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Has anyone ever skipped a range hood and been OK with it? Our range will be on a penninsula because the ceiling at one wall is too low and the other is full of windows and plumbing. Trouble is this makes venting more complicated and probably more expensive than it would otherwise be. Add in the sloped ceiling and other local odditities and we've considered skipping direct venting. We would put in a wall vent at the highest outer point in the room, to pull smoke away from the smoke detectors.
My parents did not (and still do not) have a vent, nor did many others in the neighborhood, but I haven't had to clean any of those spaces w/in living memory, so I don't know how much of an issue it might really be. If it matters, the range will be surrounded by wooden countertops on three sides. Any thoughts? Thanks much,
You may want to check your local codes to see if a vent is required.
I have a mountain cootage with a stove that is not vented. It is about 5 feet from a window that can be opened in case a cook causes too much smoke. I am not a big cook, so for me no vent is OK. Someone who uses 4 burners at a time and/or tends to burn food may have a problem not having a vent.
People have cooked for decades without vents. They just clean a bit more and open windows. If you have seating on the peninsula, though, you'll probably want to ban people from there when you're cooking.
The kitchen we have now does not have a vent and I wish that it did because the smells from cooking linger longer and there tends to be a film of cooking residue on everything we keep ontop of the top wall cabinets. But other cleaning such as the fronts of the cabinets does not seem to be any more challenging than cleaning the cabinets of a kitchen I once lived in that had a vent. We have a window in the kitchen but it doesn't seem to help vent much.
When we build our house and new kitchen we will do everything we can to have a powerful hood.
Some things to consider:
Do you cook a lot?
Is this a house you are going to live in for a long time?
Is your kitchen open to other rooms (will smells travel to your living room furniture...)?
It sounds like you have a lot of challenges to putting in a hood. I wish I could tell you that I liked ours without a hood, but I can not. But I can say that we have lived here for years and I haven't stopped cooking.
I have a recirculating hood which I hate. It is a brilliant design.....it sucks the smoke up from the burners and blows it out in your face! (probably because it is also installed too low, and I am tall).
You will find grease on any HORIZONTAL surface in your kitchen, or nearby.
The worst of this is window blinds! I had to replace mine with shutters that could be scrubbed. (at a big expense, I might add). The top of the cabinets is also bad, but at least you can place waxed paper, to replace periodically.
I usually open every window in the area when I'm searing meat or fish (which I don't plan to give up).
If it is so difficult to vent, does that mean that you already have NO venting and that you know what it is like? Or, if you have venting, maybe you should keep it?
Your big problem is nebulized grease and oils, not necessarily smoke.
I'll second the recommendation that you do whatever necessary, even redesign, to get a proper ventilation system. Downdrafts, even though they are inefficient compared to conventional up- or side-pull fans, are still better than not having a vent.
Your window wall might be perfect. Maybe you could just replace one sash with a downdraft unit. We've had ranges in front of windows in two homes. It's wonderful and you do NOT need special glass any more than you need special paint or special cabinet materials beside a range.
David, that is really interesting. Please tell me more! I have a whole wall of glass (fixed) above my counter. Currently, the sink is there, but if I could move the cooktop it would open up so many more possibilities.
Why did you find it wonderful with a cooktop in front of a window? Were the homes contemporary? What ventilation did you use? Why would you need to remove a sash if downdraft ventilation runs down through the bottom of the cabinet and the floor?
I have worried about the extreme temperature changes on the glass due to extreme cold outside hitting hot steam inside. (interior walls near stoves don't have the extreme cold hitting hot to contend with). Are you sure this is nothing to worry about, and that any thermopane would be ok?
Thanks for all your responses. The space is brand new construction, so no one has ever tried cooking in here before. It's basically a big rectangular box 17' x 21', with very funky ceiling slopes and beam bumps in the walls because it's built (asymetrically) into the rooflines of the house. It will be a combined kitchen/dining/living space. The windows are only 28.5" above the floor and must be opened from the bottom, so setting a range against them wouldn't work unless they were rebuilt. Right now there's no budget for that. We did not have a hand in the initial design, or we would have handled a few things differently!
We take cooking seriously--rarely eat out or use prepared foods--and figure we have three cooking issues: steam, smoke, and grease. Smoke & steam is easy to handle with open windows and/or a wall vent. The grease is a different issue. We will have a broiler and will use it for meat & fish. We will probably also grill outdoors fairly frequently, since we're in sunny California. But we do love our occasional fish frys and weekend sausages or bacon! I'd say we'll truly fry foods once a week. Plus all the bits of browning, etc., that go into prep for other recipes. Naturally we try to use a splatter screen--and just as naturally we don't always remember! The ceiling above the range is about 92" high on center, so I figure the counters will catch the worst of the grease. I guess I don't worry about smells (despite the fact that this room will also be our living room) because we do have so many windows (310" total) and a door to the balcony to boot!
Maybe I should ask how easily grease cleans from wooden counters?
Just as a side note, I "fry" bacon and sausage in the oven. I use a sheet pan with sides and it contains the grease, and there's no splatter like with an open grill on the stovetop. Just lay it on there and put it into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or so, until it looks the way you want it. I pour off the grease into a jar that I keep in my fridge.
There's still the smell, but I use an air cleaner afterwards. I much prefer this method to stovetop frying for bacon and sausage and meatballs, too.
We also do most of our frying in the oven. We have an Aga, but as Eva says, it works in any oven. The difference is that the Aga vents the smells out the chimney (not always good if you're in the process of burning something you didn't mean to burn!) and the oven is self-cleaning because the constant heat just carbonizes whatever is left behind from cooking. That's why it's so convenient to do more cooking in the oven, and why most Aga owners don't have an overhead vent. My kitchen feels cleaner than before.
My old kitchen didn't have a vent system, but we have lots of doors and windows so we could always cross-ventilate if we were producing smoke or steam. I didn't find it to be unusually greasy, but then I also didn't have overhead cabinets near the stovetop.
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