Kitchen Range Hood Replaced

Here's the old kitchen hood, it had been broken for several months, and it was definately over the hill. didn't fit its opening right, and vented all its air back into the kitchen. We had been talking about getting a new one, and since we installed new wall insulation, it became more important to control excess moisture in the house - so we decided to replace it AND to install new ductwork to vent the range hood to the outside.

Figuring out how to install the hood, and picking one out at the store was easy, it was getting the ductwork in that turned out to be the big challenge. The range is located in the center of the house, so first we had decide how to route it. We chose the south wall as our exit point, and we ran the ductwork through the crawlspace above the kitchen. This involved locating and cutting several holes, I'm cutting one in the photo above. Overall we had to cut the cabinet itself, the old kitchen ceiling (lath and plaster, with plywood), the new kitchen ceiling, and the outside wall of the house, all tod 5 new holes.

Here's louisa looking up from the kitchen through two of the new holes.

The whole job took about 1.5 days, we started on Saturday morning (Nov 3) and finished up in time to go watch the Seahawks lose to the Browns the next afternoon (with beer and movie break in between). The photo above shows the ductwork going in, we later insulated it, to prevent condensation from forming on the inside of the pipe as it moves through the colder crawlspace. The hole in the distance is through the side of the house at the eave, where a cap and damper was installed. It was a fun job, we got to use a sawzall - a fun destruction tool - that we borrowed from the PNA. While in the crawlspace we also found two Cracker Jack boxes, an old glass marble, and a half smoked stogie. Who know what stories go with those items.

After the game we made sure to cook something smelly to test out the new hood. Here is a photo of the final product installed! Stainless, with new lights, and ducted to the outside, it will be fun t ocook on at thanksgiving, and so far seems to be working pretty well.