Cleaning a cooker hood

Joined
28 Mar 2011
Messages
916
Reaction score
28
Location
Conwy
Country
United Kingdom
Might not fit in all that well on this part of the forum, but it'll do for now. If there's a better place then, Admin: please feel free to move it.

Moved into this house a year ago. I've just had a peek inside the cooker extractor that we inherited and its filthy. I cleaned the outside, which was of course easy enough, but although everything works fine the fan housing and fan itself is thick with grease. Seems to me that I'll need to disassemble the mountings, remove the extractor from the kitchen, lay it down somewhere outside on a dry day, spray the fan with some kind of proprietary cleaner (preferably something that won't leave dissolved muck in the mechanism) and leave it upside down over some newspaper for the gunge to drain away.

Any suggestions as to the nature and maybe even the brand of this as yet unknown miracle cleaner would be gratefully received.
 
Sponsored Links
I'd replace the whole darn thing if I were you (if that's possible.....) one of the worst jobs on the planet!
However, if you wish to bash on, carburettor spray contains toluene which can dissolve most greases, with the exception of corn oil. The motor may not like it though!
John :)
 
Crystal Simple Green Industrial cleaner & degreaser - might be good. Can't say I have cleaned inside a cooker hood, but have used it to clean things and its pretty good.
 
Sponsored Links
Apologies for not returning to the thread till now.

Thanks for your suggestions, but once I took the hood off the wall, put it on the floor, opened it up and was able to examine the way the machine was put together and view the full horror of its filthiness, it was quickly obvious that there was no way of satisfactorily cleaning the internal gubbins without the risk of damaging the electrics.

So I logged onto good old AO, and on Sunday a nice new Bosch hood should be arriving.
 
How high above the cooker burners is the hood located - approx. 780mm is common Mfr's recom.
Is it a ducted extractor? If so, what condition is the duct and duct terminal in?
If you have a gas cooker has it been serviced recently?
 
Its around the 78cm mark, yes. Certainly no lower. It is a ducted extractor, though I think the new hood uses 120mm ducting where the old one was 100mm, so some jiggery pokery might be required.

Edit: ducting terminal is in good condition, because I cleaned it all prior to removing the old hood. It could probably do with new flexible ducting because the old stuff was riddled with the corpses of spiders. It has the same stuff as is used for tumble dryer hose, but in silver foil, presumably to make it heat resistant. I've tried to get replacement hose but so far only managed to get hold of the semi rigid stuff that dents very easily and is much less flexible than the hose which is currently fitted.

The cooker is gas and a freestanding one just a year old, but its not been serviced since it was connected up, other than a visit from the manufacturer's engineer to fix a non functioning cooling fan.
 
There are adapters for duct diameter and profile transitions. And adapters for rigid to flex.
Rigid ducting is best.
FWIW: we often used 110mm black soil pipe as ducting - with no consequences or call backs.

The silver foil stuff is not healthy or safe - for instance, many Codes ban its use for dryer ducting.

At one year old the cooker should be fine.
 
Thanks for that.

I've ordered an adaptor--120mm to 100mm--and a new length of ducting hose (why is the silver foil considered "not healthy or safe"?). Having temporarily hard wired the hood into the existing wall isolator , which was only two pole and didn't allow me to connect the appliance earth(this being a VERY temporary arrangement to allow us to use the hood until I was able to buy a new three pole fitting) it then occured to me that I could simply have converted the isolator to a wall socket and plugged the hood in, easily achieving a three pole connection without having to buy a new isolator. I'd already cut the plug off in order to hardwire the appliance, so I fitted a new plug and converted the wall fitting to a plug socket.

All seems fine now, or will be when the adaptor gets here and I can remove the six feet of duct tape I currently have wrapped round the fan terminal and ducting. Its certainly a powerful fan!
 
I had to use the convoluted metal stuff for mine.....I can't comment on the safety aspect but I would guess there's more chance of it trapping condensation or whatever.
To this end I had the duct rising smartly from the hood, and had a gentle descent to the outside grille.
I bet you earned some brownie points there......I was once sent to clean the extractor gear in a Chinese restaurant - the stink was with me for days :eek:
John :)
 
Oh I got the Brownie points alright, but they cost me a lot more than I originally intended!

As stated above, the old hose was wired like tumble dryer ducting but made from aluminium foil. The stuff I originally ordered to replace it came in a semi rigid form without wire support, and when I went to fit it I found that it was very easily dented, especially when I tried to push it into the wall outlet. I tried again and found the wired stuff on an auction site, so I've simply changed like for like.

Through trial and error I've found that unless I keep the length of hose as short as possible, when I put the hood on Warp Three the sheer power of the airflow makes it arch upwards. This might be because the outlet is 100mm and they recommend 120, but unless I remove the outlet sleeve and drill a larger hole I'm stuck with things as they are. And that would be going too far when I can just ask the missus to keep things to Warp Two where possible.

I don't know how long the old hose had been fitted without creating any problems through trapping condensation or anything else, but judging by the state of it, it must have been a good few years. So with luck there won't be any elf and safety nightmares.
 
Last edited:

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Sponsored Links
Back
Top