Smeg Headache But Worth The Stress
4/5
What’s good about this cooker hood?
The good style and ability to clear cooking fumes.
What’s not so good?
I’d suggest that the technical design should be changed to enable purchasers to deal easily with the following issues.
a) The outlet vent at the top of the hood should not be so close to the kitchen wall so it’s easier to install a solid vertical vent pipe into the kitchen plenum whilst avoiding any pre-existing power feed.
b) The outlet vent is protected by a butterfly valve that opens on hood blower activation. So why are the valve opening leaves not protected by a 150mm ID solid cowl as part of the hood outlet design?
c) Generally this hood really requires a 150mm ID vent or larger X sectional area equivalent, box section throughout. Less is just asking for trouble with the butterfly valve opening and also the way that the hood extraction rate automatically ramps to deal with a more restricted output vent. (Unless of course you have no desire to run your hood at low speeds.) So Smeg should rewrite the installation manual too! 120mm ID ducting will not cut the mustard.
d) It would probably work fine if the hood was mounted on and could vent immediately through an external kitchen wall. Otherwise if you need to install a length of vent pipe run, in the plenum, then make sure that it is at least solid 150mm ID taped ducting and is mainly horizontal or with a downward run to the external wall.
e) My advice would be NOT to vent vertically through a chimney kit. Then the hood doesn’t need to cope with the extra column weight of air in a chimney section, thereby potentially automatically causing the hood to run at a higher extraction rate than necessary i.e. at higher speeds.
f) Do not use flexible hose sections anywhere. If these sections are not stretched tight they will reduce the 150mm ID vent minimum and cause you issues. Having said that I used one very small, taut, flexible joint in otherwise solid ducting, in order to help me deal with a) and b) above.
g) Absolutely ensure that the room with this hood is adequately fed with fresh air. I have window trickle vents but they aren’t enough. In the end I repurposed an old tumble dryer wall vent, in reverse, that now vents into the kitchen via the cupboard plinths. It really draws in a lot of air when the hood is running at top speeds.
Now it’s in I really like it, but it could have been a lot easier if I’d known all the above before starting the installation.
Charles