Venting Stoves/Ovens

Venting Stoves/Ovens

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I am in the process of buying a new stove/oven for my new house. The place in the kitchen where I thought the stove ought to go has no vent to the outside. Well, actually, there is no vent to the outside anywhere in the kitchen, except the windows and the back door.

Don't ovens need to be vented to the outside?

I talked to someone in a store about the hood over the stove, that has a fan in it, and had what looked like a vent in the back of it, sort of round 3"-4" opening. The sales person said people here do not vent the hood to the outside. They get good filters in the hood and let the fan pull the air from over the stove into the filter and out the top of the hood into the kitchen. I accepted that but did not even think about the oven. Then as I began to think about it, I don't recall ever seeing the back of a stove. I have never had to deal with one that intimately myself.

That wall where I think the stove belongs is a shared wall. By that I mean, the other side of the wall is in the neighbor's service area. I don't think I could have a vent hole put through my kitchen wall, to become the vent, because it would vent right into the neighbor's service area. The service areas in these houses are all open, but the neighbors behind my house are in the process of enclosing theirs and I can see me doing that sometime in the future. If I were my nieghbor (on the back side of my kitchen wall) I don't think I would want the neighbors (me) venting their stove into my service area, especially if I too had plans to enclose that area. But, in my recent house shopping adventures I came across at least one situation where the neighbors had installed what I call a window air conditioner through the wall of their house. The back end of the a/c was left hanging over the driveway of the house I was looking at. If we ever wanted to add a room onto that side of that house, we would have the back end of the neighbor's air conditioner in our new room. I mention this only because I have to realize that some people are not terribly concerned about invading their neighbor's space. So perhaps my putting a vent through my kitchen wall into the neighbor's service area would not be considered that unusual in Mexico. Who knows? I know I scratched that house off the list because I did not want neighbors who did things like that. Maybe they had the former owner's permission. Who knows?

So I thought I would ask here, half way anticipating that things may be done differently in Mexico than they are NOB. I am primarily concerned with the issue of whether or not it is necessary/advisable/required to vent an oven to the outiside. I am not THAT interested in a discussion about invading the neighbor's spaces.

Thanks.

Rolly

Mar 17, 2008, 3:55 PM

Post #2 of 16 (11312 views)

Re: [JohnBleazard] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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A vent for the oven is not required. A vent over the stove top is a nice feature, but not a necessity. I have never lived in a house or apartment with a stove vent in the USA or México.

Rolly Pirate

bournemouth

Mar 17, 2008, 3:57 PM

Post #3 of 16 (11311 views)

Re: [JohnBleazard] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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John - I've never ever see an oven directly vented to the outside, anywhere, so I think don't think you have a problem. The salesman is right in that most vent hoods that are sold are the recirculating kind. I much prefer ones that vent the air to the outside but it just does not seem to be the custom here to do it that way and much of that may relate to small houses and nowhere to vent it.

thriftqueen

Mar 17, 2008, 6:29 PM

Post #4 of 16 (11294 views)

Re: [bournemouth] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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Living in the state of Sonora where as you know summers are hotter than Hades it is wonderful when you can vent the hood over the stove to the outside. We built our home and don't have a neighbor problem however at first our stove was not vented to the outside after much nagging my husband he finally got around to installing a hood and venting it to the outside. It sure makes a wonderful addition to a hot kitchen when the temps are 110 degrees in July. I realize you were asking about venting the oven which is not necessary and not a requirement but just thought I'd throw in my opinion about the hood over the stove.

bournemouth

Mar 17, 2008, 6:35 PM

Post #5 of 16 (11293 views)

Re: [thriftqueen] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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Couldn't agree with you more - I always hated running the range hood and having all that heat come back into the room.

So - John - if you can find a way to install a range hood that vents to the outside, go for it. Go up to Nogales/Tucson and bring one back if you can manage the installation.

Oscar2

Mar 18, 2008, 5:47 PM

Post #6 of 16 (11264 views)

Re: [JohnBleazard] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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John, one thing that perhaps hasn’t been touched on, is if the vent has a fan, this we find very useful when cook top frying or simmering certain kinds of fish or very garlicky/onion type stuff which will otherwise permeate the whole house with its smoke. Fish smoke can affect curtain smells in adjacent family room or the like. I know, there were times when fish cooking was done without the fan vent on and boy all the windows have to fly open to evacuate the heavy odors. Which is also a viable alternative..

The above is just a suggestion although not necessary but just another advantage of vent stove fans.

Esteban

Apr 19, 2008, 7:19 PM

Post #7 of 16 (11204 views)

Re: [Oscar2] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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I totally agree. If you can vent the heat and the odors to the outside you should do it. It's a LUXURY indeed. Use the proper fan, the proper sized vent pipe and if you can get away with it, don't use elbows.

Jun 12, 2008, 3:15 PM

Post #8 of 16 (11154 views)

Re: [Esteban] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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It always amazes me when this (IMHO) important detail seems to be left (too often) to the very end of the kitchen construction. Inevitably more expense, hand wringing and mess will be incurred to solve what could have been managed very simply with pre-planning. I always have a check list for such things and would never consider building a house without touching on the important / must-have items first. As one who loves to cook ethnic foods, a kitchen exhaust fan is on my must-have list.

JohnnyBoy

Jun 13, 2008, 8:54 PM

Post #9 of 16 (11131 views)

Re: [BajaGringo] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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I posted this question originally because I was concerned about asphyxiating myself. I was warned in the USA not to vent my gas clothes dryer back into the house dring the winter (otherwise recommended with electric dryers to add heat and humidity to houses during the bitter cold winter months in the midwest where I lived) for this very reason. Seemed to me if I could gas myself with dryer fumes, I could even more easily gas myself with stove/oven fumes, but apparently not.

Some of us don't have the where-with-all to build a well thought-out hacienda without shared walls. Some of us are in Mexico because we could not afford to live in the USA where vented stoves/ovens and dryers are taken for granted and we can't afford to build a house in Mexico of the type I think you are describing and would plan. Some of us have to buy on the open Mexican housing market from what is available, along with middle class Mexicans. So it wasn't an oversight nor a failure to plan properly.

In all my searching for a house to buy here I never once saw a house with a stove/oven vent to the outside, mainly because, as is the case with my house, that wall, where the vent should go, is the neighbor's wall as well.

We can't all live in the type of house you would make sure had this little luxury with all your presence of mind and planning.

Jun 14, 2008, 12:53 AM

Post #10 of 16 (11122 views)

Re: [JohnBleazard] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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Believe it or not, I have not always lived in stately mansions on the mountain top with 30 foot columns on the front porch with maids quarters and 6 car garages. That should be coming next year if things work out as planned...

Seriously though, what I have stated does not even require free standing homes. My first home I built in Latin America was in downtown San Miguel de Tucuman in NW Argentina. I shared three common walls with neighbors. It was actually a remodel of an old house in crowded downtown that had originally been built back in 1927 with very high ceilings and really tall skinny doors. The ceilings wewre so high that it made roof exhaust almost impossible. How did I do it? I created a small 1.5 M X 1.5 M patio (very small) in the very back of the house, backing up to the neighbor behind and boxed in by my kitchen on one side and my laundry room on the other. I vented the kitchen exhaust out on the one side and the water heater exhaust out from the laundry room on the other. I wasn't rich. I was only 24 years old at the time and still wet behind the ears at just about everything in life. I had a problem with a house with no exhaust for either the kitchen or water heater and knew I needed to do something. It worked and I gained some extra light in the back of the house as well. Do you know how big the entire house was? 65 square meters. Not quite the stately mansion to which I aspire but it was what I could afford back then. In fact I could only afford it because it was an old house with a bad roof and in general disrepair.

Some times you just have to engineer things in difficult situations and be creative. I was only 24 and able to figure it out. If you put your mind to it I bet that you could too. Even on a tight budget.

Sorry if I upset you so much...

JohnnyBoy

Jun 14, 2008, 9:17 AM

Post #11 of 16 (11102 views)

Re: [BajaGringo] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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No problem. Not upset at all. Thanks for your comments and all your recent, quality participation on MexConnect. I am sure I am not the only one who has been reading and enjoying your posts.

cristalhombre

Jun 14, 2008, 10:49 AM

Post #12 of 16 (11091 views)

Re: [JohnBleazard] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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John. You might be thinking of a down-draft Jenn-Air type stove. These are vented, with a mechanical exhaust fan within the range. The idea is that as you are cooking on the top surface (frying for example) you turn on the fan and the draft (direction of the air) is into the stove itself and then out a thru a vent in the wall. We had one..........that feature, the down draft exhaust fan, did NOT work well. We no longer have that stove. A hood overhead with a decent fan is the way to go. Takes away the heat and fumes. Hopefully you have an outside wall against your stove.

"NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST...."

Jun 14, 2008, 1:01 PM

Post #13 of 16 (11077 views)

Re: [cristalhombre] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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You don't need to have a wall directly behind the stove. Some routing of the duct away from the vent is okay to be able to reach an outside wall. Something that is important to remember - if you are burning propane it is not as efficient as natural gas. It is quite common to find HC (hydrocarbon) residuals in your gas fumes and recycling them back into your kitchen is not something that I would call a good idea. Because of that I even run our exhaust when using the oven, not just the stove top. I have done a lot of work with gas HC, both in the lab and in refining. YMMV

travisdyer

Jun 14, 2008, 3:59 PM

Post #14 of 16 (11065 views)

Re: [BajaGringo] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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Another option is to purchase and install an overhead microwave range with built-in ventilation fan. Most of these do not require a duct vented to the exterior of the home. I had one installed in our home in Nashville, and it works great.

Jun 14, 2008, 10:59 PM

Post #15 of 16 (11042 views)

Re: [travisdyer] Venting Stoves/Ovens

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That works if you aren't interested in venting the propane exhaust outside. It is no different than any of the other vents sold in Mexico that simply recycle the exhaust back into the same room.

travisdyer

Jun 15, 2008, 7:25 AM

Post #16 of 16 (11030 views)