Flavors in the kitchen are always present when cooking. Moreover, the steam that comes from pans and pots, scattering drops of fat, carbon monoxide released by a gas stove, and smells spread throughout the apartment or house, which brings some discomfort to the inhabitants and adds work to the housewives in cleaning the kitchen. Installing a kitchen hood will help solve this problem and get rid of inconveniences.
In order to install the hood, you need to answer several questions in advance.
Which kitchen hood model should you choose?
Nowadays, the market is full of various models of hoods and in order to choose the most suitable one, several parameters must be taken into account. Most often, the owners of houses and apartments purchase them together with a gas stove so that they look harmonious and fit each other in size.
By the type of action, they are divided into two types:
- Recirculating
- Evacuating
Circulating hoods suck in air above the gas stove, pass it through special filters and release it into the room. It is worth noting that recirculating hood it costs an order of magnitude more, and, after prolonged use, it may not completely absorb all odors, and also, it does not absorb excess heat that is generated by a gas stove. This is due to the fact that filters that absorb odors become clogged and become inoperative.
The evacuees, after absorbing air, immediately release it through the air duct to the outside. If you have a desire to convert an evacuation hood into a circulating hood, by simple manipulations, you can attach a carbon filter instead of an air duct, which are also used in gas masks.
At the place of installation of the hoods, they are divided into integrated, ceiling island, tabletop, fireplace. The tabletop hood has a horizontal elongated socket, but in most cases it is used in professional kitchens, in conjunction with technological kitchen units. The installation of a fireplace hood can be found in elite kitchens and, in most cases, it is designed individually. At the same time, it is a separate device that is not related to the rest of the kitchen furniture and it will be problematic to calculate the cost at the initial stages.
An island ceiling hood implies the presence of a false ceiling and is installed in a small area above the stove, on which several air intakes will be located.The costs of a similar design of the hood are quite large, while it is almost impossible to mount it with your own hands.
For an average family, the ideal option would be to install a hood - hood in the kitchen cabinet. This method is attractive in that you can install the hood in a kitchen of this type on your own, while minimizing the cost of purchasing the necessary parts and appliances, as well as not requiring a lot of professional tools.
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How to take care of safety?
Despite all the paradox, the kitchen belongs to a place with increased danger. Therefore, before installing the hood, you need to clearly understand where the dangers can come from if you skip one of the stages or do not give it due importance. In particular, the hood is connected to electricity, and taking into account the fact that moisture and fat settle on it (they can provoke electricity breakdowns from the motor installed in the fan), you can get injured or electric burns when you touch the metal body of the hood. Modern cooker hood It is connected to the mains with the help of 3 wires (grounding, neutral wire, phase). To exclude the possibility of injury, you need to carefully take care of grounding.
At the moment, ground loops and euro sockets are being installed in new houses and this ensures reliable safety against electrical injuries. However, in most houses such circuits are not installed, therefore, in order to avoid breakdowns, it is necessary to carry out grounding work. To do this, you do not need to dig trenches and carry out other capital work. Moreover, it is not necessary to ground the hood to heating, water or gas pipes, because this option can provoke even greater troubles. It is necessary to choose a neutral (unrelated) grounding method.
To do this, it is enough to have access to the electrical panel (be careful, because there is a current with a voltage of 220V). Opening it, you can see with the naked eye that the wires are coming out of the walled pipe. In the overwhelming majority of cases, a pipe with a thread or a threaded bolt applied to it is placed on it, to which other wiring is likely already connected, providing grounding of other devices. Having stretched a flexible wire with several cores from the kitchen hood, it must be connected to this bolt. After connecting the grounding wires from the hood to this bolt, you can be absolutely sure that the current will not break through the metal circuit of the installed product. If there is already not enough space on the threaded tube for connection, in any case you do not need to disconnect one of them, this is very dangerous for you and other family members. In this case, use the terminal and secure the ground wire. If threaded notches are not applied to the tube, it is advisable to use a clamp to securely fasten.
Which duct to buy and where to connect it?
The ideal duct would be a corrugated aluminum pipe. When buying, you need to choose a pipe diameter that will be approximately equal to the diameter of the upper hood on the hood.
The most obvious solution for connecting an air duct is to lead to a ventilation pipe or directly outside the dwelling by making an opening in the wall. However, these methods are not the most optimal. In the first case, when a stove releases a large amount of gas to be burned with all cooking rings working, as well as steam from the cooked food, the duct may not be able to cope and some will be scattered around the living room or get to neighbors.
With a large wind outside, with such a connection, the hood may not be useful at all, while all the discharge can return not only to your kitchen, but also to the rooms of the neighbors through the hood, which obviously will not please them. In the second case, questions of a constructive nature arise: breaking through a wall is not an easy task, and besides, this requires permission from the relevant authorities, because the wall is a load-bearing one. At the same time, a large amount of condensate will settle in the duct, which can certainly lead to a breakdown. The best option is to make an additional section of the air duct with the installation of a flap valve.
Check valve installation - crackers
To install the flapper valve, several mandatory, fundamentally important explanations must be taken into account:
- Most often, the hood, which is planned to be used under the duct, has an aspect ratio of 3: 4. The diameter of the duct pipe is acquired with a value that should be approximately equal to the larger side. In this case, the hood will be completely closed, and installation will not cause any trouble.
- The flap for the cracker should be made of lightweight material. A fluoroplastic sheet with a thickness of 0.5 mm or tin is best suited. The lighter the flap is, the more efficient the clapper will fire.
- A thin and weak spring must be attached to the damper. This will ensure its unhindered opening and smooth return to its original state. Therefore, stiff springs are highly discouraged. Recommended dimensions of the spring material and its dimensions: wire - 0.2 mm; diameter - up to 5 mm; length - up to 1.5 cm.
Cooker hood filters or odor neutralizers
There are 3 types of neutralizers on the modern market, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Chemical neutralizers do a good job. However, taking into account that fat, which also covers the active elements, settles in the hood, it will not serve as much as prescribed in the warranty period of operation and it is almost impossible to calculate. Therefore, they will have to be changed very often.
Electroionization neutralizers have the same operating principle as standard air ionizers. But in terms of power, it surpasses the indoor sample, because the concentration of steam is many times greater than in residential premises. This creates a fairly voluminous magnetic field, which is higher than the permissible standards.
Ultraviolet converters solve the problem of both cleaning and lighting the built-in stove. They do a good job and are completely harmless. But the lamps require periodic cleaning of grease, and they need to be replaced every 2 years, which will significantly hit the pocket, because they are not cheap.
A few tips for installing a hood
In order to complete the installation of the hood, you need tools that are available to almost every owner. An exception is the jigsaw, which can be bought or rented.
The installation of a kitchen hood begins with the manufacture of a cracker box. The most suitable material for the manufacture will be tin, galvanized or a thin aluminum plate. Then, at the place where the cracker is attached, draw a pencil around the contour for subsequent installation and fixing with mounting foam. ( See also: DIY kitchen hood repair )
Empty the cupboard above the stove. Calculate as accurately as possible the area of the hood and use a jigsaw to cut the same size in the bottom of the cabinet. It is best to attach a hood and outline the outline on the bottom shelf with a pencil. There is no need to be upset if the cutout turns out to be not quite neat and accurate, all the flaws will be hidden and the cabinet will not lose its attractiveness outwardly. Then, freeing the cabinet from the shelves, you need to cut holes for the duct. In the upper part of the cabinet you need to make a hole for the clapperboard, where the width and height should be 3-5 mm more.
Then you need to fix the hood to the bottom of the cabinet using self-tapping screws. Next, we fix the corrugation to the hood. It is not necessary to tighten it hermetically (later this will facilitate cleaning of the structure), it will be enough to wrap it with a thin and flexible wire. To connect the hood to the mains, you need to take care of the cable routing in advance. If the connection is through an outlet, the wire can be skillfully hidden behind furniture fixtures. If a direct connection is planned, it is necessary to place a box in which you need to put the wires and connect them to the mains.
Advice:
If you do not know how to install a cooker hood, it is best to consult a specialist and study the tips given above.
Each specialist performs the operations of fixing the hood individually, according to his taste. However, it is worth considering that all operations must be carried out carefully, everything must be calculated to the smallest detail and try to allow the smallest error.
Hood maintenance
The hood must be cleaned of soot without fail. This step is necessary for several reasons:
- The efficiency will decrease, because the duct, fan, etc. will be clogged with soot. This will lead to the fact that some of the fumes will enter the living quarters, which will cause discomfort.
- Due to the soot, which will settle on the walls of the duct and working parts of the hood, the probability of ignition of the hood increases. This fact is especially relevant, because in this case, housing may burn out completely.
The recommended interval between each maintenance is about six months. This will require an almost complete analysis of the design. Each, separately taken, part of the structure must be thoroughly cleaned of soot, lubricate the fan, check the electrical connection.
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