The Counters Blog

But with the growing popularity of open-plan kitchens, customers still demand them in kitchens where a range hood would obstruct a clear view. On the manufacturer side, the advent of new filtration technology means users can expect better performance from a downdraft vent. In the first kind, a vent is built into the middle of an induction or radiant electric cooktop. This especially makes sense for indoor grills and teppanyaki burners, which are in demand for high-end kitchens.This setup has a teppanyaki grill, a wok burner, and a traditional induction burner with two vents. Over the years, downdraft ranges gained a reputation for being difficult to install and not very effective. Modern versions can even be set up for recirculation, so an external vent is no longer necessary. Steam and smells get pulled straight from pots and pans and into a vent—which either exhausts or filters and recirculates the air. You can install it in between two different kinds of burners, or put one on either side of a single burner for more airflow.

Ask The Experts: Are Downdraft Ranges All Hot Air? by reviewed.com

Is Downdraft Ventilation A Worthy Upgrade? | Duration 1 Minutes 35 Seconds This week’s questions are all about downdraft ranges, which vent cooking odors and smoke through a fan built into a cooktop’s surface, rather than up above in a range hood. Why do downdraft ranges have such a bad reputation? For one thing, they can’t move much air without extinguishing gas burners. More importantly, the downdraft fans are constantly fighting basic physics. That’s why most kitchen ventilation is installed above the cooking surface. Your only real alternative would be to install a standalone pop-up ventilation system, which sits behind a cooktop and rises up only when needed. This is a good solution if you live in a home where it’s impossible to vent your kitchen to the outside due to cramped quarters or building codes. Still, you should know that recirculation has its drawbacks. Any other installation will require some compromises—but those are the tradeoffs of turning a dream kitchen into reality. An earlier version of this article said that pop-up ventilation systems can fit behind ranges. In general, downdraft ranges get a lot of complaints because it’s impossible for a downdraft’s airflow to be as effective as traditional ventilation. As it stands, customers often complain of flickering flames when the fan is on. In contrast, a downdraft range must pull air against its natural tendency, and it tends to do a poor job. These can be pretty expensive, and require some remodeling—but they come in many styles, are made by multiple manufacturers, and can be compatible with different kinds of cooktops. Indeed, the newest downdraft ranges all come with recirculation kits, which don’t require an external vent. Recirculation also doesn’t pull conditioned air out of a kitchen, which can save on heating and cooling bills. The best choice for kitchen ventilation will always be a vented range hood, which is why commercial kitchens have such strict building code requirements.

Stainless Steel 36″ Electric Downdraft Cooktop With 5 Elements KCED606GSS by kitchenaid.com

For smaller cookware, you’ll use only the 9-inch inner element. The previous owners of the house never used the stove, not once. How do you clean away the residue and the grease that is inside the vent? The knobs’ off position is down, not up, and the setting markings around the knobs are faint and difficult to see. Bought this a few weeks ago as we are updating the kitchen and needed a downdraft cooktop to replace one that was28 years old. A bit concerned about keeping black glass looking good, though, as it seems that it will scratch easily. I clean it with special cleaner before i cook but then again after the burners have cooled down larger. Clean up is a breeze and it definitely brought style to my kitchen! When using large, 12-inch cookware the entire element surface is used. I just purchased a new house about 3 months ago and this stove came with the house. I agree with the other review is that it is extremely difficult to clean without having any streaks or lint but my major problem is the smell coming from inside the vent. I need to figure out how to clean this, does anybody have any recommendations? It scratches very easily and it is very difficult to get spills, boil-overs, etc off. There is only one “hot” indicator light rather than one for each element. I do like the various sizes of the elements and dual function of some of them. The downdraft is powerful, and the elements heat quickly and cook evenly. The only thing is we haven’t figured out a good way to clean it and make it spotless.