Cooks NEED vents!

In perhaps the first few minutes of our initial consultation with our salesperson/designer, M, we stressed that our current, externally venting range hood absolutely had to continue to vent outside and be more powerful than the one we had. Five and a half weeks of construction in (and a year or more after that conversation with M), our project manager wanted to meet with us to discuss whether a vented (ducted, in range-hood parlance) was possible. We were horrified. Both Dan and I love to cook, and Dan loves to cook extremely smelly dishes: think French Onion Soup smelly (cooking for hours and four to five rounds of deglazing). It is so smelly that I insisted that this dish–which I love to eat–was verboten in the old kitchen unless all windows could be open to assist the range hood.

So we had been sanguine about having a new kitchen that could handle anything with new power fans and venting. Then the scare this week: workers wondered whether we have to have a recirculating fan!?!? Our project manager and awesome crew investigated options for a true ducted range hood and gave us some specs. Fortunately, we had not ordered a range hood in advance. If we had, the specs we were advised at first most certainly would not have worked with the new specs because the “fix” is to route the ducting around a few spaces, which requires much more power (and duct size) than the guidance we originally had. Our delay was just indecision, but it was helpful in the end. The range hood we selected –and was approved by the crew–is a powerful copper-clad model that will echo the architechure of the cherry cabinets. We hadn’t intended to get copper, but we think it will go well with the other accoutrements.

And it is powerful. Bring on the onion soup!

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