Commercial exhaust hoods are perhaps the most integral components of successful commercial kitchens. Responsible for keeping the air clean, the employees safe, and the area clear of fire hazards, exhaust hoods do a good deal of heavy lifting for restaurants and other food service providers.

There are several major types of range hoods. Here is a look at the most common ones:

Standard design. This is the most conventional form of commercial kitchen exhaust hood. They are used to ventilate heat and heat byproducts, like steam and vapor. Standard exhaust hoods are able to ship out large quantities of grease without running into many mechanical problems, which may be the largest factor speaking in their favor.

Standard exhaust hoods are always made from steel, which is welded together without any seems to keep any hazardous particles from escaping its grasp. These require some maintenance work, as the grease filters must be changed and at times replaced. However, these hoods do their job well, and have endured in popularity over time with good reason.

Ventless hoods. These hoods are designed to be able to complete the ventilation process internally. Ventless hoods are engineered to filter and recycle exhaust gases internally, while capturing contaminants along the way. They are ideal in many cases, but especially so in situations in which external ventilation is impractical or impossible.

Ventless hoods function by using three separate filters to capture contaminated particles. Grease and ash are caught in the hood’s first two filters, while the third filter of the process is designed to screen out smoke and other small particles. An electric fan circulates gases through the hood’s filters. All in all, this is a sophisticated and efficient way to ventilate a commercial kitchen.

Exhaust design. This is a straightforward form of exhaust hood design, as the name might suggest. These hoods use fans to push contaminated air outside of the system to some external location. One major difference between these types of hoods and the previous two mentioned is that exhaust only hoods do not have filters to catch grease and other particles.

Exhaust-only hoods are usually used when gases being transported out of an area are not hazardous. They may be something of a liability if called upon to filter out harmful particles. In commercial kitchens, these can often safely ventilate, though.

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