The commercial food industry has been on an exponential rise since the last decade with mushrooming of cafes, bakeries and hotels in every nook and corner of the various cities across the globe. Thus the need for the right kind of commercial kitchen exhaust and commercial ventilation should be given its due leverage for the well being of the business and maintaining a satisfied customer base. These two are simply the backbone of your food business and define the success of your business.
Objectives of Commercial Ventilation
All the suitable commercial ventilation should aim to achieve the objectives listed below:
- It should remove fume from the cooking source or as close as possible from the cookware.
- It should remove excessive amounts of hot air and introduce some clean and cool air for a comfortable kitchen environment, as improper ventilation causes stress and unsafe work environments and systems.
- It should also maintain the sufficient level of air balance in the kitchen for the comfort of the kitchen staff.
- It should be enable right amount of air for combustion of fired appliances as well prevents the accumulation of carbon monoxide.
- It should have an easy cleaning mechanism and should avoid fat residue buildups along with air inlets blockages for increasing efficiency and reducing risks of fire.
- It should be noiseless with no vibrations at all.
Commercial Ventilation Designs
It is very important for a commercial ventilation to be the best to avoid any accidents or mishaps and provide the kitchen staff the best working conditions for maintaining their business. Factors like kitchen workload, kitchen shape and layout, number of kitchen staff, easy cleaning and maintenance requirements, energy efficient and amount, type and power of the cooking appliance to be used etc. should be taken into consideration before designing a kitchen ventilation system for any commercial kitchen. The type of filters used in kitchen ventilators is also important.
Types of Commercial Kitchen Exhaust
The commercial kitchen exhaust or simply the kitchen exhaust is also known as range hood, exhaust, vent hood etc. in different parts of the world. There are three types of kitchen exhaust available and these are:
- Fixed Exhausts: These are mostly common in the hotplate areas and come in limited patterns that are well tested for their amazing functioning. The pro being they have a large filter area and con being that it keeps getting in your way when installed at head height.
- Retractable Exhausts: These exhausts include frames that could be pulled out for extension of hot field, fan and advance brightness. The advantage of using one of these is that, you could easily remove it once you are done with the cooking. However, these are not preferred much by the commercial high end kitchens.
- Canopy Exhausts: These are the latest offerings from the kitchen exhaust industry and are becoming more and more popular because of their freestanding kitchen flow. However, they are overpriced when compared to the aforementioned commercial kitchen exhausts.