A non-destructive way to vent the cooking vapors out of your tiny kitchen.
I live in NYC, in a gut-renovated apartment in a pre-war building. The kitchen had a cooking range and I guess the landlord was perfectly ok with my kitchen accumulating oily vapors on every surface and sending my smoke alarms into a frenzy. I came across a cheap range hood (how are they so expensive?) and took some cues from the portable air conditioner world to vent the oily vapors outside.
Parts to buy
- Ancona Range Hood, model AN-1583
- Window exhaust for portable air conditioner
- 6in x 8ft semi-flexible air duct
- Aluminum tape
- 4in louvered dryer vent
- 0.5in high density (rubber) pipe insulation, or 1in x 10ft rubber foam weather seal
- Zip tie saddle mounts
- Flat plug 3-prong cord extension
- 3-prong extension cord
- M3 machine screws
Parts to 3D print
- The air hose coupling that came with the window vent kit interfered with some structures in my window frame, so created a new one that extended the coupling past those features, directly adapted to a 6in duct and gave it better airflow.
- Another coupling that attached to a standard 4in louvered vent to keep wildlife and cold air out of the system.
- The range hood came with some metal covers for the ductwork but they didn’t apply here, so modeled a cover to hide the base metal work. Learned a ton.
- A bracket that made attaching the duct to my wall easy and didn’t look like hell.
Download 1, 2, and 3: https://www.printables.com/model/632833-range-hood-window-exhaust/files
Download 4: https://www.printables.com/model/633513-6in-air-duct-wall-mount
I first printed all of these using PLA+ filament in a gross color, with a 0.8mm nozzle and 0.4mm layer height for speed. The big nozzle yielded much better quality than I expected, and for such a big part I highly recommend getting one. After some fit-testing and tweaks, I printed with some more durable PETG with a standard 0.4mm nozzle and 0.2mm layer height. Worked a treat. Everything bolts together with M3 machine screws.
With the plastic bits done (by far the hardest part), I moved to sealing the gap between the window frame and the vent structure. I cut some high-density/rubber pipe insulation into strips that would fit into the window frame and provide 0.25in of sealing cushion – 2pcs for the top/bottom and 2pcs for the sides. The friction from the vent structure keeps everything in place without the use of adhesive which is nice.
If you’re not concerned about backdraft or don’t want to bother with the outer louvered vent, you can print the outer mount ring instead of the 4in duct adaptor.
Gallery
