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by schiffern 301 days ago
Higher extraction volumes also make heating and cooling bills go up.

It's one of those ideas that works fine when it's just a rare thing, but if 100% of households had one I guarantee we'd see headlines like "Wasteful Exhaust Vents Burn As Much Energy As Cleveland" etc etc.

I for one welcome our fume hood inspired overlords. The nice thing about fume hoods is that they're optimized for maximum extraction efficiency for a minimum extraction volume.

Everyone notices the side walls, but an overlooked secret of fume hoods is that they extract air backwards toward the back wall, not just upward.

1 comments

Any air extraction pulls conditioned air out of the house - kitchen hoods, dryers, bath fans, etc. Only kitchen hoods exhaust a significant amount of air - the solution is a makeup air system.
That doesn't change anything I wrote.

Makeup air just ensures the exhaust meets its rated flow rate. It doesn't reduce heating or cooling costs (if anything it increases them).