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09/05/2023The Ugly Truth about Indoor Pollution, and Effective Ways to Fight It
It’s easy to find a range hood that suits your design needs without considering all its ventilation capabilities. Is the model you chose adequate and powerful enough to keep you safe? Is it appropriate for your space? Don’t ignore proper air circulation and extraction in your kitchen, as multiple dangers can linger if you don’t address the dangers of poor ventilation! Discover the hazards and pollution sources in your home – and the new range technologies that can help you prevent them on a daily basis!
Cooking Hazards in the Kitchen
Did you know that a family of four can produce up to one gallon of grease per year while cooking, according to Zephyr. If it isn’t vented properly, that grease can saturate your clothes, carpets, walls and draperies, and it can leave contaminants lingering in the air.
On top of this damage, improper ventilation and poor air quality can cause health hazards at home that would be considered illegal in commercial settings. Nitrogen dioxide from combustion is itself a great risk to your family, generating respiratory issues and reducing oxygen distribution. Stove burners also produce microparticles that can enter your bloodstream if there’s inadequate ventilation.
Other Air Pollution Sources in Your Home
In addition to the multiple dangers of poor ventilation caused by cooking in your kitchen, other sources of air pollution also contribute to the risk factors, such as second-hand smoke, radon, volatile compounds from many products and fabrics you use, ozone, and contaminants from viruses, dusts and pests.
How to Prevent These Problems
The best way to ensure your safety at home is to check your home’s ventilation!
Do you have a bathroom fan that you actually turn on and regularly clean? Bathroom exhaust fans reduce levels of pollutants vaporized from hot water usage in showers.
If you have a gas stove/cooktop, make sure it’s properly adjusted to provide a blue flame, not a yellow one, a well-known cause of harmful emissions, according to the EPA & U.S. Consumer Product and Safety Commission Study.
Does your kitchen’s ventilation system remove contaminants to the outside? Is it powerful enough for your space?
There’s a vast array of hoods out there to suit your needs; the Guide to the Good, the Better, and the Best Range Hoods – Inspiring Appliances will help you determine which one is right one for you.
New Technologies in Range Hoods
To ensure your home is a safe and healthy place to live in and reduce the dangers of poor ventilation, new technologies have been introduced that make some range hoods a cut above the rest. Let’s take a look at those features.
Perimetric Suction Systems
A perimeter suction system changes the way kitchen range hood filters draw in air! Various slots around the hood speed up air to increase suction and performance. These panels have a more streamlined design and offer increased efficiency, and they can cut noise by 25% while allowing for easy cleaning. This video shows how this works with a Zephyr Lux capture test.
PowerWave™ Blower Technology
A new trend in improved blower technology is emerging in the market. One example is Zephyr’s PowerWave™ Blower Technology. A PowerWave™ blower has a whopping 750 CFM power, and there’s an option to combine two blowers to achieve 1,300 CFM power, which makes this the most powerful internal blower on the market. It delivers more powerful suction but uses less energy, with virtually silent operation. This blower technology uses three-phase AC power instead of the one-phase power used in traditional range hoods. This helps increase torque and efficiency and provides constant power. Its unique aerodynamic blades generate only a whisper-quiet 0.5 sone with the single blower, and 1 sone with the dual blower, which is like the gentle hum of a refrigerator.
Cloud Controls
Did you know there are now mobile apps that allow you to control your range hood even when you’re not home (Faber Cloud App, Zephyr Connect App)?
Away on vacation? Turn on your range hood to circulate the air and keep your place fresh while you’re away.
Get notifications when your hood’s grease filters need cleaning or there’s a problem you should be aware of.
Wi-Fi-enabled hoods can even be voice-controlled with devices such as Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Home, making it easy to turn your range hood on or off hands-free!
Look for these symbols if you want a Cloud-controlled hood:
Noise Reduction System (NRS®)
Thanks to Falmec’s Noise Reduction System (NRS®), your range hood will no longer keep you from having a quiet conversation in the kitchen – with no loss of efficiency! An 86% noise reduction is a much-needed feature that you’ll appreciate. See how Falmec does it here.
Click here to discover which hoods are equipped with NRS®.
Auto-Delay Shut-Off, Heat Sensor, and Continuous Clean-Air Technology
These three technologies are awesome features in many of today’s range hoods, all designed to achieve one thing: CLEAN AIR IN YOUR HOME!
Auto-Delay Shut-Off
We all know how long certain smells can linger in a home! With auto-delay shutoff, your hood will keep doing its job for 10, 15 or 30 minutes after you’re finished cooking – and you won’t have to come back and turn it off.
Heat Sensor
Through built-in heat sensors, your hood will turn on automatically when your stove temperature rises above 130°F. Never forget to turn your hood on again with this technology!
Continuous Clean-Air Technology
Prevent stale air from accumulating in your house with this technology! This function will automatically turn your hood on every so often to circulate the air in your home, keeping your home fresh and odour-free around the clock.
These are just a few of the many technologies that you’ll find in various range hoods. Ventilation manufacturers are constantly innovating and improving their products with better technologies that all have one goal – to improve quality of life in your home with better ventilation. Keep up to date by checking our Ventilation page, and find out how you can get hold of the latest and greatest range hood!
