7 Benefits of Range Hoods

Author: James Zhao, Sr. Tech Specialist & Alex Park, Product Specialist

No one wants to cook in a hot, smoky kitchen. Not only is this unpleasant, but it can also harm your health. The best way to keep your kitchen cooler, cleaner, and smoke-free is to install a high-quality range hood over your cooktop. 

Modern range hoods come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and finishes, so you can choose a hood that fits your practical needs and kitchen’s aesthetic.

Whether you’re remodeling your kitchen and adding a modern touch or improving your cooking experience, range hoods offer numerous benefits, from visual appeal to making your kitchen a safer space. In this article, we summarize the top benefits of having a range hood in your home.

1. Better Air Quality

Installing a range hood with the latest filtration technology helps you breathe easy in the kitchen by reducing cooking byproducts like steam, fumes, and lingering odors. When allowed to accumulate, airborne particles and contaminants can make your kitchen feel perpetually dirty, smelly, and generally unpleasant. 

Kitchen ranges and ovens also produce minute amounts of carbon monoxide that can build up in a poorly ventilated area over time. Range hoods filter away these contaminants to improve air quality in your home and ensure you and your loved ones can safely enjoy memorable meals together.

An efficient range hood can also reduce noise pollution in your home. Smoke detectors are programmed to alert homeowners to both excess smoke and heat, so when excess heat and steam build up in your kitchen, it can trigger a false alarm. Range hoods remove excess heat and steam from the kitchen, cooling the room, and reducing the risk of false smoke detector alarms. 

FOTILE range hood filtering the air

2. Improves Kitchen Cleanliness

Every avid cook knows how quickly oil and grease can coat every surface in a kitchen. Range hoods reduce grease messes by venting polluted air out of the kitchen and either expelling it outdoors or filtering it and sending it back into the kitchen as clean air (known as recirculation). 

A range hood’s air filtration process keeps your kitchen cleaner by reducing the amount of grime available to accumulate on your cabinets and cooking surfaces. It also makes the air safer to breathe, which is especially important if you or a family member have asthma or allergies. Range hoods also keep you and your family safer by reducing the risk of grease fires from buildup on your cooktop. 

Kitchens and cooktops come in all shapes and sizes, and there are different sizes of range hoods to match, with common sizes being 30 to 36 inches. From large, canopied range hoods that hang over cooktops to wall-mounted range hoods and hoods that fit easily under cabinets, there are vent hoods to accommodate nearly any cooking space. Small kitchens, in particular, can benefit from proper ventilation because their size causes them to heat up and collect grime faster than a larger kitchen.

Man cooking food on a cooktop below a range hood

3. Better Cooking Experience

A high-quality range hood makes the entire cooking process easier. From prep to cleanup, a good range hood will keep your kitchen cooler and more comfortable, reduce lingering odors from cooking food, and shorten cleanup by venting away oil and grime.

If you’re cooler and feel more comfortable in your kitchen, you’re more likely to spend time there experimenting with new recipes, or simply cooking at home more often. 

Range hoods also make it more pleasant to cook meals that require high heat, such as fried chicken or roasted root veggies. A powerful-yet-quiet range hood will vent smoke from your kitchen so that these recipes no longer set off your smoke alarm. 

4. Can Increase Home Values

Range hoods have been standard in kitchens since the 1960s as both an aesthetic and safety feature. Having a range hood has become so normalized that homes with high-quality range hoods can sell faster and at higher prices than those with older vent models or with no range hood at all. 

Homeowners will pay more for homes with stylish new range hoods for several reasons—the first being safety. The latest range hood models are more efficient at removing grease and harmful vapors than their older counterparts, making the kitchen safer. Efficient grease reduction also keeps the kitchen cleaner, which means less scrubbing and wear and tear on your countertops and cabinets. 

Style is also an important factor when selling your home. The less work potential buyers need to do, the higher you can price your home. Many people will pay top dollar for a move-in ready home with a well-appointed kitchen. 

Even if you don’t plan to sell your home anytime soon, increasing the resale value by adding a range hood has short and long-term benefits.

Black under-cabinet range hood in a white kitchen

5. Provides More Lighting

Monitoring visual changes in your food—such as color and texture—is essential to making delicious food. While the older range hoods were purely for ventilation, modern range hood models feature useful upgrades like LED lighting. Additional lighting makes it easier to monitor food and can significantly improve the cooking experience, enabling cooks to rely on visual details to know when to flip a pancake or whether their steak is overcooked, for example.

Extra illumination from a range hood is also useful when cleaning up your kitchen, making it easier to see those transparent spatters of grease and oil. 

A range hood’s smaller lights can also be money-savers, since the smaller bulbs require less energy than overhead kitchen lights. If you’re just popping in the kitchen for a snack or glass of water, you can use the range hood light and help lower your utility bills. 

Range hood with LED lights and recirculation kit

6. Removes Excess Heat

Whether your kitchen is large or small, cooking creates heat which can make your space stuffy and uncomfortable. Range hood ventilation helps remove excess heat from your kitchen by venting hot air out of the room and creating space for cooler air to take its place. This process can be especially helpful when you’re cooking large meals or preparing food that needs a long time or high heat to cook properly. 

Many range hoods also have variable fan speeds. If you’re planning a marathon cooking session, turning the fan speed up will help vent heat and steam faster to make cooking a much more pleasant experience. Note that it’s also important to use a range hood with adequate CFM to meet your cooking needs overall.

Range hood absorbing hot steam from a pot

7. Adds Style to Kitchen Designs

Though a range hood is primarily designed to filter air to increase comfort and safety while cooking, the latest range hood models also offer a variety of styles to blend seamlessly into any kitchen design. Depending on the size of your kitchen, you may want a sleek and stylish statement piece, or a more inconspicuous design that blends seamlessly into the rest of your decor. Popular range hood finishes include polished tempered glass and brushed stainless steel.

About FOTILE Range Hoods

Are you considering upgrading your kitchen’s range hood or adding one to your home? FOTILE has what you need. From quiet fans and energy-efficient models to touchless tech, our range hoods are designed to create a healthier, more stylish, and overall more pleasant cooking environment. Browse our range hood models to see which is right for your home.