How to Clean A Range Hood

I shudder to share how greasy my vent hood has become. I grill steak in a cast iron pan once a week. I blame the steak (and not my lack of cleaning).

Cleaning your range hood is something you need to do. You might not realize it until you see grease dripping from it, as I did, but trust me the grease is lurking inside. Once I got up in there I realized the just how greasy it gets.

How often you need to clean your vent hood really depends upon how much you cook and what you cook. If you’re just steaming broccoli, that’s not greasy. If frying bacon steak every day you need to clean much more often.

I’m going to walk you through a two step process to cleaning your range hood. The first step is cleaning the filters that go up in your vent hood and the second step is cleaning the hood itself.

How to Clean the Filters In Your Range Hood

Every vent hood is unique. Most of the newer ones have removable/cleanable filters but you need to examine your vent to make sure. Some vents have replaceable filters instead of washable filters. When you take out the filters they will say right on the filter if they are washable. If you don’t find it, google the name of your range hood and you can find the answer.

I didn’t remodel the kitchen in my house, but I learned about my vent hood by taking the filters out and getting up inside it.

Supplies to Clean Your vent hood Filters

vent hood cleaning

To clean your filters you need:

  • Boiling Water
  • Baking Soda
  • A dish washing liquid that is a degreaser (I used dawn, which I don’t use every day)

If you don’t have a large enough sink to hold your filters, you can use metal tub basin.

Steps For Cleaning Vent Filters

Put a stopper in your sink. Heat enough boiling water to fill your sink with the filters laying flat in the sink. In my case I had to do this more than once. Set the filters in the sink and pour the hot water over them. Add 1/2 cup of baking soda and a few squirts of dish washing liquid.

Use a heat proof cup to ladle water over the filter. Let it soak for approximately 5 minutes. You don’t want the water to get too cool before you rinse. When you rinse the filters, rinse with hot water.

Let your filters dry before you put them back in. At this point the job is only half finished. The filters do catch grease, but not all the grease as you will see when you look inside your range hood.

How to Clean The Range Hood Itself

As I examined my range hood without the filters more closely I could see grease everywhere. First, put a towel over the burners. This ensures that all of the degreaser doesn’t spray all over your cook top.

How to clean a vent hood

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I was only able to find Easy Off when I was ready to clean my vent hood, but there are better degreasers out there. I really like Krud Kutter but I didn’t have time to wait for it.

Start from the outside in. Spray the outside of your vent an all sides with the degreaser. Wide down all sides with paper towels. This is not eco-friendly, but I don’t want to wash a bunch of greasy rags. Have you ever had a block in your sewer line that was grease? I have and believe me you don’t want that.

Now get up in your vent as much as you can. The inside walls of my range hood were really greasy all the way up to the air hole. You will probably have to do a lot of uncomfortable bending and twisting to get it all. I had to spray some parts of mine multiple times to get through the grease.

how to clean a vent hood

This is not a fun job, but you don’t have to do it that often. You know it’s time when you see grease dripping down from the vent. 😅 Or maybe it’s time before that.

Before you go, you might want to see how to clean your indoor griddle, how to clean a toaster oven and how to clean a stainless sink.

how to clean a vent hood

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4 Comments

  1. Andrea, I am literally going to clean my vent hood today. This is so informative. I do clean the vents but NEVER thought to go higher. You are amazing. Plus I’ve never heard of Krud Kutter~will order that through your post. You write such great posts! I should probably check our BBQ vent too.

  2. Andrea, this is SUCH good advice. I am going to clean my hood today! I never thought to go higher than the filters. I should probably take a look at my outdoor BBQ hood too. Thanks for all the great info.

  3. Excellent job! Such a useful post this is for the DIYers! Keep it up!

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