Kitchen hood is a mechanical device you will see in kitchens of many modern homes. The hood contains a canopy that covers area right above the stove and a fan or blower to remove/throw the steam, odor and heat caused by cooking. This feature of hood helps maintain kitchen environment while cooking and makes cleaning much easier. And therefore kitchen range hood is said to be one of the most important appliance in modern kitchens.

There are 2 type of range hoods- Ducted range hood and Ductless range Hood.

A Ducted range hood is a hood with duct that has a fan/blower hanging inside that throws out the odor and heat through the ducts installed with the hood. Here the odor, heat and steam is thrown out of the room through the ducts. Having a ducted hood is any day a better option because its performance is 100%.

But in some places like Mumbai city and other metro cities where there is already space issue, home owners can opt for ductless hoods. You can call them ductless or circulating or recycle hoods, they all mean the same.

Here in circulating range hood, the smoke, odor & heat is drawn up through some type of filtration system in the range hood. The filtration system may either have charcoal or carbon/similar type or even both. The filtration system will clean the odor, absorb heat and smoke before it is recirculated back in the room. The issue having this type of a range hood is that the filtration system/ filters need to be changes periodically, say every 6-8 months. Also with some company range hoods, the filters are not easily available. Moreover it has been observed that the performance of these ductless range hood reduces to almost 50% to the performance of range hoods with duct.

Therefore I suggest, if possible, every home owners should choose Ducted Range Hoods.