Years ago I lived in an apartment where the vent hood above the range was an overpowered commercial unit instead of the usual home stuff. It genuinely surprised me how much of a difference it made compared to 'normal' vent hoods. Higher extraction volumes, even without side walls, makes a big difference.

▲

com2kid a day ago | parent | next [-]

For around 2k it is possible to install a vent hood with the fan outside the building so it is completely silent, and has way more air flow than anything that fits above the range.

Complete silence, performance beyond anything people are used to at home. Most people don't even know the choice exists, and even if you go to a bougie specialty cooking store they'll try to dissuade you from this and instead sell you on a higher priced product that doesn't work as well.

▲

vintermann a day ago | parent [-]

What's annoying with both air cleaners and vent hoods, is that it seems some sellers have figured out that they want them to make noise, so people hear they are working. It's possible to make both much more quiet than they typically are.

	▲	com2kid 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		One of the first upgrades I made to my house was buying a nice (interior) vent hood. The exterior ones need to be at least a few feet away from the stove, and my stove is right up against the wall it vents out of. I still was able to find an interior one that has 1/2 the noise and twice the airflow of the standard builder grade vent hood. One annoyance is that almost none of the vent hood stick out far enough, ideally you want the vent hood to stick out a few inches (at least) past the front of the cook top, but almost none of them do that (likely due to head bumping issues, understandable) so a lot of effluent still escapes.

▲

schiffern a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Higher extraction volumes also make heating and cooling bills go up.

It's one of those ideas that works fine when it's just a rare thing, but if 100% of households had one I guarantee we'd see headlines like "Wasteful Exhaust Vents Burn As Much Energy As Cleveland" etc etc.

I for one welcome our fume hood inspired overlords. The nice thing about fume hoods is that they're optimized for maximum extraction efficiency for a minimum extraction volume.

Everyone notices the side walls, but an overlooked secret of fume hoods is that they extract air backwards toward the back wall, not just upward.

	▲	turtlebits 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Any air extraction pulls conditioned air out of the house - kitchen hoods, dryers, bath fans, etc. Only kitchen hoods exhaust a significant amount of air - the solution is a makeup air system.