Ventilating a kitchen can be problematic. First of all, it is very important. Because of cooking, a great deal of sooty smoke will often enter your air. This smoke can be bad for you, as it gradually builds up in the air to the point where your kitchen might become unbreathable over time. In addition, it can be bad for your kitchen, as the smoke contains many particles including grease that can build up on your walls, ceilings and appliances. Secondly, it can be quite difficult. Kitchens are one of the few rooms in the house that are not required by law to have windows. As a result, many kitchens don’t have proper natural ventilation. On the contrary, even those that have windows do not have sufficient air flow for cleaning your air, especially if you do a lot of heavy frying.
There are three sorts of kitchen ventilation that are possible:
First, there is natural ventilation, such as windows or doors. These sources of ventilation can provide a lot of room for air to move through, but they often do not provide enough air pressure. This air pressure can be improved by opening another window or door in another room. Note that when you do this, you should ensure that the air flows from the other room to your kitchen, rather than the other way around. If that were to happen, you’d blow the smoke through your whole house. In addition, natural ventilation can be hard to use in the winter, when it is too cold, so it is not always an option.
Second, there is assisted ventilation. Assisted ventilation uses fans to create enough air pressure to sufficiently clean out your kitchen of smoke. This is done in almost all cases with a fan, which both increases the pressure and at the same time, ensures that the air is moving in the correct direction. Some people will do this by putting a fan in their window that will blow the air outside. While this can work in the short term, the long-term problem is that most fans are not designed for this purpose and will therefore become dirty quickly. The better option is to use a range hood with a duct. These range hoods will capture large amounts of air and safely blow it outside. They are easily cleaned and last for years, though they can be pricey.
Finally, there is filtering. While not technically ventilation, filtering provides the same function. Rather than exchange air with the outside, filtering will actually recycle and clean the air that is currently within your kitchen. It does this through the use of filters, usually “charcoal filters”. The downside of these kinds of hoods is that they have less power than assisted ventilation. They usually provide about half of the CFM (cubic feet per minute) of circulation of a vented ranged hood. The filters also need to be replaced more often, as the air is more thoroughly cleaned using filters, and therefore become dirty more quickly.