A good kitchen chimney is one of the necessities for a modern kitchen. A high-quality kitchen chimney shall properly remove the smoke, odor, heat, and oil particles from the air in your kitchen. This allows you and your guests to breathe easily while you are preparing your favorite dishes.
But with so many options available in the market, selecting the right kitchen chimney can be a daunting task. While you contemplate how to select the chimney for your kitchen, there are several important factors that you should definitely consider.
- What is the size of the kitchen chimney that you need for your kitchen?
- Which type of ventilation do you need for your kitchen?
- What type of grease filter option do you want to select for your kitchen?
- How will you mount your chimney in the kitchen?
- How powerful suction capacity do you need as per your kitchen requirement?
- At what height do you need to mount the chimney in your kitchen?
- How much noise do you expect from your chimney?
The Size of the Kitchen Chimney
The size of the kitchen chimney is of utmost importance because the primary purpose of a range hood is to ventilate your kitchen. Along with ventilation the chimney also removes smoke, steam, odors, and heat; it also absorbs and traps oil and grease so that it doesn’t end up on your walls, cabinets, and appliances.
For chimneys that are mounted against a wall, the size of your chimney should be at least equal to or just larger than your gas stove. If your gas stove is about thirty inches, then you should try to get a 36-inch kitchen chimney to properly manage your kitchen.
If you are planning for an island mounted kitchen chimney, then it needs to be a little bit larger because it will have to cope with the cross breezes in your kitchen. The island kitchen chimney should be sufficient in size to overlap the gas stove on each side.
It is important to have the chimney in overlapping condition because the larger the canopy area of your hood, the better it can trap the unwanted oil particles, grease, heat, smoke, odor, and vent it out of your kitchen.
Ventilation System of the Chimney
The other important thing that you need to know about your kitchen chimney is its ventilation system. It is always best to expel the grease, heat, smoke, and odor out of your kitchen, and having a chimney that vents outside, is considered to be the best option. Such chimneys allow you to have the most options with respect to the type of blower and its suction power.
But in many modern apartments, you may not have the option of putting ductwork through your walls or ceiling. If you live in an apartment that does not have any access to the ceiling directly above your kitchen then in that case you can select a ductless kitchen chimney.
A ductless kitchen chimney pulls the air up into the chimney and then passes it through a filtration system that removes the grease, smoke, and odor and then recirculates the air back into your kitchen.
Mounting of Kitchen Chimney
On the basis of mounting style, there are four basic types of kitchen chimneys.
Under Cabinet Chimney:
An under cabinet kitchen chimney will mount directly under an already existing cabinet above your gas stove. And your ductwork will either go out the back of the hood through the wall or through the top of the chimney further hidden by kitchen cabinets.
Wall Mounted Chimney:
Wall-mounted chimneys are chimneys that are fitted against the wall over the hob. A wall-mounted chimney will mount against the wall above your cooktop and your ductwork will be hidden behind the chimney.
Island Chimney:
These chimneys are suitable for open kitchens with a stove platform in the middle of the kitchen, away from the wall. Island chimneys are hanging chimneys that hang down directly from the ceiling over an island cooktop in your kitchen.
Custom Chimney:
These chimneys are generally integrated inside kitchen cabinets against the wall. Custom chimneys are fitted according to the design of the kitchen so that the extra parts of the chimneys are not visible. These custom hoods are typically made from copper, stone, or wood.
Type of Grease filters For Chimney
There are two basic types of grease filters that are generally used in kitchen chimneys. These are baffle filters and mesh filters. Mesh filters trap the grease in the actual mesh and if they are not cleaned frequently enough, they can restrict the airflow and also produce noise.
Baffle filters catch the grease and then trap it in a removable grease cover tray or in the filter itself. They are dishwasher safe and easy to clean, they are constructed by interlocking baffles through which the grease passes and gets collected in the tray.
Suction Capacity of Chimney
The suction capacity of the chimney is the capacity of the motor to suck oil particles, steam, heat, and odor. It is measured in cubic meters per hour; the power of the kitchen chimney that you require for your kitchen depends mainly on the area of your kitchen and the length of the ducts.
Generally, for a big kitchen, a chimney with higher air suction capacity is considered to be appropriate. For kitchens that are very small in size, a chimney with a suction capacity of 500 m3/hour may be used and for kitchens that are medium to large in size, a kitchen chimney with at least 1000 m3/hour and more should be used. The chimneys with a long hose generally need more suction power.
The Noise from the Chimney
One more important thing that you need to decide is how quiet you want your kitchen chimney to be. The noise level of the kitchen chimney is typically measured in sones. The lower the number of sones, the quieter your kitchen chimney will be.
The majority of the noise from a kitchen chimney is created by the blower inside it, but the noise in your kitchen chimney also gets created by the air moving past the filters.
