Singer, Brett C., Max H. Sherman, Toshifumi Hotchi, and Douglas P. Sullivan
Year:
2011
Bibliographic info:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Capture efficiency (CE) of exhaust from a natural gas cooking range was quantified for three  common designs of residential range hoods in laboratory experiments: (A) microwave exhaust combination; (B) short hood with grease-screen-covered air inlet at bottom; and (C) deep, open hood exhausting at top. Devices were evaluated at varying installation heights, at highest and lowest fan settings, and with the hood installed 15 cm away from back wall with intent to improve CE for front burners. Each configuration was evaluated for the oven and for three cooktop burner combinations (two back, two front, one front and one back). At highest fan settings and standard installation against the wall, Hoods A and C captured back cooktop burner exhaust at >90% and Hood B at >80%. In this configuration, CE for front burner exhaust was 73-78% for Hoods A and C but only 46-63% for Hood B. CEs followed similar patterns but were substantially lower on the lowest fan speed. Installing the hood away from the wall improved CE for oven and front burners on Hood A at low speed, but substantially reduced CE for back burners for all hoods at low and high speed.