Over-the-Range Exhaust Fans: Why We Want Them
In my on-going kitchen painting project (3 months and counting!), one of the biggest hurdles I had to cross was painting the stippled ceiling. As we did in our dining room and powder room, Fred and I took a Saturday, sealed off the room, and sanded the stippling down to just a swirly texture. Less ominous, less cobweb-friendly, makes the (7 1/2 foot) ceilings look just a tad higher than they did with the stalactites, the boys like it because their balloons don’t pop on the ceiling anymore, and it’s much easier to paint. Which the ceiling needed after 24 years of being in this particular kitchen.
Our prior owners moonlighted as caterers. Southern comfort-type catering, actually. Lots of deep-frying and buttery goodness. We know because they told us so. And because there was a film of goo over every surface IN the kitchen and adjoining rooms.
What there WASN’T – and still isn’t, till we do our much-anticipated full-kitchen renovation – was any kind of exhaust fan venting to the exterior of the home. So consequently, when I tackled the painting, the ceilings looked like this (even after we sanded off a layer!):
The white line is where I cut in – two coats. The rest is what our ceiling looked like in patches all around the stove, the sink, in the pantry (which we never did quite figure out?!), and in a few other spots.
Since greasy spots didn’t make Jocie’s “recent hot trends” list, I went ahead and covered them over. For now, till we can afford to redo the kitchen the way we want to, we vent the kitchen by opening the window and the slider to the deck, sometimes running a fan if we’re cooking something really “lively.” Hopefully that will keep the ceiling (and other surfaces) from ever looking like that again.
And we will DEFINITELY work ventilation into our final kitchen plan. At a minimum, a microwave with a fan and filter we can change. But probably an exhaust fan to run out the back wall to the outside.
What do you think? Is a true vent fan the only way to go? Do some of you only have over-the-range microwave fans and find that sufficient?
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7 Responses to Over-the-Range Exhaust Fans: Why We Want Them
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February 13th, 2009 12:49 pm
Honestly? My former house had an exhaust fan over the stove and it didn’t work that well. And it was new! I used it mostly for the light.
This older house we purchased does not have one- and I don’t miss it, except for the light.
February 13th, 2009 12:57 pm
1) As a duly appointed representative of the Great State Of Mississippi (the “Most Obese State In The Union, Three Years And Running) I am officially obliged to sing the praises of deep-fried and buttery comfort food.
2) RE: Ceiling: I think we’re talking about the same thing, but down here we call it “popcorn ceiling,” and contractors call it “acoustic ceiling.” We had that in all our rooms and we’ve been slowly (one room at a time) been removing it. The easiest thing to do is:
i) Buy a long handled scraper from Lowe’s / Home Depot / etc
ii) Buy or borrow a “sprayer” (pump action thingy people spray water or pesticide with)
iii) Use the sprayer to mist water onto the ceiling, getting it DAMP, almost (but not quite) dripping with water. It will absorb the water and turn greyish
iv) Use the scraper in long sweeping motions to scrape off the now-damp popcorn. It will come off very easily in ribbon. Important: My experience was that holding the scraper at <45 degree angle to the ceiling produced the best results. However, I’m tall and can do that easily. A bigger angle sometimes resulted in me digging the edge of the scraper into the ceiling and making a mark that had to be Spackled ™ later.
v) OH! Forgot to mention, put some paper down on the floor BEFORE you start!
3) We have a compact over-the-range microwave fan and it works great, even for southern comfort food.
-Jon
February 13th, 2009 2:24 pm
In my last home I had the microwave exhaust fan and it actually did a pretty good job. It also turned on automatically when there was too much heat. The only drawback was that the path it had to take meant that I lost a bunch of cabinet space, plus cold air could come back through the vent despite the little flappy door on the outside.
In my current house I have one of your standard range hoods with the vent fan that exhausts to the outside. I don’t think it’s especially powerful, however. One person opined that it’s because it vents straight back through the wall (so I don’t lose cabinet space), so the vent opening from the hood itself is necessarily smaller. Also, this hood has a horrific hum when it’s turned on that’s actually louder than the fan when it’s on low.
Darn it, I want a real Binford-type model, something that’s going to suck the soup out of my pots and not be incredibly noisy about it. Do you have a recommendation in this arena?
February 13th, 2009 7:30 pm
We have a microwave fan that is vented into the room… we never use it, though. We don’t cook much fatty food and dont’ cook any meat, though, so I don’t know that it’s necessary!
February 15th, 2009 1:03 am
I definitely wish that we had an exhaust fan in our kitchen. We have a window directly over the stove top, but it’s not enough to open it up. We often blow a fan over the stove top and through the window, but if we have the house shut up and the air conditioner on the house ends up smelling like dinner for hours.
No marks on the ceiling which is nice, but we only painted it three years ago, so who knows what would happen over time.
February 18th, 2009 4:38 pm
Thanks for all your feedback! (and Jon, thanks for the dietary recommendation as well!)
@Claude – no, we don’t have a recommendation now, but you’ve peaked our curiosity… we will now research super-slurper fans and post what we find later!
January 27th, 2010 12:46 pm
I am mounting my microwave above my kitchen range and I want a light above my stove that looks like an exhaust hood without the exhaust components. I just want the light. Does anyone know if they make such a product? I don’t cook or fry that much so don’t have the need for exhaust but I like the look of the hood…