Rangehoods

• How to test rangehood properly
• Canopies designed with sound logic

How to test rangehood properly

The REAL test for any rangehood...

• It's not the volume of air it extracts. (Although airflow is important)
• It's not the power of the motor. (Although power is important, too)
• It's not whether or not it cleans itself. (That's mostly marketing hype)

It's what doesn't get sent to the outside air… yet doesn't stay in your home or your rangehood. Confused?

Answer...

It's the quality of your rangehood filter combined with the selection of the most suitable motor system. The right filters do three critically important things — even for Asian cooking, with its rigorous demands on rangehoods:

1. The right filters trap grease and oils before they enter the ventilation system, where they can create dangerous fire and health hazards, attract insects and vermin, build up flammable surface deposits and pollute the air outside your home.
2. The right filters allow steam, smoke, hot air and cooking odours to pass through to the open atmosphere (provided your fan motor is strong enough to do the job).
3. The right filters prevent mould from building up around your exhaust fan, motor and other internal obstructions — the potentially-toxic mould that creates that offensive, lingering smell that you can never seem to get rid of from your kitchen and home. And the mould that sits right above that ineffective filter… and right above the food you're preparing for your yourself and your loved ones!

Most rangehood filters simply won't do the job. They can't. Even oil bottle filter systems can soon become heavily soiled and clogged, leaving saturated oils dripping down your walls.

Most rangehood filters are not easy to remove and clean. Few are dishwasher-safe. Instead, they're neglected in favour of higher airflow, which simply transfers the problem to where it can't be seen, while it grows steadily worse and more dangerous.

Ask us to show you what a proper rangehood filter system looks like and how it works to protect you, your home and the environment.

• Safe.
• Powerful.
• Clean.

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Canopies designed with sound logic

By their nature canopies and rangehoods generate sound. Air moving through filtration panels, fan blades and ductwork will produce sound waves as it passes. And the volume of sound is linked to the volume of air. The more effective the fan is at extracting air, the more sound the system tends to create.

So the challenge for all rangehood and canopy designers is to eliminate as much sound as possible while delivering as much suction as possible.

The noise verses design dilemma is evident with modern cooking styles that require powerful suction and has often been evaded by manufacturers testing their decibel ratings under less than typical conditions, and then demonstrating their claims in showrooms with very high ambient noise. Other manufacturers have met the low noise target by sacrificing suction until the unit is largely ineffectual. In these cases, there’s often more ‘spin’ coming from the marketing department than from the fan itself!

One manufacturer however, has good reason to believe it has met the dual challenge. The Company is Schweigen Ducted Exhaust Systems and it’s no coincidence that ‘schweigen’ is German for ‘silent’.

Schweigen’s design goals are simple. First, they aim to find new and innovative ways to eliminate sound at each step in the air extraction process. Second, they must deliver as much as suction as any domestic application could require and third, they want to design canopies that are both contemporary and timeless.

They start by selecting the quietest and most powerful domestic extraction fan available. The motor system is a German design that is without peer in terms of its power, reliability and low noise level.

Schweigen then designed a canopy that is stylish, practical and free of those small internal edges, nooks and crannies that generate sound as air rushes past.

Unlike other canopies, there is something missing from every Schweigen model. It’s the result of some sound logic being applied to the system’s configuration and it’s what makes Schweigen the quietest canopies of all.

What’s not inside every Schweigen canopy is the fan and motor.

Schweigen believe the most crucial factor in canopy design is the placement of the motorised fan. Even the quietest motor and fan will generate noise. So placing it close to your ear just isn’t very logical. Placing it inside a stainless steel canopy where it will inevitably generate vibrations and therefore even more noise isn’t logical either. And placing the great weight of that powerful motor and fan inside a suspended canopy will ensure that the design of its internal structure will be driven more by the need to support that weight than by the need to reduce sound levels.

That’s why Schweigen’s sound logic dictated that the motor and fan be taken out of the canopy and installed at the roof vent way off at the other end of the ductwork. There it can be securely attached to the roof and exhaust directly outside.

Instead of having the motor and fan beside your ear, it’s now metres away at the end of a long length of sound-proof duct. And when it’s operating the air flowing through the duct actually pushes all the noise it generates out through the vent. Without the motor and fan to support the canopy can be lighter and designed for unrestricted internal air flow, so it’s also quieter.

It makes sense.

It’s practical and it works so, it should come as no surprise that it is actually based on an Australian idea. The Schweigen range is a marriage of Australian ingenuity with the very best European components and manufacturing. And it achieves all its stated goals of quality, style and performance by the application of just a little sound logic.

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