Island Hoods

[Painters10]

We're in the process of fitting a new kitchen and we've got our new shiny induction hob on a peninsular. There is therefore no wall to put an extractor fan on, so as part of the work we ran 110mm soil pipe between the joists and have a hole coming down in the ceiling over the hob position. I made sure there was lots of battens next to the hole for hanging an island hood.

The hood is a Baumatic ISL5SS. Very good value, but that's about its only redeeming point. It's not very well made, the instructions are dire, some of the techniques in the method are daft (have you tried screwing a poor quality self tapper into a too-small hole in 2mm steel plate, with the hole 10mm from the ceiling?) Tip: self-tap the hole BEFORE mouting the ceiling plate.

The instructions tell you how to calculate the length of angle iron needed to hang down. All very simple stuff, except we discovered while doing the building work our ceilings are only 230cm, so about

10cm short of normal. To achieve the 75cm over the worktop that I want is impossible using the method in the instructions. Using the method in the instructions it would be just 45cm off the worktop!

Using a different method of assembly, the highest I can get the thing off the worktop is about 64cm which still seems too low to me.

The limiting factor is the stainless steel canopies that are 60cm long and have to put on in two stages, making a stepped look. My other half reckons the 2 stage canopy will look ugly, and I think she might be right.

I've looked at others and none seem to go as short as I need, so I can't even send it back and get something else.

I think my only solution is to drill holes in one canopy and just use the one canopy. This way I can get about 70cm off the worktop AND I wont get the 2 stage ugly step. If I need to go shorter I will need to cut down the thin metal canopy, which is specialist since its stainless steel.

Has anyone fitted this hood (or the Caple/Electrolux identical models) and had problems?

Painters10

[Andy Champ]

No real ideas, but one comment. Cutting Stainless is no problem, no special tools and you don't even need to worry about the cut edge rusting. It's welding it that's hard...

Andy

[Andy Burns]

I presume the two parts of the canopy just "telescope" one another?

Had to cut down a Neff stainless steel one, just some tinsnips did the job.

[Rob Horton]

Don't you get an annoying rippling effect along the cut edge? I had this on my cooker hood. Used a very good quality pair of snips. But each time I had to move them along and start a new snip I would get a slight ripple in the metal.

[Mary Fisher]

It's called deckle-edging and you pay extra for it ...

Mary

[dennis]

Did you move on before you completely closed the snips? You get the same effect with scissors on card if you close them all the way before moving along.

[Rob Horton]

Yes, I did move on before completely closing the snips. Maybe next time I will get one of these.

[dennis]

shape and attach them along the edges. That will stiffen it, remove the sharp edges and probably look better.

[Chris J Dixon]

It seems odd to me that the minimum adjustment on the majority of hoods is at best marginal above a gas hob, given modern ceiling heights. As the innards of a hood do not seem to be particularly densely packed, I am at a loss to understand why this is.

Chris

[Steve Firth]

[Cutting stainless steel]

Not if you use a nibbler to do the cutting. Either hire an electric one from the hire shop or buy a hand nibbler. If going for a hand nibbler I find the shear type is easier to use on sheet metal YMMV etc.

[Painters10]

Well I've made some progress on this. I must say I find it amazing that the hood is just too long for modern ceilings and will not even adjust to the minimum stated in the specs. But I'm stuck with it so...

We decided that the bare minimum length might be ok. This would be using just one of the stainless canopy sections (the inner one). This would mean no cutting of the canopy, but would require extra holes drilled into the canopy to fit the ceiling mount plate.

To see if this would work I made a model. A piece of cardboard the same size as the glass part of the hood, with some polystyrene blocks cut to fit into the canopy. I hung the single canopy on the ceiling bracket and then attached the blocks to the cardboard (double sided carpet tape) and pushed this into the canopy. This effectively made something the same size and position as the final hood. We decided this would be OK. With our low ceiling it was worst case

71cm over the worktop.

Adding the extra holes to the stainless steel canopy was easy. For the record, the process I used was: Put masking tape onto canopy. Mark with pen where the holes are to be. Support the canopy between two workbenches so that the benches go inside the canopy. Use an offcut of wood under the end to be drilled. Use a new sharp self tapping screw and a hammer to make a punch hole (or a centre punch of course) Use a brand new HSS 2mm drill bit in a variable speed drill and go slowly. Once the first hold is through I then used a 3.5mm bit, and then a

6mm bit to finish.

So now I have the hood with 4 angle irons sticking up and the canopy over the top with new holes aligned to pass through the canopy, through the angle irons and into the ceiling hanger. You obviously can't get to the inside of the canopy when mounted, so I tapped the holes in the ceiling hanger to be M5 threads.

Finally, to make it easier to get the canopy/angles over the edges of the ceiling plate I have packed the internal gap between the canopy and angle irons with offcuts of MDF.

The last problem to overcome is how to lift the 30Kg hood up to the ceiling while aligning it, and putting in 8x M5 bolts. I think 2 big mates is the answer.

Painters10