One System, Not One Item

A Type I hood is a system: the hood, the ductwork, the fan, the fire suppression, and enough conditioned make-up air to replace what is being extracted. Operators price the hood. The ductwork route, the roof penetration and the make-up air unit are usually larger costs and they are the parts that decide whether the space works at all.

Make-up air is also a running cost, not just a capital one. Every cubic foot extracted has to be replaced with conditioned air, and in Florida conditioning that volume for the hours a kitchen operates is a meaningful share of the utility bill. Undersizing it does not avoid that cost; it just moves the problem into the dining room.

Exhaust ductwork has to run from the hood to a discharge point at roof level, clear of intakes and neighboring openings, with access for cleaning along its length. In a multi-story or multi-tenant building that route may not exist, and no equipment selection creates one.

Establishing the route before the lease is the single most valuable check on a restaurant space, because it is the constraint that most often cannot be solved at any price.

1. 01Establish the exhaust route before design, not during.
2. 02Size the hood to the actual equipment line.
3. 03Provide balanced make-up air rather than an afterthought.
4. 04Interlock suppression with gas and power correctly.
5. 05Commission and balance the system before opening.

Get the system balanced and documented at commissioning. An unbalanced kitchen produces a negative dining room, a hard front door and a smell that never leaves, and every one of those complaints will be blamed on the food.

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