Commercial businesses with high-volume cooking areas, like restaurants and hotels, require powerful ventilation systems. A commercial kitchen exhaust system is in charge of heat, grease, smoke removal, and odor control. Furthermore, restaurant kitchen exhaust hoods should be equipped with a reliable fire suppression system to meet any fire safety and building codes and requirements. It is essential for business owners to understand the basic features of different kitchen exhaust hoods to install the right one in the commercial cooking area. Today, we’ll discuss the main types of restaurant kitchen exhaust hood systems you need to know.
Main types of commercial kitchen ventilation systems
1. Type I
Type I commercial kitchen hoods are designed to filtrate condensation, smoke, heat, and grease produced while cooking. That is why these exhaust systems are sometimes called grease hoods. Type I kitchen hoods are usually installed above fry grills, deep fat fryers, ovens, and other appliances that produce smoke and grease. The air containing many food particles and kitchen debris should be filtered before it reaches the exterior, so type I kitchen hoods work well in such a case. It is worth mentioning that these hoods require regular scrubbing to prevent fire hazards related to grease accumulation.
2. Type II
Unlike type I kitchen hoods, a restaurant kitchen exhaust hood that belongs to type II is typically installed above kitchen appliances that don’t build grease. This kitchen equipment includes standard ovens, coffee machines, some kinds of pizza ovens, and others. Type II kitchen hoods are essential to ensure workers’ favorable working conditions since they focus on removing excess heat, moisture, and steam from the air. A standard galvanized duct is typical for these kitchen hoods as they don’t incorporate any grease filters.
How to choose a restaurant kitchen exhaust hood?
Determining which type of commercial kitchen hoods your restaurant needs is based on commercial kitchen operations themselves. If your kitchen features high-volume cooking of fast food or other fatty meals, type I kitchen exhaust hoods appear the best option. On the other hand, if your commercial business is engaged in pizza baking or serving coffee daily, then type II kitchen hoods tend to suit you the most.
While selecting a suitable ventilation system, you should consider other important factors. For instance, the size of kitchen hoods should allow covering the entire zone with kitchen appliances that require continuous air filtrating. Appropriate height is also vital since the ventilation system installed too high or too low won’t cope with proper smoke and kitchen debris collection. Your other task is to choose the design of kitchen hoods.
Proximity exhaust hoods come in eyebrow, back-shelf, and eyebrow styles. At the same time, island canopy and wall-mounted canopy hoods require large amounts of exhaust volume to work effectively.