People asked us here  and here about electrical chimneys. We mentioned briefly in our article Hob placement in kitchen - User Query what an electric chimney is supposed to do.

It is a vacuum cleaner kind of a device which has a motorized way of creating an air turbulence. Somewhat similar to an exhaust fan, a chimney throws air out of the cooking area creating a low pressure/suction effect near the cooking media.

However, an electric chimney is far more sophisticated in nature. For starters, it has a duct mechanism which serves to channel the air flow in an efficient manner.(Compact chimneys do not have the duct). While the exhaust fan has a powerful suction at it’s rear end, the smoke does not have to get guided all the way to the fan which is situated at the top end of the room.

The electric chimney is therefore located just above your cooking stove/hob and the smoke which logically rises above, enters the chimney automatically. Further the surface area is quite large which makes escaping of the smoke no longer an issue. (an exception here would be steam from the whistle of a pressure cooker which would escape sideways and not to the top. However it is more or less pure steam so less harm is done.)

Image Courtesy : Alibaba.com

When turned on, a constant low pressure and flush out effect is created in the Chimney which sucks the smoke into the hood and expels it outside the kitchen.

Most chimneys have buttons with which you can control the speed of operation. Further they have illumination so that you can see what you are cooking. This is really a good feature.

Chimneys are available with or without hood. We will cover some details in the next post, so keep reading. Predominantly, chimneys need a duct pipe to expel the gases, so please plan this in advance.

As with any electric appliance, there are criteria to choose the electric chimney. The most important one is the suction power. It is measured in cubic meter per hour (m3/hour)