Fresh Air In The Kitchen: 8 Ways To Improve Your Kitchen Ventilation
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Fresh air can help maintain the air quality in the kitchen by removing cooking odors, toxic fumes, and other harmful chemicals that can affect kitchen operations and cause adverse effects to the cooks and staff.
Read on to enhance your kitchen ventilation. By implementing these strategies, you can guarantee a fresher and pleasantly fresh kitchen area without putting your family at risk of potential health hazards.
8 Simple Ways To Enhance Kitchen Ventilation
Ventilation plays a vital role in promoting better indoor air quality. Proper ventilation can effectively remove smoke and airborne pollutants while significantly improving the hot and cold air circulation to keep a healthier space for you.
Here’s how you can improve your kitchen’s airflow.
1. Consider Adding a Range Hood.
A range hood is an underrated kitchen appliance that can efficiently help improve the ventilation of the cooking area. It can effectively extract and exhaust smoke, grease, and other air pollutants generated whenever you use the kitchen.
However, you must install the range hood to optimize its features strategically. Depending on your kitchen’s design, you can put them right above the stove or anywhere near where you cook to capture all the harmful byproducts that may trigger the occupant’s allergies and other respiratory illnesses.
Maintaining your kitchen’s integrity and airflow depends on the range hood’s size and capacity. The range hood must be big enough to cover your stove area to remove air pollutants efficiently.
Most range hoods also have built-in aluminum grease filters that remove foul odors and trap grease and particles.
2. Opt for a Ducted System
Your duct system also plays a vital role in providing comfort in your kitchen and probably your whole house. Its duct system efficiently regulates the entire house’s airflow and room temperature. It has zoning capabilities that control which area’s temperature needs ventilation rather than ventilating the whole building. This feature allows you to save more money on your monthly energy bill.
In addition, duct systems today have air filters, purifiers, and humidity control devices that are all important to improve your kitchen’s indoor air quality.
3. Utilize Natural Ventilation
Natural ventilation also helps make your kitchen smell fresh by allowing the fresh air to carry out the odor and other airborne contaminants. Thus, if you are still working on your kitchen area or is renovating it, utilize multifunctional architectural features that can aesthetically improve your kitchen’s visual appeal and, at the same time, serve as ventilation. Consider checking smoke vents, such as Bilco Acoustical Smoke Vent, skylights, and roof hatches that let light and air pass through them.
Proper ventilation will also prevent mold formation, which may affect the food you prepare for your guests. The outside dry air can help mitigate mold and mildew problems through proper air circulation.
4. Use Ceiling Fans or Portable Fans
Ceiling and portable fans are the traditional air flow regulators we can still use today. They are highly efficient and cost-effective devices that can effectively enhance the kitchen area’s comfort.
However, you need to strategically position them to ensure that they will cover the entire kitchen’s indoor air and remove the cooking area’s stuffiness allowing you to prepare the ingredients of your favorite dish comfortably.
Learn the different ventilation techniques in your kitchen for ceiling fans and portable fans to maximize the benefits they offer. Start with cross-ventilation, a cost-effective way of maximizing the kitchen’s overall ventilation by maximizing its cooling effect.
5. Consider Exhaust Fans
Exhaust fans have similar functions with range hoods, carbon monoxide removal, and enhanced ventilation as their primary differences. The former is excellent in removing cooking byproducts such as carbon monoxide, which can put a family member at risk of respiratory risks or gas poisoning.
The exhaust fans are also suitable for maintaining your kitchen’s oxygen levels which is essential for people working there. Preventing CO and indoor air pollutant buildup will transform your kitchen into a more conducive place to cook.
6. Keep the Kitchen Windows Open
Kitchens must have windows to allow the outside air to flow freely inside and help release odor, smoke, and other contaminants. Thus, consider installing a window if your kitchen has no kitchen windows. It is one of the best natural ventilation that you can utilize to keep your kitchen healthy environment.
In addition, like skylights, it can also allow natural light to light your kitchen area, saving you from monthly energy costs.
Thus, keep your windows open to invite fresh air, which is very important, especially if you are busy cooking multiple dishes for a big occasion which may cause the area to generate extreme heat and create a stale environment. Allowing outdoor air through your windows will keep the room cool and comfortable to work at.
7. Invest in Air Purifiers with HEPA
Purifiers with High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) are the perfect devices to remove harmful particles in your kitchen. HEPA filters can capture small particles such as mold spores, dust, and pollens, unlike other machines and tools. Some advanced purifiers with HEPA can also trap bacteria and viruses, which is an excellent way of improving your kitchen or your home’s overall air quality.
Consider installing these purifiers, especially if you have a household member with an allergy or asthma. They are known to lessen respiratory symptoms, triggers, and attacks by continuously circulating and filtering the air and maintaining a cleaner kitchen space.
8. Utilize Your Stove’s Back Burner
Strategically cooking in your kitchen also helps to maintain the comfort of the entire cooking area. One of the strategies you must employ is to use your stove’s back burner, the closest burner to the hood fan, which removes smoke and grease from cooking. It also allows fumes to go directly to the hood’s airflow and other contaminants.
Conclusion
Allowing fresh air in the kitchen benefits you and the kitchen’s health. Thus, it is essential that you must consider the 8 Ways to Improve Your Kitchen Ventilation, from installing a range hood and duct system to utilizing natural ventilation, windows, exhaust fans, ceiling fans, and air purifiers to prevent respiratory illnesses and enhance your cooking area’s air quality and comfort.
