Island cooker hood with external fan

[vince.darley]

We intend to put in a large external motor to drive our hood extraction, in order to cut down on noise as much as possible. Do we really need to get a "special" hood which can work with an external motor (hence reducing our options massively), or can we just get any old hood and remove its existing internal fan and simply run the ducting direct from hood up and out to the external wall?

I'm assuming a typical island hood just has those washable metal filters, with a "hole" on the other side in which sits the internal fan, on the other side of which the ducting starts -- so removing the fan would just mean having to lower the start of the ducting.

Any thoughts on this? Anyone ever looked inside the mechanisms of these hoods?

The other complication is that our ceiling is 3.7m, so we'll need to get a custom-made 2m or so stainless steel box to run up to the ceiling as well.

thanks for any help,

Vince.

[calums]

Vince

I would think you have a few options here.

Typically a cooker hood has the motor just below the shroud where the chimney starts. If placing a new fan in here then you would need to get one with similar mountings, unless you were to adapt the mounting plate on the existing hood. If I were you then I would take out the existing motor, and mount the new motor in the extension piece that you are getting custom made, this way it can be fabricated as one unit and perhaps even rubber mounted to reduce vibration noises. I would also be tempted to do away with the telescoping chimney that comes with the hood and bring your new hood all the way from the ceiling to the hood. Ensure the same grade stainless is used throughout. I would also mount the motor as high up the chimney as possible, or even into the ceiling since your increase in chimney length will greatly affect the stability of the whole hood assembly as they are just mounted on a top ceiling bracket. And a low down motor could cause the assembly to swing.

You also need to ensure that the new motor that you choose is capable of taking the 4 wires (live and 3 neutrals for different speed settings). Alternatively I would imagine that you could link all the neutrals together so that whatever setting the switch was in, the motor would just run at its normal speed (check with a sparky on that one).

FInally, remember that the height from your hob for cooker hoods is a minimum distance and that especially in islands it is an idea to increase this distance. This avoids you constantly hitting your head off it and it blocking your view to the rest of the room.

Hope this helps and good luck. Calum Sabey NewArk Traditional Kitchens 01556 690544

[vince.darley]

I was a bit worried about the swinging aspect too!

What you write sounds sensible, and I'm glad to hear you think it'll work. We were even thinking of mounting the motor at the far end of the duct (either in the ceiling after the bend in the duct, or even at the external wall where the duct exits the house).

I think you're right that it will be best to do away with the chimney that comes with the hood, and just put in a solidly-constructed new chimney in one piece.

That's a good point and a good idea -- that we don't have to have something that runs at lots of different speeds if that makes it hard to get the right motor.

I'd thought about the hitting your head bit, but not about the view -- that's definitely also important. I think we should probably mount at

1.9m above the floor, or perhaps 2m -- I'll have to visit some more kitchen shops to help visualise things better.

Thanks for your advice - truly very helpful.

Vince.

[calums]

Vince Its good to know that there is some food for thought. I wouldnt worry too much about raising it too high off the ground. Forehead height should be high enough since you never want to look up, only down or straight across and this should be high enough so that when you bend over the worktop your head misses the hood. Its always a play off between it extracting well and it not getting in the way.

Another option is to do away witht the hood altogether and have an extraction motor in the ceiling with a large skirt at ceiling height to encourage smells and vapour to go into the extraction unit rather than the rest of the house... I know this sounds like a weird idea but it actually looks really good when done properly, give me a call if you want it explained fuller or want some pics of what I mean.

Also if you need any further help or advice then just pick up the phone and leave a message if i'm not in.

Calum Sabey NewArk Traditional Kitchens 01556 690544