Range Hood Installation near you

The model residential code's default is unambiguous. Domestic cooking exhaust equipment must discharge to the outdoors through a duct, and that duct must have a smooth interior surface, must be airtight, must be equipped with a backdraft damper, and must be independent of all other exhaust systems. Ducts serving domestic cooking exhaust equipment must not terminate in an attic or crawl space, or in areas inside the building. A hood dumped into an attic is not a shortcut; it is a code violation that deposits grease and moisture into the roof structure.

There is an exception, and it is narrower than the marketing suggests. Where installed in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, and where other ventilation is provided, listed and labeled ductless range hoods are not required to discharge to the outdoors. Jurisdictions amend the second half of that condition: Seattle, enforcing the Washington amendments, replaces the model text's general reference to mechanical or natural ventilation with a requirement for continuous local exhaust in an enclosed kitchen at a rate set in the code's own table. So whether a ductless hood is acceptable where you live depends on which version your jurisdiction has adopted, which is a question for the building department, not for the appliance store.

Regardless of what is permitted, be clear about what each type does. A recirculating hood passes air through a grease filter and usually a charcoal filter and returns it to the kitchen, which captures grease and reduces odour. It does not remove water vapour, and it does not remove the combustion products EPA's guidance is concerned with. If the cooking appliance burns gas, the ducted option is doing something the recirculating one cannot.

The code names the materials. Ducts serving domestic cooking exhaust equipment must be constructed of galvanized steel, stainless steel or copper. The one exception is for downdraft systems, where schedule 40 PVC pipe and fittings are permitted under tightly drawn conditions: the duct installed under a concrete slab poured on grade, the underfloor trench completely backfilled with sand or gravel, the PVC extending not more than one inch above the indoor concrete floor surface and not more than one inch above grade outside, and all joints solvent cemented.

What that rules out is the flexible foil and plastic ducting that turns up behind a surprising number of installed hoods. It is not smooth, it is not airtight, it catches grease along every ridge, and it crushes when a cabinet is pushed back against it. If a quote does not say what the duct is made of, ask before the work starts rather than after the drywall closes.

Mounting height is set by the cooking appliance below, not by taste. The model fuel gas code requires a vertical clearance above the cooking top of not less than 30 inches to combustible material and metal cabinets, and permits 24 inches where one of two protections is present: the underside of the material or cabinet above is protected with insulating millboard covered with sheet metal of the specified thickness, or a metal ventilating hood of that sheet metal thickness is installed above the cooking top with a small clearance beneath the combustible material, the hood being at least as wide as the appliance and centred over it. The hood manufacturer's own instructions then set a range within those limits, and the code requires cooking appliances to be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions in any case.

Width and depth matter as much as height, because a hood narrower than the cooking surface cannot capture what happens at the outer burners, and a shallow hood hung high over a deep range catches less again. This is worth settling on paper before the cabinetry is ordered.

Permits and trades vary by jurisdiction, and the divisions are not intuitive. Seattle's mechanical permit, for example, covers heating, venting and air conditioning equipment and kitchen hood exhaust systems, but explicitly does not cover gas lines, refrigeration, plumbing or sprinklers, each of which needs its own permit. The electrical connection for the hood is separate again. Ask your building department which permits a hood installation needs where you live, and ask the installer who is pulling them.

A hood is only an exhaust fan, and a well-sealed modern house does not give up air easily. The model code draws the line explicitly: where one or more gas, liquid or solid fuel-burning appliances that are neither direct-vent nor use a mechanical draft venting system are located within a dwelling unit's air barrier, each exhaust system capable of exhausting in excess of 400 cubic feet per minute must be provided with makeup air, mechanically or passively, at a rate approximately equal to the exhaust rate, with at least one damper meeting the code's requirements. The makeup air has to be discharged into the same room as the exhaust system, or into rooms or duct systems that communicate with it through permanent openings of at least the required area.

The fuel gas side of the code makes the same point from the appliance's direction: where exhaust fans, clothes dryers and kitchen ventilation systems interfere with the operation of appliances, makeup air must be provided. The failure this prevents is backdrafting, where a large hood depressurises the house enough to pull combustion products back down the vent of a water heater or furnace instead of letting them leave.

In practice this is the single most common reason a hood specification changes partway through a kitchen project. A professional-style hood over a professional-style range can easily exceed the threshold, and the makeup air system that then becomes necessary is a real piece of work with its own duct, damper and control. Raise it at the design stage rather than at the inspection.

A manufactured home is built to a federal standard rather than to a locally adopted building code, and HUD's Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards set their own kitchen ventilation requirements. The area in which cooking appliances are located must be ventilated either by a metal duct, which may be single wall, of not less than 12.5 square inches in cross-sectional area with a minimum dimension of two inches, located above the appliance and terminating outside the home, or by listed mechanical ventilating equipment discharging outside the home and installed in accordance with the terms of its listing and the manufacturer's instructions. Either way, the gravity or mechanical ventilation must be within a horizontal distance of not more than ten feet from the vertical front of the appliance.

Two further requirements come with it. Mechanical ventilation that exhausts directly to the outside atmosphere from the living space must be equipped with an automatic or manual damper, and its controls must allow it to be operated separately without energising other energy-consuming devices. Separately, the standards require ranges to have a vertical clearance above the cooking top of not less than 24 inches.

If your home is a manufactured home, say so when you get quotes. An installer working from a site-built playbook will not necessarily know that the ventilation requirement, the duct sizing and the clearance above the cooking top come from a different rulebook.

Ask to see the duct route before anything is closed up, and photograph it. Once drywall or cabinetry goes back, the difference between a rigid metal duct running to an exterior cap and a length of foil flex terminating in the attic is invisible, and it is the single most consequential detail in the job.

Run the hood on every speed with the kitchen door closed, watch the exterior damper open, and check that lights, fan speeds and any timer work as described. If there is a fuel-burning water heater or furnace inside the same air barrier, watch for any sign of its draft reversing when the hood runs at full speed, and raise it immediately if you see one.

Keep the model and serial number, the installation instructions and the invoice together, and check the model against CPSC's recall web service at SaferProducts.gov, which returns recalls by product type with the hazard and the remedy. Get the warranty on the installation, as distinct from the manufacturer's warranty on the appliance, written on the invoice rather than described at the door.