Even if you have already made repairs in the kitchen and would not like to “smash” it again, you may well make some changes to its design. These operations include the installation of a hood in the kitchen with your own hands. Of course, you should first decide what type of hood is required for you. Perhaps this is where we will begin.
What are they like?
As for the type, they are divided into filtration and evacuation. The first of them drive the air in the room through a filter system, and the second simply throw it into the environment. In general, in the artisanal version of “modernization,” you can easily install a
carbon filter in a cheap evacuation hood
.But you should not especially strive for this: even industrial products of this class do not provide really high-quality air purification, and their cost is often prohibitive. In addition, the installation instructions for hoods of this class provide for a complete loss of warranty for any independent actions.
There are built-in and desktop, fireplace and ceiling. We will not talk for a long time about the types and their virtues. We will only say that for most homeowners, the island hood, installed directly above the hob (or gas stove), is really the best option. It is better known as a hood hood. This device got its name for the name of the receiving part, which actually resembles a dome.
About electrical safety issues
Before you install the hood in the kitchen, do a little work yourself, ensuring yourself and your family complete safety, eliminating the minimum possibility of electric shock.
The fact is that this category of kitchen appliances belongs to the category of potentially dangerous ones, so it is simply unacceptable to approach this issue negligently. You should know that the hoods are connected to the household network with three wires: phase, zero, and earth, which is easy to identify by the yellow color of the wire used, on which a longitudinal green stripe is still applied. It is imperative to provide a high-quality and reliable grounding in advance!
In no case should you cling to a water, gas or other pipe, to a battery. Remember that this contradicts the basic safety rules, so as a result of your rash actions, people may well suffer! It should cling to a dull neutral. How to do it?
Important!
All the actions described below, if you are not a professional electrician, we strongly advise you not to do it yourself! Be sure to call a specialist or a familiar electrician, but do not climb into the shield yourself!
Connect to neutral
Carefully open the input shield, not forgetting about the danger of electric shock. Most likely, all supply wires enter the shield from a certain metal pipe. Surely on the pipe there is some kind of pin, more or less cleaned from old paint and rust, to which the wires are connected. This is the desired neutral: from it to the apartment you need to extend a wire with a cross section of at least 2.5 mm. The hood itself should be connected to the network through a 6.3 A machine.
Once again about security issues
If you are interested in not only installing the hood in the kitchen with your own hands, but also your own life, then in no case should you ever throw off the “ground” in the form of other wires to make room for your own! It is unlikely, but you can still "catch" the discharge. Alas, ridiculous deaths occur for this reason annually.
Ventilation - Above All!
It should be remembered that the usual installation of an exhaust hood in the kitchen with one's own hands most often seriously violates the regular ventilation of the room, the capabilities of which were established at the design stage of the building. Woe-masters recommend solving the problem in two ways: either by punching a channel into the central shaft, or directly into the street. Both of these methods are incorrect and can lead to serious problems. Including legislative: before doing something like this, you will have to obtain a separate permit in the BTI.
In principle, punching (if allowed) of a separate ventilation passage to the street allows you to get rid of kitchen odors and soot with a guarantee, but it will almost certainly lead to failure of the fan, since condensate will constantly settle on it in this case. With all the "flowing" consequences in the form of a short circuit or something like that.
So what to do? The way out of this situation is simple: it is enough to install an additional section of the air duct, equipping it with a clapper valve.
How to neutralize unpleasant odors?
Very often, the installation of a hood in a private house (and even more so in an apartment) is accompanied by the installation of air converters. There are three types of devices on sale:
- Chemical.
- Electroionization.
- Ultraviolet.
We will analyze each type in a little more detail. The chemical variety is the most unreliable option. Their working surface is instantly clogged with a film of fat, and therefore they fail long before the "official" exhaustion of the warranty period. In addition, there is evidence that the substances released by them are far from being as safe for human health as manufacturers say. In addition, “chemistry” is far from cheap.
Electroionization neutralizers have almost the same principle of operation as conventional room air ionizers. It’s just that the air in the kitchen’s room is so saturated with gases that the appliance has to “hold” such a discharge that the “crown” that is often seen by the eye often appears. All this leads to the fact that the air is excessively saturated with negative ions, which is not too beneficial for human health. Almost every second hood hood in kitchens of foreign manufacture is equipped with such devices.
Ultraviolet lamps are also gradually tightened with a thin coating of fat. In addition, the lamps have to be changed quite often. But such a converter has the most attractive technical characteristics: a lamp emits harmful ultraviolet light in a day less than you get when you are outdoors for a couple of hours on a sunny day. Along the way, the issue of sanitation is also being addressed, since UV rays are harmful to harmful bacteria.
When it is planned to install a hood in a private house, the latter circumstance becomes even more important: a lot of microorganisms and unpleasant odors can get into the house from the street, so the converter becomes a really profitable acquisition.
About duct
Immediately warn that kitchen hoods in the vast majority of cases are not equipped with air ducts. In the most optimal embodiment, corrugated aluminum pipe with a diameter corresponding to that for the exhaust pipe is ideally suited for its role. The aerodynamic resistance of the corrugation (with a length of up to one and a half meters) can be safely neglected. Since we will consider installing the hood in a cabinet, this is exactly the case.
The advantages of the corrugation are the exceptional simplicity of processing aluminum, which in this case can be cut with ordinary household scissors. In addition, when using such a corrugation, the possibility of a sharp, resonating sound, which at night can wake up half of the neighbors, is completely excluded. Of course, this material does not look too aesthetically pleasing, and therefore you should preoccupy yourself with making a decorative box that will hide all your flaws.
The best option would be to directly install the hood above the stove, since in this case it will be possible to capture absolutely all the fumes and odors.
What tool will you need to work?
First of all, you need to buy or rent from someone an electric jigsaw with a carbide file, which gives the cleanest and most even cut. All other tools (hammer, drill, screwdriver, tape measure and level) are probably at everyone's home. Moreover, this applies to cases when it is planned to install the hood in a private house.
We’ll warn you right away. In the article, we will consider the option with a hood mounted in a cabinet above the hob. Since we will do it with our own hands, this approach will dramatically improve the decorative properties of the structure, reliably masking all design mistakes. Do not forget that the installation height of the hood is at least 70 centimeters above the stove. If you hang it below, then you can forget about design refinements: your whole structure will quickly become smoky, and may even break out from the intense heat.
Features of mounting the hood in a private house
Let us immediately draw your attention to the fact that everything stated in this article can be safely used in this case. Installing the hood in the kitchen of a private house is practically no different from installing it in the kitchen of an apartment building, but there are some features that are worth considering.
Let's list them individually:
- Firstly, all places of contact with the ceiling and walls should be carefully insulated. After all, in the apartment all these parts are made of concrete, but in a private wooden house ... in a word, it’s better not to risk it.
- Secondly, there are far fewer problems with ventilation. In your house - you are your own boss, and therefore you can punch a hole under it anywhere. Important! Still, you should not take the box directly to the street, as this is fraught with the formation of condensation on the engine (we wrote about this). But! If you plan to install a gas exhaust, then you will have to go to gas workers without fail. Without their permission, you cannot do anything in this area!
In general, the features end there, all the rest has no differences.
Features of installation in the bathroom
Finally, what are the features of installing a hood in the bathroom? Firstly, you should pay attention to the thoroughness of the waterproofing of all structural parts. Secondly, you definitely cannot avoid a visit to the relevant bureaucratic bodies (BTI), since in most cases you will have to punch a wall, and you need to obtain a separate permit for this.
Installing a hood in the bathroom will not bring you any other troubles. You can also use the option proposed in the article by mounting this unit in a bath cabinet, which will allow you to disguise weighty equipment, hiding it from prying eyes. So, let's get started.
Clapper (check valve)
We begin work with the manufacture of a box with a clapperboard (it is also a check valve). As a material, it is most advisable to use thin aluminum. Galvanized metal or ordinary tin is also suitable.
It is best to place the valve in a cabinet suspended directly above the hob. In the ventilation window itself, the clapperboard can be mounted using the most ordinary mounting foam, and it is best to stick it to ordinary sealants on the cabinet itself. The latter completely eliminates the possibility of resonance.
Of course, first on the upper surface of the cabinet you need to carefully make a markup that is fully consistent with the lower window of the valve. This can be done simply by temporarily removing the damper in the clapperboard itself and outlining the contour of the future hole with a pencil. The sides of the valve are also desirable to note on the "pattern", as this will greatly simplify further installation.
Cupboard
Keep in mind that the installation height of the hood above the stove should be at least 70-75 centimeters above the level of the hob! We release the kitchen cabinet, remove it from the mounts. Using an electric jigsaw, cut a hole of the required size. To simplify your work and make the contours more straightforward, first drill holes along the contour (drill diameter - within 8 mm) in increments of 0.5-1 cm, and only then start working with a jigsaw.
If your skills of working with such a tool are far from perfect, you should not worry, because no one will see your flaws with the installation method described by us. The main thing is that the hood itself looks beautiful. With your own hands, you still have to do a lot for this!
The shelves are also removable. By the method described by us, we cut holes in them for mounting the duct. In this case, the more you should not strive to achieve microscopic accuracy, since a flexible and well-wrinkled corrugation will fit perfectly anywhere. Then in the upper board of the cabinet we cut a hole under the lower window of the cracker, not forgetting to leave an allowance of five millimeters on each side. Here it’s worth trying to do everything as carefully as possible. Of course, carelessness can be hidden with a sealant, but it tends to peel off from the surface over time, so that the valve can simply fall out of the grooves.
Since the installation height of the hood above the stove is not too great, it has every chance of a great “brown” on the fire, so there’s no reason to risk it.
Corrugation Installation
We lay the cabinet back, carefully insert the duct pipe into the holes made earlier. We form its profile (squeezing by hands), then we put it into the upper hole. The formed corners must be carefully trimmed with scissors and bent to the outside of the cabinet.
Clapper installation
The cabinet with the corrugation, which you mounted with such difficulty, is hung in its rightful place. On the incised ends of the aluminum bell, as well as under them, gently apply the sealant sausages. We are not in a hurry or in a hurry: the more carefully you apply the sealant, the stronger the hood will sit. Do it yourself do not create yourself the same problems in the future! If you neglect this work, you will constantly inhale those kitchen aromas that (theoretically) should have gone outside. Do not leave gaps!
Final stage
We begin the installation of the hood. We insert its neck into the corresponding cutout in the upper wall of the cabinet. Corrugation does not need to be fixed immediately, since the exhaust pipe will still push it up. Carefully fasten the hood in the cabinet using self- tapping screws or bolted connections.
Only after that we put the corrugation on the exhaust pipe and carefully fix it with a suitable clamp. Sealant is not worth pouring: firstly, it will greatly complicate the maintenance of the installation. In addition, the pressure in the system will be reduced, and therefore nothing will fall into the kitchen. Finally, creasing corrugation in itself will be excellent insulation.
Finally, the installation of the hood is finished! We hope you learned about the highlights. It is not necessary to follow our advice and push the hood into the cabinet, as you yourself can come up with options for attaching it.