Cooking smells - please tell me I'm right and my husband is wrong?!

[ItsThisOneThing]

I hate cooking smells in the house. HATE. Especially things like bacon, sausage or burgers. My instinct is to fling the windows open wide, open the back door and put on the extractor fans. I obviously close the doors into the kitchen too, to reduce the smell going to the rest of the house.

My husband says if you open the windows and door it causes the smell to drift under the doors to the rest of the house, so he only closes the doors to the rest of the house and puts on the extractor fans. Keeps the windows and doors shut.

This morning we had a constant cycle of me opening the window and him closing it again. These are the big issues in our relationship ;)

Who is right here?? Please tell me it's me, I hate being wrong 😆

It would also be affected by weather conditions out side and the direction the wind is blowing. If the wind is blowing into your door the it will push the smells into your house. If the wind is blowing from the other direction then open a window on the other side of the house and open your kitchen window, air will then flow through the house taking the smells out the kitchen window.

@LetsKillAllTheElves YES!! I'm going to bamboozle him with science and swotty facts

I hate the smell of cooking too. My understanding is that due to convection the hot air from the kitchen will go out the door and the cold air will come in. Those people saying that it will blow air into the house - if air is coming in then air must he going out as the air volume is constant. So even if it does blow under the doors it will be much diluted.

I love my new slow cooker... hate the pong it produces... like farts all day.

Lots of Price's candles! But while I would agree with you about burgers and things like that, I love the smell of bread, a roast, or cake, or a curry cooking.

A bay leaf or two in with cauliflower neutralises the smell with boiling or steaming. Best roasted anyway. And I second Price's chefs' candles.

I find people like this so odd. The smell of home cooking is lovely!

What @Chunkymonkey123 said. We assume your kitchen is warmer that it is outdoors. At least at this time of year. The warm air (with the smell) will rise and go out the window. Basic science.

Depends on the smells for me. I love the smell of cakes/biscuitgs etc baking or a yummy stew/casserole in the slow cooker.

I don't eat fish but do cook it for the children now and then. that's a smell I can't stand in the house! OH also gets this fancy maple cured bacon that absolutely reeks when he grills it, the most revolting cloying sickly sweet meaty smell. Yuk.

I always shut the door from kitchen to the rest of the house, open the back door and put the extractor fan on full blast if I'm frying anything containing onions or garlic as the smell seems to get all around the house and into clean washing and even flannels and towels in the bathroom!

I'm with you OP. I especially hate when we've had a takeaway and the smell lingers in the living room, so I open all the windows and freeze everyone half to death for an hour

Are you short of something to fight about?

The "warm air rising" PPs are technically correct, but it only holds when there's no wind.

If your house air cheerfully billows out of the window, then all is fine - close the doors, open the windows, job done.

If opening the window gets a gale blown inwards, it'll push the kitchen smells into the rest of the house. Closing the doors will slow that down a bit, but not much.

We're lucky in we can close the doors and open two windows on two walls, and the through wind largely sucks the kitchen air outwards.

Our loo, however... if someone drops a bad one in there, opening the window immediately blows it out under the door into the house. Bleeehhhh.

MrsPear does that candle work even for smoking smell? DH thinks that his incense sticks cover it, but actually 1) the incense he's chosen is vile anyway and 2) it doesn't cover up the smells of fags, but mingles making a smell that 100 times worse than either of them alone. I haven't found anything that really works, utrodol or Febreze and i can't stand the stink of air fresheners.

One of my ongoing battles with STBXH was over the stink of cooking, as he termed it. He insisted the door between the kitchen & hall was closed at all times.

I preferred to open an upstairs window opposite to the kitchen with all the doors open between & let the smells blow away.

I live alone now & can waft smells to my heart's content.

I can burn scented candles too - he hated those as well!

The science of it is that hot air rises and cold air descends, so you'll get a sort of current of the hot smelly food air, rushing out the top of the window, while the fresh cold air will rush in the bottom of the window. It's about vacuums and shit (I got an A in physics, so trust me on this one). The quickest way is a window open. An extractor fan works, because it's elevated, so will take the hot air rising. But I'm still with incense. Fish or lamb are the stinkiest to me, so I close the door to the kitchen, burn a stick of incense, and poof!, no smell! Well, you can smell the incense alright, but no food smells.

I’m with you, OP. I can’t bear lingering cooking smells, it drives me mad, especially things like onions and garlic which I love eating and also love to smell cooking if at a restaurant or someone else’s house! It’s the lingering smell in my own house that bothers me.

I’ve never been able to figure out the window vs extractor fan conundrum either.

One thing I do now, as I can’t bear artificial air fresheners - they’re so bad for any pets you may have as well as the environment - is to leave a small bowl of white vinegar in any rooms that get the smells, such as kitchen and living room.

It takes a little while and initially you can smell the vinegar but that soon fades and it really does help neutralise odours.

Worth a try anyway.

YABVVVU. Cooking is what makes a house a home. You must just be a terrible cook OP.

your husband is wrong.
and cooking smells are the main reason for hating open plan living.

My mum shuts the kitchen door and opens the back door (which is in the kitchen).
I don't really care in my own house - I like the smell of cooking tbh.

Open the back door and leave it open for as long as possible.

I don’t mind the smell of cooking whilst it’s cookingbut the smell of onions always really lingers in my house after dinner and even the next morning.. I worry that we are all leaving the house with the faint smell of onion hanging about on our clothes.

The dishwasher always goes straight on and sides washed down so I don’t know why.

Onion smell left on your hands is the worst. That's why I use pre-chopped onions - life is too short!

Cooking smeels usually don't bother me. There is one thing I cannot abide the smell of and it is eggs.

My husband eats them for breakfast and the smell is absolutely vile and lingers.

He will have fried egg which makes the kitchen pong, then when he sits down to eat them in either the dining room or living room, that room then stinks too.

He also has poached, which do not smell when cooking, but the smell they leave behind wherever he has eaten them - urgh my god.

It just makes me sick.

Cauliflower does stink, even if it's lightly steamed, it's just a smelly veg.

For me, extractor fan, window open, then a good spray of lavender air freshener and after it's all cleared away I light a scented wax melt and let that burn the lifespan of the tea light.

Home made curry is the worst, the house stinks for three days.

The smells I hate most are from deep fried chips, or fish.
When I cook those I put the deep fryer outside and shut the back door.