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Fundamentals of Kitchen Ventilation

A. Bhatia, B.E.


Course Outline

Proper venting and capture of the gases, heat, grease, vapors, and smoke generated by cooking equipment is important; not only for fire prevention and sanitation purposes, but also for maintaining the health and well being of food service workers. In order to help prevent dangerous or unhealthful conditions within a food facility, it is critical that exhaust ventilation systems be designed, constructed, and operated in compliance with all applicable requirements.

This 2-hr course material provides basic guidelines to assist in determining mechanical exhaust ventilation requirements for the cooking equipment
The course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the reader will:


Intended Audience

This course is aimed at students, engineers, kitchen designers, architects, food service operators, facility managers, property managers, H &S professionals, supervisors, technical and sales representatives and anyone who wants a basic understanding of kitchen ventilation.


Course Introduction

Kitchen space brings an exceptional concentration of heat and fumes into a small area. The smoke, grease vapors, steam, heat, fumes, and obnoxious odors generated in a food establishment must be captured, exhausted or otherwise removed in such a manner as to allow and promote a sanitary environment. Exhaust hood systems must be designed as part of the general facility ventilation system in such a way as to allow the complete system to provide adequate ventilation and climate control while not interfering with the capture and exhaust of smoke and contaminants.

This course reviews the above criteria in detail.

Course Content

The course content is in a PDF file Fundamentals of Kitchen Ventilation. You need to open or download this document to study this course.


Course Summary

Kitchen is very important part of the foodservice facility. Cooking produces heat, odors, smoke, vapors, grease and other pollutants. When a ventilation system breaks down, the cooking environment soon becomes a very unfriendly place to work. Thus, a constant supply of fresh, clean air is essential. The ventilation system must exhaust the heat produced and remove the moisture and cooking effluents.

Ventilation systems represent one of the most challenging tasks to the designers. Too much exhaust can suck the heat out of an oven, preventing it from cooking properly. Too little can cause controls and electronic components to overheat and fail. Knowing what your cooking equipment requires is critical to its performance and operating life. So, proper ventilation can indeed have a major impact on your comfort and bottom line! It is important that all commercial kitchens have an effective airflow plan. The plan should take into account all equipment that produces waste air (stove, deep fryer, dishwasher, etc) and then balance this with clean makeup air. The extraction of waste air and intake of clean air should form a stable airflow pattern inside the kitchen.

Kitchen ventilation is subject to many constraints and forces which must be examined and evaluated together. When any consideration is understated operating costs will increase and sanitation will suffer. The strategy used to introduce replacement (makeup) air can significantly impact hood performance and should be a key factor in the design of kitchen ventilation systems. Makeup air introduced close to the hood's capture zone may create local air velocities and turbulence that result in periodic or sustained failures in thermal plume capture and containment. Exhaust ventilation systems are also reviewed and inspected by local building and fire authorities to determine compliance with applicable building and fire codes.

Adequate ventilation is fundamental to achieving control of health and safety risks in kitchens as well as general hygiene control and food safety. The problems related to kitchen layout, equipment selections, ventilation and lighting conditions require the expertise of many specialists.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

Take a Quiz

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.