extractor fans and hoods

[Smoomins]

Weirdly the house we've just moved into doesn't have any! So we would like to install them.

Bathroom will just go onto the external wall.

Our cooker is next to an internal wall. Does this make installing a cooker hood much more difficult? Could we put an extractor fan in the external wall or is that pointless?

Does anyone have any idea roughly how much this will cost, all-in?

Unless you pay a ton of money , extractor hoods are extremely noisy and hence unlikely to be used. They have to be vented to the outside, recirculating ones are pointless as well as ugly (all hoods are ugly and watch you won't hit your head)

A proper fan will be much quieter and may reduce fumes and steam even if across the room.

I have to use a recirculating fan - it's certainly better than nothing (isn't it?).

not much...

It didn’t even occur to me to bother about the noise from an extractor fan... I would also have thought that it being on an external wall was easier.

*extractor hood.

I don't have one in my kitchen. The ones in the bathrooms do nothing. But I have big rooms with high ceilings.

I have a neff recirculating one with an extra filter box added (its an optional component) as I would have had to vent across my whole kitchen ceiling otherwise to get to an external wall. The fan we had on the external wall before this was useless and I wouldn't recommend.
The recirculating ones aren't as good for smells but it does an adequate job of sucking up steam and smoke.

@Midlifephoenix

I don't have one in my kitchen. The ones in the bathrooms do nothing. But I have big rooms with high ceilings.

Agree with @Midlifephoenix, our bathroom extractor has the ‘power’ of a cats fart. We just open the window instead.

Then I stumbled upon these at Screwfix:

www.screwfix.com/p/manrose-mf100-25w-100mm-mixed-flow-fan/26867

I’m tempted , but would I be throwing more money away.

Back to your issue OP!, as some pp have, we also have an internal only hood/fan. It’s noisy , we’ve had to jam some tissue in the vertical box bit to stop vibration as well, BUT , it does help keep the steam and smoke under control.

Building regs let you put a fan in the wall, in your kitchen, instead of a cooker hood. It needs a higher extract rate than a cooker hood but they are usually quieter regardless because no big tin box to amplify the motor. You just need 60 litre/second to meet the regs. Something like an Xpelair or Vent Axia, they can have humidistat/pull cord function so easy to use and cheap as chips.

For the bathroom I would suggest a two-speed continuous running fan. Something like a Vent-Axia Silent fan.

For the kitchen is it possible to run the ducting from a cooker hood above the kitchen cabinets to get access to an outside wall? Avoid flexible ducting where possible - easy to fit but inefficient for air flow - better to use rigid ducting pipe.

Thank you all so much. Who can I get to install these?

in my case, the kitchen fitters made the hole in the wall and the electrician installed the fan. Which we supplied - not the electricians fault that it took four goes to get one that worked properly, although it is his fault that he cut the wires too short so it was a real pain to replace.

the fan is staggering on after two years, sometimes noisy on start up but seems to recover and then is quiet and efficient. I don't know anyone who actually uses their pricey, ugly and hazardous-to-head cooker hoods because they are so noisy.

@NotMeNoNo

Building regs let you put a fan in the wall, in your kitchen, instead of a cooker hood. It needs a higher extract rate than a cooker hood but they are usually quieter regardless because no big tin box to amplify the motor. You just need 60 litre/second to meet the regs. Something like an Xpelair or Vent Axia, they can have humidistat/pull cord function so easy to use and cheap as chips.

We did this, just to get through building regs as we didn't want an extractor above our island hob!

@MrsOsborne

I find the idea of doing things to 'get through building regs' a bit odd. The building regulations are there for a sound reason, your benefit (and subsequent buyers) whilst they may incur a cost, it is likely to be considerably less than trying to rectify problems later.

We had an extractor hood before in our old kitchen that we didn't really use. We now have a huge airy kitchen with large bifold doors. We had to make choices about where the hob would go and it was impossible to have an extractor (especially one within budget) over the island with the type of ceiling we had... we put an extractor in the wall that works fine and also passed building regs. I don't think there is a problem that would need rectifying tbh as it all works fine.