Extractor Hoods
Buy and sell extractor hoods in Costa Rica.
What a range hood is for is plain enough: over a stove where something gets fried most days, the grease has to end up somewhere other than the cabinet doors. Hoods turn up new and pre-owned, from slim visor units tucked under a wall cabinet to stainless chimneys and island hoods taken down in a remodel. Two facts narrow the choice before any brand does: the width of the stove underneath, and whether the wall behind it has a route outside.
Visor, chimney and island extractor hoods:
what hangs above the stove settles the type. A visor or slim hood fixes under the wall cabinet and is the one many rental kitchens come with; Midea and Haceb make them light and cheap. A chimney hood takes the place of that cabinet: the canopy bolts to the wall and a stainless cover climbs to the ceiling over the duct. An island hood hangs from the ceiling above a cooktop in an open kitchen, often with a glass wing, and it is the hardest to fit and to pass on. Some kitchens skip the hood for a microwave with a fan in its base, listed under microwaves.
Ducted hoods and the condo kitchen with no outside wall:
only a ducted hood clears heat and steam as well as smell. In a tower apartment in Rohrmoser or La Sabana the stove often sits on an inside wall with nowhere to run a pipe, so the hood recirculates through its grease filter and a carbon filter. Most chimney hoods work either way, but carbon filters are made for each model and die once saturated, so before taking an older hood to a kitchen without a duct, check its filters are still sold.
Inches, centimetres and the width of the stove underneath:
Frigidaire, Whirlpool and GE are sized in inches, Teka and Haceb in centimetres, and the common sizes are the same widths under different numbers, so measure hood and stove in one unit. A hood should be at least as wide as the stove or cooktop from stoves and cooktops below it, and a size wider over a gas top that fries often. A long duct with several elbows throttles any motor, so the route outside matters as much as the airflow on the label.
From a slim visor hood to an island hood:
a visor or under-cabinet model costs around ₡35,000 to ₡70,000 new. A secondhand one competes with that shelf price while carrying years of grease in a simple motor, and it rarely wins. At the other end, a stainless island hood runs around ₡320,000 to ₡450,000 new. Few kitchens can take one, since it needs an island and a duct through the ceiling, so a used one can sit a long while waiting for the right kitchen, and that is where a patient buyer saves real money, provided the glass and every cover section come with it.
Fan wheel, filters and the housing behind them on a used hood:
ask to see it running, ideally still on the wall, through every speed and the light. A rattle or whine that climbs with speed means a fan wheel caked in grease and out of balance, or a tired bearing. On touch-control hoods, try every button: steam and grease are hard on those panels. Slide out the metal filters: a brown, tacky mesh soaks clean, but grease that has got past them and pooled in the housing means years without cleaning. On a chimney or island hood, look for dents in the cover and chips on a glass wing, and make sure the cover sections, bracket and duct collar are there: they belong to the model and are hard to find loose.
Taking down a chimney hood for its next kitchen:
keep every part together: cover sections, bracket, screws and any carbon filters, bagged inside the canopy. In the listing give the brand, the width and whether it ran ducted or recirculating, and photograph it clean with the filters in, the underside lit and the rating plate. Say how far the chimney cover extends, because someone driving over from Atenas needs to know it suits their ceiling before setting out. A hood that hung over daily frying still sells; a photo of the housing behind the filters lets the buyer judge that grease for themselves.