[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by MandoMan

I’m not a vegetarian, but I love broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, and other vegetables that are stinky. I don’t like the smell of food in my house after I’ve eaten. I suspect that a survey showed that an over-the-stove microwave oven would be a very popular selling point and would be cheaper than putting in a good range hood that vented through the roof. Range hood venting has to be metal all the way through the roof in case of a fire on the range. Also, a lot of range hoods really don’t suck the heat and smells up very effectively, due to their shape. Some are better than others. Those combined with microwave ovens NEVER work well because they aren’t big enough. You need something that sucks perhaps 300 feet per minute, ideally with the quietest fan you can find, and it has to be rated for stove venting. This is all expensive.

Here’s a cheaper solution I’ve been thinking about. A lot of kitchens here share a wall with the garage. (In some bigger houses, there is a laundry room between the kitchen and the garage.) What if you had a bathroom exhaust fan installed on that wall, perhaps above the door or above the cabinets? There are fans that are ultra quiet but still exhaust 150 cubic feet of air per minute. Just exhaust it into the garage. I think it would be far enough away from the stove so that it wouldn’t count as a stove vent fan or be a fire hazard, but it would vent broccoli smells the same way it vents bathroom smells. You could have it installed with a timer switch so it vents for five minutes to an hour. The smell would then be in your garage, but so what? It might add a little humidity to your garage, but it’s already humid. There’s no insulation to get wet. The only oils it would exhaust is what is already floating through your kitchen.

Here’s one that is inexpensive and goes through the wall and plugs into a wall outlet (it could share with the refrigerator), has an on/off switch in the cord. 576 cubic feet per minute! At 50 decibels, it’s not very quiet—about like your dryer, but no noisier than most range hoods. I once installed a range hood with a fan that vented through the wall and outside, but that was in Pennsylvania. I’m not sure that’s allowed here, or wise, given our rain and winds.

It would need to have a certified fire damper to comply with the building code. You cannot have any air openings between the garage and the living space.