Range Hood Buying Guide

The layout of your kitchen and the location of your cooktop largely dictate the kind of range hood you can install.

Under-Cabinet Hoods
These are mounted under the bottom of a wall cabinet above the cooktop. Ductwork inside an adjoining wall, chase, soffit, or ceiling can direct smoke and fumes outside. In some models, a shallow hood slides out of the upper kitchen cabinet when you need it. Typical kitchen cabinets extend only about halfway across the cooktop, so this extension routes steam and smoke away from cabinet faces and back toward the suction end of the range hood. 

Wall-Mounted Chimney Hoods
These hoods are an option when there are no cabinets over the range. Their exposed vent stacks, which send cooking gases outside, can make a strong design statement.

Island Hoods
Island hood models are mounted to and vented through ductwork in the ceiling. Because they lack a wall or cabinets alongside them to help funnel fumes, they should be wider than the cooking surface.

Downdraft Hoods
These hoods are designed to capture rising smoke and fumes and exhaust them through ducts running beneath the floor. CR’s range hood tests have found that these are among the least effective at removing smoke and steam. While they can be used anywhere in a kitchen, their main application is in islands, where it might not be possible to route ductwork through the ceiling.

Ductless Hoods
This type of installation draws steam, heat, and smoke from the cooktop, filters them, and returns the filtered air to the room. The filters trap oil and grease droplets dispersed into the air above the range, and some models have an optional carbon filter to reduce odors. We generally don’t recommend ductless hoods because they don’t actually exhaust contaminants outside.

These are the range hood features to consider before you go shopping.

Airflow
Manufacturers tout the cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air exhausted by range hoods. While more airflow means faster ventilation, it doesn’t guarantee better smoke capture and removal in your kitchen. In our testing, many hoods that are claimed to have modest airflow vent as well as those with twice the reported airflow.

Exhaust Timer
This convenient feature turns off the fan after a set period of time.

Filters
There are three main types of range hood filters: stainless steel baffle, aluminum mesh, and charcoal. Generally, filters should be washed (or replaced) every one to three months—or more often if you cook frequently—to keep your range hood running efficiently.

Lighting
The models we’ve tested have lighting of some kind, but not all hoods are equal in this regard. A model that does a solid job of illuminating the surface of a cooktop makes cooking more pleasant and helps you determine when your food is done.

Number of Fan Speeds
Most of the hoods we test offer three to six fan speeds. We recommend a minimum of two speeds: a high-speed setting to use when cooking and a very low (and quiet) speed setting to use to continue to ventilate the space when cooking is complete. You don’t need more than three speeds for most kitchens. If the manufacturer provides more, a nice option is a variable speed switch that you can easily set to any speed desired.

Size
Range hoods typically span 30 to 66 inches wide. Select a model that’s at least as wide as the cooking surface underneath. (Island-mounted hoods lack a wall or cabinets alongside them to help funnel fumes, so they should be wider than the cooktop.)

Style
Over-the-range hoods come in a variety of materials, including stainless steel, copper, tempered glass, wood, zinc, and bronze.

Thermostat Control
A built-in temperature sensor available in certain models automatically turns on the fan if the temperature below the hood gets too high. This feature is standard on over-the-range microwaves to prevent the microwave electronics from being damaged by high temperatures. If the temperature under the microwave is too high, the exhaust fan comes on to draw away the hot air and pull in cooler air from the rest of the kitchen. We don’t recommend this feature on range hoods, however, because if a grease fire triggers the fan, it could intensify the flame by drawing more air toward it.