Does a Cooker Hood Need to Be the Same Size as the Cooker?

If you’re about to buy a cooker hood, you may not know which size would be best for the cooker that you have. You may have also seen many cooker hood articles with conflicting opinions on which cooker hood size is best.

So, should a cooker hood be the same size as the cooker? Today, we’re breaking down this cooking conundrum and trying to find out once and for all.

 

Which Size Cooker Hood Do You need?

There are many conflicting articles about cooker hoods online right now. Some say that a cooker hood of the same size as the cooker is ideal.

Others state that a cooker hood should be 1.5 times larger than the cooker to ensure that it can capture all of the vapours and rising steam from the cooker.

Other cooker hood articles state that you need to work out the volume of your kitchen. You can then compare cooker hoods to ensure that the one you choose can cope with this volume and clean the air in your kitchen.

So, which is it? Well, like most cooking and kitchen questions, it’s a bit tricky.

When it comes to cooker hoods, you need a model that is powerful enough to take all of the vapour, steam and smells away from your cooker. However, the cooker hood also needs to tackle the air in the kitchen and be able to clean this as not all of the vapour from the cooker rises straight up.

Plus, it is handy to have a cooker hood powerful enough that you can use it to clean the air after using the oven and other kitchen appliances too.

The size of this hood should be at least the same size as your cooker. This way, as much steam and vapour from the cooking process as possible will rise to the hood and be expelled from the kitchen.

You also need a cooker hood that is powerful enough to clean the air in your entire kitchen. This isn’t really to do with the size of the cooker hood, but more the motor inside it.

Cooker Hood Power

Taking a look at cooker hood power gives you an insight into why the size of a cooking hood isn’t the only important thing to take into account. For example, here is a 52 cm Smeg cooker hood that has the power to clean 300 cubic metres of air an hour. While this 60 cm Baumatic cooker hood can only clean 200 cubic metres of air per hour.

So, if you went by size alone, the Baumatic cooker hood would be your go-to choice if you had a 60 cm hob. However, if you have a large kitchen, the Baumatic will take longer to clean it.

To work out which cooker hood offers the best power for your kitchen, you need to figure out the volume of your kitchen. To do this, measure the width, height and depth of your kitchen in metres and multiply all of these together. This will give you the volume of your kitchen. Then times this number by 10 and this will be the extraction rate you need in your kitchen (measured in m³/h):

• Kitchen width x height x depth (all in metres) = m³/h extraction rate required

From there, you can compare cooker hoods and ensure that the one you choose has an extraction rate capable of cleaning the air in your kitchen. You can use our calculator tool to work out what extraction rate you need.

Find the Right Sized Cooker Hood for Your Kitchen

Does a cooker hood need to be the same size as your cooker? Your cooker hood can be really any size as long as it is powerful enough to clean the air in your kitchen.

Of course, from an anaesthetic point of view, your cooker hood should match the size of your cooker or be a bit larger depending on the style you are after.

So, if your hood matches the size of your cooker, you can be confident that it will capture as much of the air over the cooker as possible. It will also look great too. But make sure the cooker hood you buy is also powerful enough to clean all of the air in your kitchen too.

Use the maths above to work out the volume of your kitchen in metres (width x height x depth), and then choose a suitable cooker hood that matches the size of your cooker and has the power to clean the air in your kitchen.

You need the extraction rate (measured in m³/h) to be a similar number to the volume of your kitchen multiplied by 10. That’s the best way of ensuring your cooker hood will work perfectly in your kitchen.

For more information about cooker hoods, please explore our website further. We have the best cooker hoods in the UK available right here, as well as instructions on how to fit your own cooker hood too!