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Sinus Pain? Maybe you need a range hood

How do you recognize a bad situation when it's like the air you breathe? Literally is the air you breathe? A couple of really bad days, years apart, finally clued me in that cooking fumes were giving me sinus headaches, which led to neck pain. So I ordered a range hood and stopped cooking onions in the meantime. Sinus problems and neck pain--absent.

To the best of my recollection, no house I ever lived in (until last week) had a properly working range hood, or any range hood. My previous house had a small, east-facing window next to the stove that might have helped. But when I lived in a dorm, I don't think I ever had a cold, and the only sinus pain I remember from that time was during a bad allergy season.

I put in a range hood last weekend. It's ductless--it doesn't vent to the outside, but filters the air through charcoal filters and recirculates it back into the kitchen. For its maiden meal, I sautéed peppers, onions and zucchini. I could smell the peppers cooking, but not the onion. It seems to do what it's supposed to.

This sucks!

Since there's no plug-in near the ceiling, I got a 16-gauge extension cord and a cord concealer kit and left an inch of space between the top of the chimney and the ceiling. I plugged in the cord, shoe-horned it into the concealer which I'd sawed to the right lengths, pasted the concealer to the wall and painted it. The cord took as long to put in as the hood and the eight-foot length was barely long enough.

Conduit on the wall--just like at Grandma's house. The vents allow the air to recirculate into the room.

The whole thing was about $300--not a bad price to help make my sinus and neck pain go away. The controls on it are odd, though. The low fan button runs the fan on high if you press it when the fan is off. You have to press and hold the off button to shut off the fan and/or lights (why?) and for that matter, there's no apparent reason for an off button since the other buttons turn the fan and lights on and off. The lights are cold blue. You can order warm upgrades for $35 or $46, but I have no idea which model to order and I've been too busy to find out. A video on YouTube shows what a pain in the neck it is to change them. And oddly, you have to put the brand name on the hood yourself. I guess you don't have to, but I did it to save any successor owners the trouble of figuring out what kind of replacement filters to get.

Nevertheless, it's a fan, filters and lights and it works. 

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Comments

Lowcarb team member said…
It's certainly not nice when cooking fumes seemed to be giving you sinus headaches, leading to neck pain!
Well done on fitting your new range hood and from what you've written it certainly seems to be working well and improving your health too!

All the best Jan
September 22, 2023
Lori Miller said…
It beats septoplasty!
September 22, 2023
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