Residential Kitchen Hoods: Improving your Home AC Efficiency

• Energy Efficiency

Restaurant owners are very familiar with the comfort issues associated with unbalanced kitchen hoods, but how does this relate to residential kitchens? New codes and potential changes to accommodate these changes are leading residential constructors to consider adding make-up air systems to homes. These make up most of the air lost to the kitchen hood. As kitchen hoods get bigger and more powerful, using a high end kitchen hood at maximum settings for long periods of time can cause losses to cool air supplied to the property. Make up air systems should be tuned to the property and exhaust fan flows, an even bigger challenge with continuously variable fans on high end hoods. More discussion (and solutions) will be following, but if you are a frequent heavy user of your range and high end hood, consider cracking open a nearby window (or door) to allow for a makeup air path outside of your HVAC system. You may be surprised at how your system’s cooling performance improves during heavy cooking periods.

Authored by: George Drazic
President, Efficient Air Conditioning & Electric