I like to cook. I would like to put in a fairly powerful range (nothing huge, though; I don't need six burners and a griddle), and will need a hood that can carry smoke, heat, steam, grease, etc. from cooking out of the house. The trend seems to be huge hoods with, e.g., 1200 CFM, and a lot of people say you "don't need that", but then I do know that a lot of people don't actually COOK in their kitchen. I'm not convinced that I have any need for 1200 CFM, but I'm also not convinced that something like 350 CFM will be sufficient. Assume I'll have a 30" Wolf all-gas range (not sold on Wolf, but most of what I'm looking at is in that ballpark in terms of BTUs, so it's a good comparison), and be using two or three burners on the stove five or six nights a week, the oven three or four nights a week, and cooking things that may produce large volumes of steam and/or smoke and grease vapor (boiling/simmering large pots of water, stir fries, roasting meat, pan-searing steak) at least half of that. I don't want all that going out into my house, and I certainly don't want it clogging up the filters/core of an HRV, so I need a hood that can exhaust it. How do I size hood CFM appropriately for both the amount of gas that will be combusted, and the amount/scale of my cooking? I don't want absurd overkill, but I don't want my smoke detectors going off when I roast a chicken.
NOTE: I've split the second question I asked out into this question.
Best Answer
When calculating the minimum size of a range hood, there are three things you should consider. The size of the cooking surface, the amount of heat produced by the cooking surface, and the volume of the kitchen.
If the range hood is attached to a wall, you should have 100 cubic feet per minute(cfm) per linear foot. So if you have a 30" wide range, you should have a hood rated at 250 cfm ((30/12)*100 =250). If the hood is over an island, you'll use 150 cfm/linear foot. In this case that same 30" cook top, would require 375 cfm ((30/12)*150 = 375).
Next we'll determine the minimum capacity based on British thermal units(BTU)/hour, by dividing the BTU/hour by 100. For example, if we had a cooktop that produced 40,000 BTUs, we would need 400 cfm. If you are using an electric range (measured in watts), simply multiply watts by 3.41214163 to determine BTU/hr.
The final calculation, will be based on the size of the kitchen. The air in the kitchen should be cycled 15 times per hour, so our formula will be ft³/4. If we have a 10ft x 10ft x 8ft kitchen, (10 X 10 X 8)/4 = 200 cfm.
We'll then choose the largest from these three calculations, and that will be the minimum size hood we need. If you are doing more cooking than the average person, or just want a little more air movement. You can always get a larger hood, this is just the minimum size you should consider.
International Residential Code (IRC), says the minimum intermittent exhaust rate for a kitchen is 100 cfm, while the minimum continuous exhaust rate is 25 cfm.
So you'll want to make sure the hood is at least capable of achieving these flow rates.