5 Design Features to Consider When Creating Your Custom Range Hood

Unless you use a range hood every day in a commercial environment, you might not understand just how complex they can be and why design really matters. Even if you do, unless you design them, you probably aren’t sure how to maximize their effectiveness. 

Today, we’re going to take a closer look at five custom range hood design features you should consider when planning your own kitchen.

1. Fan Power

Fan power is probably the most important design factor you need to consider when choosing a custom range hood for your kitchen, because that’s one of its primary functions. Most other things are aesthetic or have to do with fitting the hood into your kitchen, but if you don’t get this right, you’re going to have a bad experience. 

This is measured in CFM or Cubic Feet Per Minute. Essentially, it’s how much of an area the fan can effectively suck air and smoke out of within a minute. 

If your CFM is lackluster, the hood won’t keep up with the smoke you’re creating. If it’s too powerful, there aren’t really any serious downsides, but you’ll be paying more for no reason. 

To understand how much CFM your range hood needs, you need to know how big the kitchen is. A small residential kitchen doesn’t need much, but if this is the sole range hood in a large commercial kitchen, you’ll want it to be quite powerful. Otherwise, your kitchen will overflow with smoke and take forever to clear up, even after you stop cooking. 

2. Ventilation System

This is the second most important factor to consider. Custom range hoods can be designed with ducts or ductless ventilation in mind. 

This isn’t as simple as choosing a preference and going with it. You have to choose which one is going to work with the existing infrastructure, or you can end up spending a lot of money conforming the building to the range hood instead of having a simple and smooth installation. 

Which system you need is going to be based on where your building’s ventilation ducts are, how the kitchen is laid out in comparison to those ducts, and other factors. 

This can be a complicated design feature to figure out on your own, but we have a solution that will make it easy, later. 

3. Material and Finish

Now, we can start getting into the more fun aspects of designing your range hood. 

The material and finish of the hood are both functional and aesthetic features. One of the main advantages of custom hoods over stock models is the freedom to choose materials and finishes that reflect your personal style and complement the look of your range.

But you should also keep in mind what the maintenance requirements and potential drawbacks of any given material are. 

Stainless steel is very common, aluminum and other metals are frequently used, and you can even have wood facades built into the piece for a seamless match with your cabinets. The possibilities are practically endless, but every choice you make is going to have an impact on longevity, durability, and how the unit looks. 

4. How it Fits into the Existing Space

The overall design, such as its dimensions, how aesthetic bits stretch out, and similar design features, must fit into the existing space. You don’t want to have to rip out a bunch of cabinets, rearrange your stove setup to make room for it, etc. 

Now, in some cases, that might be required because of how you set it up. If you used the area above your range to hang utensils, they might have to be moved, and all your wall attachments might need to be uninstalled. 

In general, you want to avoid having to redesign your cabinet setup and other features that are more complex to deal with. That requires you to really think out the dimensions of the range hood while you’re designing it. You need to know how much room you have to work with. 

Luckily, a tape measure and basic measuring skills are all you really need for this, but you do need to be thorough. 

5. Blending with the Existing Theme

While function is extremely important in a commercial setting, and it’s even a big deal in a smaller, less demanding residential setting, you cannot forget about aesthetics. 

Your kitchen likely already has a defined theme where most or all of the various features match. If you want to make a statement while staying true to your kitchen’s style, a custom range hood is the upgrade you’ve been waiting for.

For example, if you have a more rustic kitchen, you don’t want a custom range hood that looks post-modern in the middle of it. It’s visually distracting, and it’s unappealing in general. 

Understand the theme of your kitchen and match the custom range hood to it. If you’re great with visual design, or you simply don’t want something that’s too fancy, simpler, function-over-form designs work well in most kitchens. 

How to Get All These Design Features Right the First Time

While some of these features come down to personal preference and don’t impact the function of the range hood very much, all of them can be complicated to get right in a way that makes for a great custom range hood you’ll love. Especially when you have to take into account the existing kitchen space. 

Luckily, you don’t have to do all of that alone.  You don’t have to build this thing from scratch and figure out all the nitty-gritty details. 

Integrated Metal Designs is here to help. 

When you choose Integrated Metal Designs to fabricate your custom range hood, you get access to top-quality craftsmen, the best customer support team, and yes, even designers. 

Our design team can work closely with you to get the information we need, help develop the custom range hood of your dreams, and then fabricate it for you. 

This ensures that you get the top-quality range hood you deserve without trial and error or hoping you get things right. 

In addition to custom range hoods, we also create high-quality custom handrails, carefully designed to complement your space with the same attention to detail, durability, and style.

If you’re looking for a beautiful, functional, custom range hood without all the complexities, contact us today!