Question: I am wanting to install a new range hood over our kitchen cooktop as part of a kitchen remodel, and need a little input as to what options are available.
The original hood was over the cooktop and was supported by a wall cabinet that has been removed. We have tiled the wall area behind and above the cooktop and want to install a new modern hood over the new tile.
I do quite a lot of cooking and need a strong hood to get rid of cooking odors and grease.
There are so many options, and we could use some advice on how to proceed.
Your Handyman: Congratulations on your new kitchen. Installing a nice shiny new range hood is often the last piece of the kitchen remodeling puzzle.
A range hood that exhausts air to the outside of the house is required by most building codes and really is a must to keep your home free of cooking odors and to prevent grease from building up on your new cabinets and walls.
If your cooktop uses natural gas, it produces combustion gases, including carbon monoxide, that are toxic and can accumulate inside your home if a hood is not installed.
There are several different styles of hoods including ones that are mounted to the underside of a wall cabinet, a ceiling mounted style that is used over an island or peninsula, or a wall-mounted style that is what you will need where the fan unit attaches to the wall over your tile.
For a wall- or ceiling-mounted hood, the exhaust vent goes up and out through the ceiling and is wrapped with a stainless-steel chimney style of cover. The vent goes up into the attic and then out the roof through a T-style vent installed by a roofing contractor.
The hood will have lights to give illumination for you when cooking and a strong fan that can be controlled by switches on the hood.
The only disadvantage to your new hood can be noise created by the fan motor, which often is so loud as to make talking difficult or impossible while cooking.
A nice upgrade is to have a remote fan motor that is located either in the attic or on the outside wall of the house so that most all of the fan noise is not heard in the kitchen.
This type of remote fan motor is significantly more powerful than a hood-mounted fan, so not only is it quieter, it moves more air.
Most range hoods will have removable stainless-steel filters that grease accumulates onto, and these filters are usually sized so they can fit into a dishwasher for easy cleaning.
There are some hoods that don’t exhaust out through the roof and instead recirculate the air through a carbon filter, which in my opinion is mostly ineffective and should not be used.
There are also units that flush mount into the ceiling but I don’t think these units can effectively capture enough cooking vapors to be worthwhile.
Another option is a down draft that is installed behind the cooktop and has a panel that rises up mechanically to suck in cooking vapors, which are then exhausted out through a vent under the floor.
A down draft is usually used when there is a view from the kitchen that the owner didn’t want to partially block with a ceiling-mounted hood. It is my opinion that down drafts aren’t very effective, and often they can accumulate large amounts of grease that drips down into the unit, which is difficult to clean.
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Question: Our double oven, which is installed into our kitchen cabinets, has finally died and we have not been able to find a new oven that is the same size that will fit into the same opening.
We have spent quite a lot of time checking oven dimensions online and are getting nowhere.
Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated.
Your Handyman: Your predicament is common as appliances age out, and finding a new oven of the same dimensions that will slide into your cabinet opening without modifications can be difficult.
My first piece of advice is to work with an experienced salesperson at an appliance store rather than searching online. Their expertise will save you much time, and most of the higher-end appliances are only sold at list price so there are often no online deals.
Before going to the appliance store, take some measurements of the face of the oven, which will be a good indicator of your cabinet opening.
If the oven is electric, you will need to check the circuit breaker for the oven to find the amperage. The new oven will need the same amperage or can use less amperage by replacing the circuit breaker.
If more amperage is needed, then an electrician will need to install a new circuit.
Usually, the cabinet opening can be enlarged by a small amount for the horizontal width, and the same is true for the vertical height.
Sometimes a drawer will need to be removed or cabinet doors will need to be trimmed as the opening is enlarged. If the new oven requires that the existing cabinet opening be reduced, this can usually be done with matching wood with either stain or paint.
This all applies also if you are replacing a cooktop that is set into a countertop. The opening in most all countertops — including tile, stone or quartz — can be enlarged with cutting tools that can create huge amounts of dust that will need to be controlled.
If the countertop opening is too large and needs to be reduced, there are companies that make stainless steep trim kits that sit over the existing opening and have a smaller cutout for the new cooktop.
