Introduction
Cooking is a messy affair that creates a lot of smoke, grease, and grime. Regularly cleaning and/or changing your range hood filter(s) will keep your air cleaner and ensure your fan motor lasts longer.
Step by step
Most kitchens will have some sort of range hood over the cooktop. These serve a dual function of pulling heat out of the kitchen while cooking as well as venting smells, smoke, grease, and steam.
Smaller kitchens with residential style ranges often have recirculating style hoods. These are often built on to the bottom of the microwave, but also come as dedicated range hoods. Recirculating hoods don’t have a vent to the outside but rather pull air through filters and send it back in to the kitchen. They don’t do anything to remove heat but if used with carbon filters, they do an ok job of removing smells and grease.
Larger kitchens with professional style gas ranges require much more powerful venting. These units exhaust to the outdoors in order to remove the massive amount of heat created by powerful burners. Since they don’t recirculate air, they normally won’t have carbon filters. However, they may have grease cups designed to collect grease from frying or wok style cooking.
The third kind of exhaust vent commonly found in kitchens are downdraft. Rather than being mounted above the range, these are designed to pull a powerful draft of air down from the cooktop. They can either be a pop up style or be integrated in to the cooktop itself. Some units exhaust externally but usually these are recirculating designs.
The exact method of replacing each type of filter will vary by unit type. However, most will be designed to remove for cleaning. Here’s a general step by step process.
- Clean grease filters
Most units will have a mesh style stainless steel or aluminum filter that is designed to catch grease. These don’t have any fill inside of them that wears out so they rarely need to be replaced, but they should be cleaned every 6-12 months (more often if you do a lot of greasy cooking). Since the biggest thing they trap is grease, the best thing to clean them with is normal dish detergent.
Remove the filters (usually held in by easily accessible tabs) and soak in warm soapy water. Use a normal dish brush to gently wash filter after soaking. Pat dry with a dish towel and leave in a strainer to dry. Note that some filters are dishwasher safe, as will usually be indicated on the filter.
Replace filter once dry.
Here’s a short video on how to complete this step of the process.
- Clean grease cups (if applicable. Usually only pro style ranges)
Some pro style ranges will have grease cups designed to capture grease buildup from cooking styles like frying or wok cooking. Depending on how much you cook like this, you may need to clean these.
The process will vary for each style range, but generally you can remove carefully (they’ll have grease in them so be careful not to spill), drain the grease, wash with detergent, and replace. Full details is provided by Wolf appliances here. - Replace carbon filters
If you have a recirculating style range hood, chances are you have carbon (also called charcoal) filters in series with your grease filters. These are designed to remove cooking odors but they will wear down over time and need to be replaced. Cleaning carbon filters doesn’t help them at all and will just make a mess in your sink!
Your specific hood will take a specific type of carbon filter and we can’t easily list them all. The good news is you should be able to find them pretty quickly online by searching Google for your “hood model + carbon filter” and then you can purchase from Amazon.
These filters are changed very similarly to how your grease filter is changed. They are usually designed to go in series, meaning you’ll put them behind or on top of the grease filter as a second line of defense. - Mark Complete
You’re done! This simple task keeps grease from building up in your fan motor and the reduced resistance makes it work less, savings you energy ($$$) and extending motor life. Mark it complete in your Propsee profile and we’ll remind you to complete again in 6 months.