Rangehoods

There are four main types of rangehood: canopy, undermount, fixed and slideout (sometimes called retractable). Every rangehood regardless of type is designed to sit over your kitchen cooktop and remove grease, fumes, smells, smoke, heat, steam, and other cooking by-products from the air using filters and fans.

Depending on how you decide to install it, your rangehood will either vent the filtered air from the kitchen to the outside through your roof or it will recirculate the cleaned air back into the kitchen as you cook. A rangehood will also save you cleaning time by making it easier to wipe down cooking areas and kitchen surfaces. By removing grease from the air, your rangehood stops sticky, fatty residues from building up around your cooking area.

Rangehoods are also great for protecting your kitchen cupboards and cabinets, which can become damaged, warped, or stained when exposed to the heat, steam and grease that can build up when cooking in a poorly ventilated kitchen.

As we’ve just learnt, rangehoods can be installed in one of two ways: ducted or recirculating. Ducted rangehoods are the most effective at removing smoke, cooking smells, heat, and airborne grease because they filter and remove the air to outside your home. Recirculating rangehoods rely on filters to remove cooking residues from the air and circulate the filtered air back through the room.

Ducted rangehoods will be more expensive to install up front and may not be an option at all if you are renting or live in an apartment. Having said that, if you are willing to pay a higher installation cost you will save time and money on the cost of cleaning and periodically replacing the filter, which can make recirculating rangehoods a little more expensive in the long run.

All rangehoods regardless of type will require a licensed electrician for installation. If you would like a ducted rangehood, then you will also need to factor in additional charges for a plumber to set that up.

Fan speed setting aside, there are a variety of factors that determine how noisy your rangehood will be.

It can be a good idea to run a more powerful rangehood on a lower setting to ensure it's working quietly while continuously removing grease, steam, and smoke from your kitchen as you cook. Obviously for more intense cooking sessions with lots of rapid boiling or frying, you'd want to utilise the higher fan speed to make the most of your rangehood's max extraction capacity so this will naturally run louder.

When shopping around for a new rangehood it’s a good idea to compare technical specifications for an idea on the noise level of the model (measured in decibels). Average rangehoods run at around 60-70 dBA, which is around the volume of a normal conversation, while some quieter hoods can run at a whisper level of 40 dBA, and others, like some of the Schweigen rangehoods, are completely silent as their motor is designed to be mounted outside the home. If you see the dBA quoted as a range, this indicates the noise level when operated from min to max speed levels.

The first step in shopping for a new rangehood is to get accurate measurements of the space it will be filling and the width of the cooktop it will be resting above. This will help you buy an appropriately sized rangehood that will efficiently clean the air above your cooktop.

Each type of rangehood offers something different and varies in the way they work. Canopy rangehoods are a larger sized hood set against the wall (or there's island rangehoods that are similar but designed for island bench cooking). These have a large collection area coupled with powerful suction, making them the top choice for serious cooks as they tend to be the best at removing steam, smoke, grease, odours, and heat.

Undermount rangehoods are installed unobtrusively in kitchen cabinets above the cooktop. Slideout rangehoods are similarly subtle with the added benefit of increasing their surface size when pulled out. Fixed rangehoods are generally more effective than undermount and slide out options but tend to be more obtrusive. With any type, look out for the maximum extraction capacity to ensure yours offers the air flow you need. Check out our rangehood buying guide for more info.