Buying Guide
Almost by definition, under-cabinet range hoods are not island hoods. However, at Island Hood, we want to provide information on all kinds of cooking hoods. Since under-cabinet range hoods are the most popular hoods on the market today, it is the best place to start.
Under-cabinet range hoods are designed for people who wish to do some heavier cooking, but have a limited amount of space in their kitchen. Rather than having a large, ducted hood, a smaller hood is placed under the cabinet, where it can quickly cleanse the air of smoke and grease that escape from heavier cooking.
Note, however, that this creates some limitations. First of all, under-cabinet hoods are never ducted, so they don’t actually remove the dirty air from the kitchen. Rather, they clean the air through filters that are placed within the hood itself. These filters require some special attention. First of all, these filters must be replaced periodically, as they eventually become unusable themselves. Secondly, the lack of ducts will ultimately affect the power of the hoods. Without an external place to remove air, under-cabinet hoods can only be so powerful.
This does not mean that under-cabinet hoods are in any sense sub-standard. Far from it. In fact, under-cabinet range hoods can have very high levels of power up to 300 cubic feet per second and even higher. For most cooks, this will be more than enough power to remove smoke and grease from the air. In fact, non-ducted hoods today are often just as powerful as ducted ones were thirty years ago, because of the increase in the power of the fans involved and the strength of the filters.
Under-cabinet hoods often also come with a number of attractive features. Because of their proximity to the cooking surface, it is quite common for an under-cabinet hood to have powerful lights attached that can be adjusted based on your needs. Some even come with heating lamps to keep your food warm when you aren’t cooking with them. These hoods have been further integrated with electronics, providing such programmable features as preset fan levels, auto shut-off and even settings that will clear out your kitchen air after you leave the room. They are also adjustable in speed so that you can save on power or noise.
Under-cabinet range hoods today are a very power kitchen instrument. I hope the above has been helpful in choosing the range hood that is right for you.