Every modern and commercial kitchen is equipped with a range hood. It’s not just to improve the aesthetics of a kitchen and make it look classier, but it also serves a very important purpose. A range hood ensures good air quality inside your kitchen. When you cook food, you’re letting fumes, smoke, odours, and grease into the air, all of which can really impact the quality of air.
The function of a range hood is to suck all these air contaminants. If your range hood is ductless, it’ll filter the air, and if it’s one with a duct, it’ll suck the polluted air from the kitchen and carry it out, ensuring that the air in your kitchen is clean and odourless. Without a range hood, you can expect your kitchen to smell predominantly of what you cook for several hours and have the cabinetry of your kitchen to be covered in grease in just a few weeks’ time.
If you’ve got a range hood installed in your kitchen, we would like to ask you a question. When was the last time you cleaned it? If your answer is anything but ‘a few weeks ago,’ you’re in for trouble! A range hood is an appliance that cleans the air and it needs to be cleaned too; otherwise, it won’t really function as well as it should.
We’ve listed down the various risks of not cleaning grease and grime from your range hood below. Let’s take a dig!
Breeding Ground for Microorganisms
If you don’t clean your range hood every few weeks, the dirt, dust, grease, and grime will build up inside the hood. Not only will this build-up affect the performance and efficiency of the range hood, but it’ll serve as a breeding ground for harmful microorganisms like mold and bacteria. If there’s microbial growth in your range hood, these microorganisms can escape into the air and lead to various health problems.
Pest Infestations
The build-up of grease and grime not only provides ideal breeding conditions for microorganisms but also attracts pests like ants, flies, and cockroaches. Gross, we know! These pests will feed on this grease and grime, and it won’t be long before you start seeing these pests crawling on your kitchen slabs and floors. Once you get a pest infestation, it’ll be a nightmare to get rid of it.
Fire Hazard
Did you know grease is flammable? If a lot of grease has accumulated inside your range hood, even the smallest spark from the stove can lead to a full-fledged fire.
Cleanliness and hygiene are essential for all parts of the house, but they’re crucial when it comes to the kitchen. It’s the place you cook and store food, and you just can’t afford to leave it dirty. No matter how tidy your kitchen appears from the outside, if it’s not clean through and through, it doesn’t really matter. So, if you’ve never cleaned your range hood before, do it now without wasting another day!