It is difficult to imagine a modern kitchen without such an attribute as a hood. This simple and unpretentious household appliance allows you to solve many problems: it does not allow odors to spread throughout the apartment when cooking, traps fat and soot, and facilitates the cooking process due to its additional functions. The service life of the interior decoration of the room increases, the process of its regular cleaning is facilitated. But you need to know how to calculate the power of the hood so that it fulfills its purpose for a long time, and does not become a useless kitchen interior item.
What are the types of kitchen hoods?
Before proceeding to the calculation of the required power of the hood, you should decide on its type. There are several varieties of these household appliances. The difference between them is not only in design, but also in the principle of operation. This can be both the removal of polluted air from the room, and its recirculation after appropriate cleaning.
Dome
After entering the dome of such an exhaust, polluted air is thrown out by fans through the piping system.
Features of dome type exhaust devices:
- The system requires a minimum of maintenance, but during its operation it is necessary to supply fresh air from the outside into the room.
- If the kitchen has modern double-glazed windows that do not allow air to pass through, then it may be necessary to open the window while the hood is running.
- The disadvantages of this system include rather significant dimensions, complex installation.
- Such hoods are recommended for use in spacious rooms.
- The complex of boxes and corrugated joints should have a minimum of bends that impede the movement of air.
flat
Such hoods are more compact, and it is easy to install them. Unlike domes, they do not require connection to ventilation ducts, as they work on the principle of air recirculation.
Features of flat hoods:
- They don't take up much space in the kitchen.
- Require regular maintenance: carbon filters, responsible for neutralizing odors, will have to be changed every 3-6 months, depending on the intensity of cooking.
- Soot and grease are captured by replaceable acrylic or non-removable metal filters. The former will also have to be changed regularly, and the latter should be washed with detergents.
Embedded
It is better to buy built-in models at the stage of planning the overall interior of the kitchen. Under them, you will have to select or specially order furniture in which most of the hood will be placed.
Features of built-in hoods:
- In their design, they are very similar to dome ones, but, as a rule, they are more powerful and less noisy.
- Most of their design will be hidden inside the furniture, so you don’t have to puzzle over how to harmoniously fit such a hood into the overall composition of the kitchen.
Note! Even powerful domed and built-in hoods will not be able to provide more air exchange than the throughput of the ventilation duct of the apartment.
In most houses, ventilation ducts can provide unhindered passage of no more than 180 m3 per hour. Therefore, it is preferable to use hoods working on the principle of air recirculation, or mixed type devices. Their higher cost is compensated by the independence of the ventilation capacity of the apartment. Also, it will not be necessary to solve the problem of fresh air entering the room.
Extraction power calculation
Before buying, it is important to correctly determine the required performance of the hood.If the power of the selected appliance is insufficient, this will lead to incomplete air purification in the kitchen. Or the hood will constantly have to be used at maximum power, which will affect its service life.
Various sources give the classic formula by which you can calculate the power:
P=V*N
(P - device performance, V - room volume, N - number of air exchange cycles per hour)
It turns out that to determine the required power of the device, the volume of the kitchen must be multiplied by the frequency of air exchange cycles in the room, which, in accordance with the standards, should be 10–12 per hour.
The formula is correct, but there are many hidden points that can make their own adjustments to the calculations.
Necessary corrections in the calculation
In most apartments, especially in older houses, kitchens are not large. The calculation of the required power will give results in the range from 300 to 450 m3/h. Why do professionals recommend choosing hoods with a capacity of at least 600 m3 / h?
- When choosing a hood according to the classical formula, the device will be forced to work at maximum speed. This will not only affect the level of noise produced by it, but also greatly reduce its life. In addition, in the event of any unforeseen circumstances, there will no longer be a power reserve.
- The value of such a parameter as the air exchange rate depends on what type of hob is used. When using a gas stove, it increases to 20, because the hood will have to remove not only odors, fat and soot from the food being cooked, but also the combustion products of natural gas. If an electric stove is installed, then this coefficient will be slightly less and will be 15.
- The volume of the kitchen is easy to calculate. But what many overlook is that this room is not always separated from other rooms by tightly closing doors. In this case, the volume of adjacent rooms is added to the volume of the kitchen, with which air exchange is not difficult for it. And this will require a serious adjustment of the calculation. The required performance of the device can increase significantly!
- According to the formula for a small isolated kitchen, a rather modest power device is enough. In fact, in a tiny room, odors and soot will spread much faster. Therefore, in order to cook in such a kitchen in comfortable conditions, it is not worth saving on the power of the device.
Table for calculating the minimum performance of the device for the kitchen:
Regardless of the chosen design of the hood, a prerequisite must be met: in terms of its area, it must at least not be inferior to the hob, and better, slightly exceed it in size.
Additional functions
Modern household appliances are equipped with many auxiliary functions. When choosing a hood, you should pay attention to the convenience of their use.
- Touch control panels increase the cost, but are preferable to slider ones, as they are less prone to contamination and look more aesthetically pleasing.
- All models have a lighting function. It is better if the hood is equipped with halogen lamps. They have a nicer light and less color distortion than incandescent or fluorescent lights.
By carefully calculating the required power of the kitchen hood, carefully choosing its model, you can guarantee not only comfortable conditions in the cooking area, but also a long service life of the purchased equipment.
