While buying a kitchen hood/chimney, kitchen design, quality and strength are important factors to think about.

There is a wide range of kitchen hood available in market today like, ductable kitchen hood vs recyclable kitchen hood, wall mounted, stand-alone (for island kitchen), etc.

Hood Finish Material

Hoods again are available in wide range of designs like stainless steel to glass finish, with different suction power and filters- mesh filter to baffle filter.

Duct arrangement

Usually contractor or interior designer needs to check with kitchen design if duct space is available or not. If there’s a provision for duct, then what type and size of duct shall be installed, all of these details are shared and discussed with home owner.

Inspection by Company Technician

For home who are not aware of type of kitchen hood and other details, they need not worry. Usually when home owner go to shop for kitchen hood, a good shopkeeper will always acknowledge home owners with the same. Not only that many shopkeeper do recommend home owners to request the company representative to inspect the kitchen design and requirements and suggest accordingly.

But I suggest all home owners to use a kitchen hood with duct as they are much better performance wise, with low noise and better air quality than recyclable or ductless kitchen hood. But if there’s no space available and have to use recyclable or ductless kitchen hood, check with the manufacturer/dealer if the hood you are buying can be used in desired way.

In some kitchen hood style you may have to purchase additional parts so as to convert kitchen hood to recyclable one.

In-Built Lights

Other minor thing that usually goes unnoticed is the type of light in the chimney. Traditionally chimneys had a basic type of light, but with technology, there are chimney available with different types of chimney lights. Halogen lights are one most commonly used and preferred. The light type inside the chimney cannot be changed because if you do so, the fittings need to change accordingly. The chimney is designed and manufactured where to change the light and its fittings is not possible. So weather you like it or not, once you got chimney, you cannot change the type of light and its fitting.

The whole idea of having lights in chimney is to know when its operational and secondly when switched on, the lights fall on the cooking range which gives a beautiful aesthetic appeal to your kitchens.