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. Do-it-yourself installation of a hood in the kitchen also belongs to such operations. Of course, you should first decide what type of hood you need. Perhaps this is where we will start.
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 external environment. In general, in a makeshift version of “modernization”, you can easily install a carbon filter in a cheap evacuation hood.
But you should not particularly 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 instructions for installing the hood of suchclass provides for the complete loss of warranty for any independent actions.
There are built-in and desktop, fireplace and ceiling. We won't have a long rant about types and their merits. Let's just say that for most homeowners, an island hood installed directly above the hob (or gas stove) is really the best option. It is better known as a dome hood. This device got its name from the name of the receiving part, which actually resembles a dome.
About electrical safety issues
Before you install the hood in the kitchen, you should do a little work with your own hands, ensuring complete safety for yourself and your family, eliminating the minimum possibility of electric shock.
The fact is that this category of kitchen appliances is classified as potentially dangerous, so it is simply unacceptable to approach this issue carelessly. 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 strip is still applied. Be sure to ensure high-quality and reliable grounding in advance!
In no case should you cling to a water, gas or other pipe, to a battery for this purpose. Remember that this is against basic safety rules, so people may well suffer as a result of your rash actions! It should be hooked to a deaf neutral. How to do it?
Important
All the steps 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 an electrician you know, but do not climb into the shield yourself!
Connect to neutral
Carefully open the input shield, being aware of the risk of electric shock. Most likely, all the supply wires go into the shield from some kind of metal pipe. Surely there is some kind of pin more or less cleaned of old paint and rust on the pipe, to which the wires are connected. This is the desired neutral: from it to the apartment you need to stretch 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.
Again about security issues
If you are interested not only in installing a hood in the kitchen with your own hands, but also in your own life, then in no case and never throw off the “earth” in the form of other wires to make room for your own! Unlikely, but you can still "catch" the discharge. Alas, ridiculous deaths happen for this reason every year.
Ventilation is paramount
It should be remembered that the usual installation of a hood in the kitchen with your own hands most often seriously violates the standard ventilation of the room, the possibilities of which were established at the design stage of the building. Unfortunate 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 toserious problems. Including legislative: before doing something like this, you will have to obtain a separate permit from the BTI.
In principle, punching (if allowed) a separate ventilation duct 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 condensation 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: just install an additional section of the air box, equipping it with a clapper valve.
How to neutralize bad 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 neutralizers. There are three types of devices on sale:
- Chemical.
- Electroionization.
- UV.
Let's 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” warranty period expires. In addition, there is evidence that the substances they release are far from being as safe for human he alth as manufacturers say. Besides, "chemistry" is far from cheap.
Electroionization neutralizers have almost the same principle of operation as conventional roomair ionizers. But the air in the kitchen is so saturated with gases that the device has to “keep” such a discharge that often a “crown” visible to the eye appears. All this leads to the fact that the air is excessively saturated with negative ions, which is not very beneficial for human he alth. Almost every second dome hood in foreign-made kitchens is equipped with such devices.
UV lamps are also gradually tightened with a thin coating of fat. In addition, the lamps have to be changed quite often. But such a neutralizer has the most attractive technical characteristics: the lamp emits less harmful ultraviolet per day than you get when you are outside for a couple of hours on a sunny day. Along the way, the issue of sanitation is also being resolved, since UV rays are detrimental to harmful bacteria.
When you plan 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 neutralizer becomes a really profitable purchase.
About the duct
We will immediately warn you that kitchen hoods in the vast majority of cases are not equipped with air ducts. In the most optimal variant, a corrugated aluminum pipe with a diameter corresponding to that of the exhaust pipe is ideal for its role. The aerodynamic resistance of the corrugations (with a length of up to one and a half meters) can be safely neglected. Since we will consider installing the hood in the cabinet, we are talking about just suchcase.
The advantages of corrugations are in the exceptional ease of processing aluminum, which in this case can be cut with ordinary household scissors. In addition, when using such a corrugation, the likelihood of a sharp, resonant sound, which at night can wake up half of the neighbors, is completely excluded. Of course, this material does not look very aesthetically pleasing, and therefore you should take care in advance of making a decorative box that will hide all your flaws.
The best option would be to install the hood directly above the stove, as in this case it will be possible to capture absolutely all the fumes and odors.
What tool do you need for the job?
First of all, you will need to buy or rent an electric carbide jigsaw from someone, which gives the cleanest and most even cut. All other tools (hammer, drill, screwdriver, tape measure and level) are probably at home for everyone. This is especially true when it is planned to install a hood in a private house.
I'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 flaws. Do not forget that the installation height of the hood is at least 70 centimeters above the stove. If you hang it below, then all the more you can forget about design frills: your entire structure will quickly get sooty, or maybe evenburst into flames from intense heat.
Features of mounting the hood in a private house
Let's immediately draw your attention to the fact that everything stated in this article can be safely used in this case. Installing a 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 you should definitely consider.
Let's list them one by one:
- Firstly, all points of contact with the ceiling and walls should be carefully isolated. 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.
- Second, 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 condensate on the engine (we wrote about this). But! If you plan to install a gas hood, then you will have to go to the gas workers without fail. You cannot do anything in this area without their permission!
In general, the features end here, everything else has no differences.
Features of installation in the bathroom
Finally, what are the features of installing a hood in the bathroom? First, 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 authorities (BTI), since inin most cases, you will have to break through the wall, and you need to get a separate permit for this.
Installing a hood in the bathroom will not bring you other troubles. You can also use the option suggested in the article by mounting this unit in a bathroom cabinet, which will allow you to disguise weighty equipment, hiding it from prying eyes. So let's get started.
Clapperboard (check valve)
We start with the manufacture of a clapperboard box (it is also a non-return valve). It is most expedient to use thin aluminum as the material. Galvanized metal or ordinary tin is also suitable.
It is best to place the valve in a cupboard suspended directly above the hob. In the ventilation window itself, the cracker can be mounted using the most ordinary mounting foam, and it is best to stick it to the cabinet itself on ordinary sealants. The latter will completely eliminate the possibility of resonance.
Of course, first, on the upper surface of the locker, you need to carefully make markings that fully correspond to the bottom window of the valve. This can be done by simply removing the damper in the cracker itself for a while and outlining the outline of the future hole with a pencil. It is also advisable to mark the sides of the valve on the “pattern”, as this will greatly simplify further installation.
Closet
Keep in mind that the installation height of the hood above the stove should be at least 70-75 centimeters from the level of the hob! We release the kitchen cabinet, remove it from the fasteners. With the help of an electricjigsaw cut a hole of the required size. To simplify your work and make the contours more straight, 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 in working with such a tool are far from perfect, you should not worry, because no one will see your flaws with the method of installation described by us. The main thing is that the hood itself looks beautiful. With your own hands, you still have to do a lot!
We also remove the cabinet shelves. Using the method described by us, we cut holes in them for mounting the air duct. In this case, all the more, you should not strive to achieve microscopic accuracy, since the flexible and well-creased corrugation will perfectly fit anywhere. Then, in the top board of the cabinet, we cut a hole for the bottom window of the cracker, not forgetting to leave an allowance of five millimeters on each side. Here it is worth trying to do everything as neatly as possible. Of course, carelessness can be hidden with sealant, but it tends to peel off the surface over time, so the valve may simply fall out of the grooves.
Since the installation height of the hood above the stove is not too high, it has every chance of being nicely "brown" on the fire, so it's not worth the risk.
Installing corrugations
We put the cabinet on its back, gently push the duct pipe into the holes made earlier. We form its profile (squeezing it with our hands), after which we push it into the upper hole. The resulting corners must be carefully trimmedusing scissors and bend to the outside of the cabinet.
Installing crackers
The cabinet with corrugation, which you mounted with such difficulty into it, is hung in its rightful place. On the incised ends of the aluminum socket, as well as under them, carefully apply sealant sausages. We are not in a hurry and we are not in a hurry: the more carefully you apply the sealant, the stronger the hood will sit. With your own hands, you should not create problems for yourself in the future! If you neglect this work, you will constantly inhale those kitchen aromas that (theoretically) should have gone outside. Leave no 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. The corrugation does not need to be fixed immediately, since the exhaust pipe will press it up anyway. We carefully fix 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 should not be poured: firstly, it will greatly complicate the maintenance of the installation. In addition, the pressure in the system will be lowered, and therefore nothing will get into the kitchen. Finally, the crumpled corrugation itself will be an excellent insulation.
Finally, the installation of the hood is finished! We hope you have learned the main points. It is not necessary to follow our advice and stuff the hood into the cabinet, as you yourself can come up with options for mounting it.
