Building a new home or planning a kitchen remodel and hoping to upgrade your range hood for a more modern look? Check out my comprehensive list of suggestions below on how to choose the right hood design and style for your home!
Space: What amount of space do you have? Make sure if you are planning a wooden hood housing, you have room to make the hood covering wider than the range or cook top underneath. This allows for the venting insert to line up with the stove or cook top which allows for proper amount of capture, but still have extra width to finish and create the decorative piece of the wood unit, which is usually wider than the upper part of the unit.
Ceiling height: How tall are your ceilings? And how will that affect your overall design and look of the hood? For example, with an 8-foot ceiling you may opt for a more simple squared design, cove, or angled shape with or without crown. Nine foot ceilings may allow for a larger mantel-styled hood or wooden housing, which has cabinet or storage legs that come down to the counter to finish it off.
Type of range or cook top: The kind of range you choose will affect the kind of hood required. So make sure to get the range selected first, and maybe not order until you confirm the two work together as needed. Are you selecting a large commercial range with a higher amount of BTU’s ? This may require a higher CFM (cubic feet per minute) hood ventilation system in order to move air more quickly and remove fumes or grease and odors. Some even require a make-up air system required by local building codes, which will need to be designed on the HVAC (heating ventilation and air conditioner) end, along with the contractor and designer.
Keep options open: Just because you go stainless or metal does not mean you need to go boring! Vent-A-Hood has some very unique design capabilities where you can alter the color, finish, type of metal, and size! Another great one is Francois & Co. .
Simple approach: If doing a fairly basic 30” free-standing or slide-in range, but don’t have a lot of extra wall space, maybe a simple chimney styled hood is best to keep within a budget and not complicate the installation or venting process. Although even in these options, you can pick a glass versus metal canopy versus maybe black stainless to customize your look.
Its all in the details: On a metal application you can typically pick out whether you want some vertical accent banding, rivets, contrasting bottom trim piece or a pot rail added. On a wooden version, one example to make unique may be doing the main unit painted and adding a contrasting wooden bottom and/or top piece… or wood corbel pieces that sit under the hood for an added detail?
What’s so wonderful about a custom hood is the fact that it is unique to your home! So regardless of what you decide on doing, choose a range hood that fits with your lifestyle, and one that you will love seeing every time you walk into your kitchen.