Range Hood Maintenance: How Exhausting
🙃 Because you don't need more barbecue ideas right now
Some people might be embarrassed to say that it took three months for two people with multiple graduate degrees to replace a lightbulb. Luckily, I’m not one of those people.
You’ve likely had plenty of grilling recipes this week so I’m offering you a diversion — our recent experiences with the range hood. You may either identify with, laugh at, or get pointers from my story. You may have experiences of your own to share or have questions to pose.
The range hood is an unsexy appliance. It sucks. It’s noisy. It gets greasy, gross, and gummy. Few people talk about it, but if you cook, sooner or later you end up dealing with the range hood, which is basically just a sophisticated exhaust fan.
My family has long obsessed about venting cooking smells. In my parent’s first home in America, my mom set up a series of box and pedestal fans to convey the cooking odors from her kitchen to the outside world. I don’t recall an stove exhaust fan in that 1950s kitchen. She and my dad didn’t think of adding one when they purchased the house in the late 1970s. After all, in Vietnam, there were no such thing as range hoods. However, there were lots of electric fans!
When Rory and I lived together in Los Angeles, none of our 1940s-era rental apartments had kitchen exhaust systems. We made our own. We opened windows and like my my mom, we set up an electric fan. Rory went a step further by wedging a second small box fan right in the window box. He was a keeper. 💗
We became homeowners in 2003 and since then, have renovated our kitchen twice. The first time was when we’d just bought the house. Our modest budget afforded us a sweet but inexperienced general contractor. Ours was his first project, he enthusiastically announced. He was a God fearing fellow so we trusted him.
Years later, when the range hood crapped out and had to be replaced, we found out that it was not securely attached to the tube that lead to the roof. Unbeknownst to me, my cooking odors were merely transported to the attic.
I remember assisting the contractor when he installed the range hood (he gave me a discount for being his occasional helper). He assured me that the thing blew out lots of air. But it was obviously not heading to where it was supposed to. Oh well.
In 2019, we’d saved up enough for my forever kitchen renovation. My kitchen functions as my work lab so I knew what I needed.
My dream range hood requirements:
Lots of suction power with a tolerable noise level
A unit wider than my stove to efficiently capture particles
Easy-to-clean parts such as dishwasher-safe durable filters
Stainless steel, handsome professional look because I live where I work
Relative affordability because I’ve done cheap and they don’t last or don’t vent well enough
At friends’ homes, I test drove Vent-a-hood units with “Magic Lung” design. They didn’t impress me much and the price for my modest needs was nearly $2000. I went to a fancy home appliance shop and turned on a bunch of range hoods. I’m a button pusher, knob turner, and door opener kind of of appliance shopper.
In the end, I chose a 36-inch wide Zline (model 619-36, at Home Depot). Before I made the purchase, I asked about replacing the light bulbs. How easy was it? I’m not that handy.
“It’s simple. Just pop them out and put the new ones in,” said the salesperson.
Indeed, I looked at the owner’s manual and that’s what Zline showed.
I bought the Zline, had it installed, and it marvelously removed cooking smells from our kitchen! We no longer woke up each morning being reminded of last night’s dinner. Regular maintenance was easy peasy.
This year, in early April, one of the LED lightbulbs went out. No big deal. There was another. A couple weeks later, the other lightbulb pooped out.
Four years had passed since I looked at the owner’s manual. The instructions referred to a YouTube video which showed a different model.
Great.
With our Zline 619 there was no easy access to the lightbulbs. To top it off, neither the manual or YouTube mentioned what kind of bulb to buy.
Facing work deadlines and our trip to Asia, we put off the lightbulb project. I apologized to our friend, Kate, who housesat for us that she’d have to cook with less light. But maybe she wanted to tackle replacing the bulbs while we were away? She shook her head no. (A girl has to dream, right?)
After we returned from Vietnam we didn’t deal with the bulbs. Our excuse? Jet lag. 🙄
It wasn’t until I invited our friends, chef David Kinch and his partner Maisie, over for a June 30 dinner that I suggested to Rory that we ought to have a well lit range hood again.
He got a screwdriver and flashlight. I put on gloves and readied my cleaning stuff; I knew this would be an opportunity to thoroughly clean the hood.
On June 28, we spent two hours figuring out how to get at the bulbs. We argued about whether it was the bulb or a light bulb unit that had to be replaced. We rewatched the YouTube videos several times. We got pissed off that there were no clues about our particular unit.
We did some yoga moves to finally unscrew the panel to reveal that indeed the entire light bulb unit had to be replaced. I deep cleaned the inside of the range hood with my favorite cleansers.
Finally we had the bulb information — an RS-28B, which seemed like a standard LED bulb for range hoods. The local electrical supply store didn’t carry it and suggested we give our money to Mr. Bezos at Amazon.
We ordered RS-28B in 6000K lumens, hoping to brighten things up. They arrived the next day. But only one bulb worked. There was a note inside the box from Alice, the bulb maker, pleading for only positive Amazon reviews. (Should I borrow from her playbook for my cookbook reviews at Amazon? Thank you for all the ones you’ve written — thus far. I need them. Always. 😉)
I wasn’t angry at Alice. I wasn’t going to leave a review about an item that’s so easily returned or exchange.
But the 6000K bulb was super bright and super cold — like jail cell cold. We returned the bulbs to Alice and ordered 4000K and 3000K bulbs. We didn’t have the energy to screw the light panel back in place so we sorta tucked the wires here and there to neaten things up.
Meantime, David and Maisie came for dinner and without decent lighting, I opted for an easy going menu. Most of the cooking drama happened outdoors at the grill.
Dinner was bun cha Hanoi-style grilled pork with rice noodles and nuoc cham (what I grew up on and what President Obama and Anthony Bourdain in Hanoi). I followed my recipe in Vietnamese Food Any Day.
Days later, the new bulbs arrived with again, notes from Alice. We tested all of them. They worked.
Which one was better — 4000K or 3000K? Which would you choose?
Rory liked the warm glow of 3000K. I thought it made my skin jaundice-looking. What would my cooking photos for you be like?
He deferred to me and I selected 4000K lumens.
😩 Ten days had passed since we took the light panel apart. We forgot how to get things lined up. Another 30 minutes of frustration, with Rory saying things like:
This is MONSTROUS. The panel is 1/4 inch bigger than the space! It’s diabolical! How the hell do they expect people to do this?
Having cleaned and reassembled the filters for four years, I remembered that the light panel strangely sat in the unit so that the filters were angled. Somehow that got Rory to slide the panel into position.
Then we had to screw everything back into place. Holes had to line up. We performed more backbends. Screws had to be magnetically held at the tip of the screwdriver and inserted and turned. The screws kept falling off and we had to find them. More frustration and arguments over how to screw in the screws.
I suggested that we leave the thing mostly unscrewed.
“Are you kidding? Once the fan is going the whole thing will shake like an old airplane!” Rory said. It’s true. Zline filters will rattle if not properly placed.
I’m more limber so I did a deep backbend, spotted the holes while he held the flashlight and handed me the screwdriver and a screw. After I got the screw started, we switched so he could firmly screw it in. There were six screws altogether.
Finally, I used a fingernail to remove the blue plastic covering the light bulb frames to reveal the stainless steel metal.
To celebrate, we did a joyful dance in the kitchen.
Three months of dilly dallying. Should we have called a handy person or electrician? It may have cost us hundreds of dollars and they would have laughed at our ineptitude. With all the time between Amazon shipment arrivals, I got to thoroughly clean the range hood.
Years from now when the LED bulbs go out again, I hope we’ll remember how to replace them.
Next week we celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary. If anyone asks our secret to happiness? I’d point to the range hood and turn on the lights.
🙋🏻 Would I recommend the Zline 619-36 Range Hood? Anymore about the 2020 kitchen?
Here’s a video for you to decide on the looks and noise level.
After I did my 2020 kitchen remodel, I wrote a number of blog posts to share insights on how I chose my cabinets, refrigerator, and stove (here and here), and dream kitchen island. I also published pro-tips from my kitchen designer.
✅ If you have insights or questions, use the comments function below!
Thank you for sharing that entirely relatable nightmare! When we installed the range and hood of my dreams, my spouse and I struck up a deal: I would clean everything from waist level down and the rest was on him. Many YouTube tutorials later he cleverly hired someone recommended by our appliance store. Gary, knowledgeable and lithe and a former Vent-A-Hood employee, did a bang up job. Turns out he was 80 at the time and is now long (and deservedly) retired. We're back to the hood of shame. Wouldn't you and Rory like to come for a visit?
Love your post about your range hood. We remodeled our kitchen in 1994. At that time Vent-a-Hood was supposed to be very efficient. We bought it because we had a stove top grill, so we needed something strong. Over the decades it has performed its duty, but it is a bear to clean. I avoid it until it is absolutely necessary. It involves taking it apart and cleaning out puddles of collected grease. Some parts, like the wheels/fans, are impossible to clean. A couple of years ago, one of the fans stopped working. I was sure the company had gone out of business. But I found it on the internet and the hood design hadn't changed. I contacted them about service and luckily the only authorized service guy in country lived nearby. He got the part and fixed it. I asked him about cleaning it and he had no recommendations. He says he doesn't clean them. I hate the hood because it is so hard to clean and noisy, but it has lasted a long time. And the light bulb is easy to replace. I have avoided replacing our appliances because most of the new ones simply don't last. I just get them fixed. We're old and don't want to live through another kitchen remodel. Once you change something, it leads to something else. Is there such a thing as an efficient range hood, that is easy to clean and easy to replace light bulbs?