Exhaust hood in controlled residential ventilation: Your experiences?

I also absolutely wanted an exhaust hood, but was convinced otherwise. As much air as the exhaust hoods expel only comes back into the house with the window open. However, with the window open and the exhaust running, the controlled residential ventilation does not work effectively. So we treated ourselves to the recirculating hood Gutmann Campo. A Berbel was personally much too expensive for us (the Gutmann is already pricey). However, our kitchen will not arrive until the end of July, so we cannot share our own experiences yet.

Smells and dirt stay outside

You mean the extractor hood transports smells and dirt outside and perhaps you implicitly think that the filtering effect (smell and dirt) is less effective with recirculation hoods. I wouldn’t agree with that; even with recirculation you can effectively filter out smells and dirt. With recirculation, unlike with extraction, you have to get rid of the moisture. For that, you have controlled residential ventilation. With extraction, air has to be supplied, which is often hygienically questionable in old buildings; in new buildings, in my opinion, it’s only somewhat complicated in connection with fireplaces (although doable). Then there’s the question of heat loss. Maybe there are great things for extractor hoods in that regard, but I’m not specifically familiar with them. Be that as it may, I prefer recirculation, whether with or without controlled residential ventilation.

We also have a recirculation hood with controlled residential ventilation (of course). Unfortunately not a Berbel or Gutmann, but the Siemens unit works excellently as well. We have an open kitchen-dining-living area including a gallery and no problems with cooking odors. Okay, raclette on New Year's Eve was a bit too much, but no "normal" extraction hood would have managed that either, especially since we weren’t raclette grilling directly under the hood.

We have a controlled residential ventilation system and an exhaust hood, and when I have the hood on, I briefly open the window on tilt for air balance. I don't care that the controlled residential ventilation system is not effective for those few minutes. I have the controlled residential ventilation system anyway as a comfort factor and not for 100% energy efficiency.

Just like BratacDD, I see it the same way. We also have a controlled residential ventilation system and an exhaust hood. When cooking, the window in the kitchen is simply tilted for the (short) time (there are apparently special contact switches here that are supposed to prevent activation with the window closed). Then you basically have a "circuit" in the about 15m² kitchen area: outside air in, cooking fumes out, which you hardly notice in the open living room. As I said, depending on what you cook, that's maybe 30-60 minutes a day and in an area that makes up about 10-15% of the total living space. Therefore, painting the energetic disaster on the wall is complete nonsense. And even if you forget to open the window (we don’t have a contact switch), it doesn’t immediately create a vacuum in the house that you suffocate in. The ventilation gets out of sync??? Simply put, these are "normal fans" that just have to work a bit harder against the pressure. Regarding stress, durability, etc., the ventilation system handles that just as well as if you open a window in summer or in the bathroom. The idea that you can no longer open windows or similar is simply nonsense, we won’t let a ventilation system forbid that. That the heating/ventilation then no longer operates exactly as efficiently as indicated by the energy certificate is honestly totally irrelevant to us. That is a document with an assumption of a certain annual temperature or climate throughout the year depending on the region; it assumes that you should feel comfortable at xx degrees in the living room, yy degrees in the bathroom, and zz degrees in the bedroom, and from that a value is calculated, depending on insulation, window area and orientation, solar effects, and who knows what else. Honestly, you build a house for 300,000.- € plus land etc. (total volume usually over 400,000.- €) and then argue about whether you spend 68.- or 75.- per month on heating? No way, right?

Hello Dirk,

Which Berbel do you have? Edge 2? We are currently considering whether we should treat ourselves to the fun with the effect lighting.

How did you decide?

Best regards,

Manuel