Posted by Kate Owen
Friday, 5 Mar 2010
Cooker extractor hoods can be an absolute nightmare to clean. The yellow, greasy, messy residue clings to your cooker hood surfaces and is often a pain to shift even with specialist cleaning equipment.
The number one rule when cleaning cooker hoods is not to let the grease build up too much in the first place. Try to implement a regular cleaning regime to avoid massive greasy deposits, even if you only wipe over with a cloth and a bit or degreaser when you’re doing the hob. It’ll go a long way to stopping grease in its tracks.
Why is it important to clean your cooker extractor hood filter?
A dirty filter means that the extractor fan has to be run at a higher setting to achieve the expected results and this increases the energy consumption and noise. Therefore the grease filter in a cooker hood must be regularly cleaned – about once a month.
Some cooker hoods have disposable, changeable filters which are easy to just throw away and replace, saving you a lot of cleaning. If your cooker hood is equipped with metal filters you can clean them to their original shine by popping them in the dishwasher. If the filters are stainless-steel this method is fine. If they are aluminium, be careful, they can be damaged or discoloured by dishwasher detergent.
Dishwashers are able to achieve very high washing temperatures which remove dirt and grease. Without a dishwasher it is impossible to wash at such a high temperature because you can’t physically put your hands in 70 degree water. Really don’t try it...it hurts!!
Cleaning the cooker extractor hood body
For the main element of the cooker hood you can try a citrus degreaser or bike degreaser. Spray it onto a cloth then scrub clean. For very thick grease you can also scrub with baking soda and water.
I hope this post has been of help and given you an idea for what you can do this weekend ;)!
If you're looking to buy a cooker extractor hood, the one in the picture is the Baumatic F70.2SS.