As a home inspector in the Southern California housing market for the past 11+ years I have see trends come and go. One trend I am not to keen on is the self venting range hood. As it goes a vent hood is use to remove heated air from the cooking area and to prevent grease an odor's from depositing on kitchen surfaces. With a self venting hood the heated air is not removed but forced back into the kitchen. We have all seen grease filters clogged and in need of replacement. The filters in the average kitchen can become clogged in three to six months. On one hand some self venting hoods are built specifically for this purpose and do a far job at removing grease and odors from the air but not heat. Kitchens that have been remodeled is were we find the cheep self venting range hoods the most. Just plan laziness on the part of the contractor in my opinion. The hoods are the ones that one would find at the local Home And Garden stores. Theses hoods when installed according to the manufactures recommendation should be duct to the outside air using a 4x10 duct or 6-8" round duct. The size of the duct will be determined by CFM and distance to the outside air. One should not settle for this type of installation it's just another short cut. Get it ducted!
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