That dirty stove hood filter is a burn down run a risk that may too concenter pests to your kitchen.

Woman adjust light on stove hood with dirt filters

Why You Need to Clean Stove Filters

Your range hood filter can reduce kitchen grime and cooking odors. All you lot take to practice is plow on the fan over your stove when yous're frying or sauteing food, and your range hood pulls the cooking steam through its filter. As the greasy air flows through information technology, the filter traps many of the grease particles.

If the fan is vented to the outdoors, every bit well-nigh are, the odors get sent out of your house. If your fan isn't vented to the outdoors, the filters still remove grease from the air and vent the rest back to your kitchen. The result is less grime hanging around in your abode's air, collecting on surfaces you'll have to clean like greasy kitchen cabinets.

Sounds great, right? The problem is that dirty range hood filters don't trap grease well, so you need to clean them routinely. Need another incentive?

Dirty Filters Concenter Pests

If you haven't been able to fully terminate a fruit wing infestation or get rid of cockroaches, a dingy stove hood filter may exist to blame. Why? Because both of those household pests Beloved to swallow any grease they can detect. Food-flavored grease is even amend.

Muddied Filters Fill Your Home with Toxins

Dirty gas stove hood filters add nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde to your indoor air at levels that exceed acute health-based standards. Muddied electric stove hood filters aren't much better. Electrical burners produce ultrafine particles that turn grit into vapors. If you aren't filtering those vapors through the stove hood filter, they're simply floating around in your air.

Sure, you could use the microwave exclusively. You could consume nothing but take-out. You lot could even adopt a completely raw food diet. Or, you lot could give your stove hood filters a deep cleaning this afternoon and go on them clean in just minutes each calendar month.

How to Deep Make clean Stove Hood Filters

If you've never cleaned your stove hood filters before, start with a deep cleaning, then follow the monthly maintenance tips beneath to go on them in expert shape. (Fourth dimension Required: 30 Minutes)

Equipment You Need

  • Large pot
  • Tongs
  • Old toothbrush

Materials You Need

  • Boiling water
  • ii cups distilled white vinegar
  • Liquid dish detergent

Instructions:

  1. Remove your range hood filter. If you take an over-stove microwave with a built-in fan instead of a hood, the filter will be on the bottom.
  2. Boil 4 quarts of water in a large pot then have it off the heat and allow it cool for a minute or two. Stir in two cups of white vinegar and a few drops of liquid dish detergent.
  3. Add your stove hood filter(s) and set a timer for thirty minutes.
  4. Use tongs to remove the filter afterwards thirty minutes and scrub information technology with an onetime toothbrush on both sides.
  5. Rinse the filter with clear water and thoroughly air dry it and then reinsert it into the range hood.

Stubborn Grease Solution

If you've never cleaned your stove hood filter before, time and heat may have caused the nerveless grease to form an almost laminated surface that's bonded to the filter material.

Y'all tin can get stubborn grease off of stove hood filters by soaking them overnight in a resealable bag filled with 1 cup of plain household ammonia. The next 24-hour interval, remove the filter and employ an old toothbrush to scrub away whatsoever grime, then wash it with warm, soapy water and rinse it well. Once it's completely dry out, put your clean range hood filter dorsum in identify.

How to Keep Your Stove Filter Clean

Your stove hood filter needs a deep cleaning at least in one case a year. If you cook a lot, or if you're trying to get a kitchen pest problem under command, you may need to deep clean information technology each season. In betwixt deep cleanings, the methods below can keep your stove hood filter clean and working well if yous do them at least once a month.

The Dishwasher Method

Stove hood filters are i of the many things you can clean in your dishwasher. Just pop them into the top rack and permit the steam loosen the grease while the water spray gets all of the filter's nooks and crannies. To avoid rust, make sure the filters are completely dry out before putting them back in the hood.

The Sink Method

Remove the filter and rinse information technology with hot water. And then, sprinkle both sides of the filter with baking soda (bicarbonate) and scrub it with an old toothbrush dipped in hot, soapy water. Rinse both sides well and let it completely air dry before putting information technology back in identify.

With proper maintenance, your stove hood filter should last for several years. You'll know information technology's time to supercede them when the mesh begins to sag or the seams grow weak.

Where to Next?
How to Clean a Glass Stove Cooktop
How To Clean a Kitchen Sponge
How To Make clean Stinky Drains