A commercial exhaust hood, or even a number of hoods, depending on the size of the kitchen, is crucial to any commercial kitchen venture. These are needed for any commercial cooking where grease is involved, to extract the heat and grease-laden vapors generated, so the kitchen runs safely. It is important to get the right equipment for your situation. With a properly designed commercial hood system, you can keep your business legal as well as run it efficiently. It’s not possible to use a hood made for a domestic kitchen in a restaurant or commercial food preparation area, because of the level of heat, grease and vapor produced in commercial kitchens, of whatever size.
A commercial hood vent needs to remove steam, smoke, grease and heat from the food preparation area. This is why commercial vent hoods are installed directly over the heating areas in your restaurant. Then they can collect heat and grease at source. There are baffle filters inside the vent hood to filter out as much grease as possible so it doesn’t enter the ducts forming your ventilation system. The type of baffles you will need are determined by the cooking system in your kitchen, however, even with the best baffle filters, some grease will get through and the system will need regular cleaning. Because of this residual grease, it is vital to be able to clean the ventilation fan and the ductwork from the top, and this means you will need a hinged cover on the exhaust fan in the vent hood. This will reduce the risk of fire hazards and keep your kitchen safe.
Along with the heat and the grease-laden vapors, the exhaust fan also removes air from your commercial kitchen and that needs to be replaced. This is done with a “make-up air unit”. This brings in clean, fresh and usually cooler air to the kitchen and makes up for the hot greasy air removed by the fan. In total, the extraction canopy for the removal and the make-up air unit for replacement of hot air by clean fresh air, form part of any industrial kitchen hood system.
If you are in Ireland or Northern Ireland and need a stainless steel commercial vent hood or extraction canopy, you can get information and a quote on local fabrication and installation from http://stainlesscateringsupplies.co.uk/