProduct.php?ProductID=RL-30S&Category=RH

 

For the price, its a pretty good deal.

 

As for food, who care how its cooked, so long as the people eating it like it.

That link is where we bought ours and it's right in our hood... 8609 Valley Blvd., Rosemead, CA 91770, U.S.A.

 

As for food, Chinese typically cook over a high flame propane burner, wok style that takes a high heat searing method. Our stoves don't match that intense heat. Leiqin and I bought an electric stove that generates a quicker, higher heat than our typical gas burners do. Leiqin's learned to scale back on her Chinese searing cooking method... thankfully. I have been in Chinese homes here in the US where every kitchen cabinet is covered in tin foil.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Dennis143 (see edit history)

[tsap seui]

Tsap .. the Pacair is only $575, and they are claiming 960cfm.

Our local chinese market sells them (or used to) but you can also buy them direct.

http://www.pacairusa.com/mainThisRHProduct.php?ProductID=RL-30S&Category=RH

 

For the price, its a pretty good deal.

 

As for food, who care how its cooked, so long as the people eating it like it.

That's a great price for the cfms.

 

tsap seui

[Fu Lai]

I have no idea what our fan's cfm is but it clears our kitchen fine (no small task). It is a Cando (guangdong canbo electrical co., ltd. in shunde city) "Luxuriance" and even has an oil runoff bin.

[tsap seui]

Tsap .. the Pacair is only $575, and they are claiming 960cfm.

Our local chinese market sells them (or used to) but you can also buy them direct.

http://www.pacairusa.com/mainThisRHProduct.php?ProductID=RL-30S&Category=RH

 

For the price, its a pretty good deal.

 

As for food, who care how its cooked, so long as the people eating it like it.

Credz, I went to the link you posted. Man, I love the video of the test for how high the Pacair can blow a pie plate. The music and the guy in the video talking out of sinc wiht the english speaking announcer was priceless. It was like I was watching the original Godzilla, again. And it gave me an idea on how I could make my own cheapo sci-fi movie with Martian's invading from out of space....in pie plates.

 

Dennis, you cracked me up with that story of kitchen wrapped in tin-foil. I'm liable to have to slip out of bed tonight and wrap our cabinets in tin foil....wrap myself too, and wait for Wenyan to wake up.

 

Seriously, I looked through the Lowes website last night to see what they have....you literally had to pay something in the $1,300 to $1,400 range to get a hood with a fan that pushed 600cfm. The Pacair looks like a great deal for it's price...I honestly thought those guys who recommended the Pacair on Candle years ago had to pay a lot more.

 

Ken, you may well wanna get yourself one of those Pacairs. The stuff you will find generically is based more on fancy looks than airflow. Dennis was right on about the unit being too far from the cooktop of the stove. When I looked at our setup that was my first thought when I got out my tape measure and put on my tinfoil thinkin' cap. The guy we bought the house from had used hickory wall and base cabinets and I could easily go buy a taller wall cabinet that matched ours. Like I said, the bottom of the microwave is 16.5" from the cooktop surface. It works well with Wenyan's height and isn't too close in case of a fire. I started to buy an 18" cabinet instead of the 15" one but thought it would be too close in case Wenyan and I got to smootchin' n' stuff while she had a pig head cookin' and it caught on fire. A burnin' pig's head is good cause for coitus interruptus, and it doesn't do much good for the bottom of a wallhung microwave either, I tells ya.

 

tsap seui

 

Tell ya what Ken, I'll come out and install the thing for ya....for....a bowl of cathead soup and half a box of Ritz crackers. This offer is stand alone and good until March 31st 2013. No use of other coupons or specials is allowed.