Our cooker extractor has always been a bit crap, lived in this house for 7 years. We don't do very much greasy frying but the other night I thought I would check the filters as it really was doing nothing. Completely minging and blocked as you would imagine.
A quick Google says these should be replaced every 6 months, maybe every 3!? Oops, we are obviously slovenly dirt bags of the highest order. In our defence I don't think we have ever had one of these recirculation hoods before, previous houses had external/no extraction.
£25 a set too. Are people really spending £50 - £100 a year on cooker filters?
Cheap cooker hoods are a bit of a false economy.
The carbon filter part is for smells rather than grease. It's the metal mesh filter part that filters the grease out of the air, and they can go in the dishwasher every few months. Unless it's' a *really* cheap hood that uses a paper filter that needs replacing regularly.
Spent a lot of money on ours when we built 10 years ago but it uses a Dyson style centrifugal spin to remove the grease (which you wipe out of a removable tray) and has a big refillable carbon filter that lasts 3+ years and then just gets refilled with a big bag of loose carbon pellets.
The filters should be really cheap, there's really nothing to them.. can you find generic rather than branded replacements?
Or maybe something like this...
No paper here, we have the metal mesh grease collector and two round carbon filters. The carbon filters are so blocked that there was basically no airflow at all.
WTF, how often are you replacing those?
Most of the metal mesh ones are about £17 each, except mine which are £50. Its just slightly differet shape, its nothing special...!
Can't you externally extract it and ditch the carbon filters?
WTF, how often are you replacing those?
When it tells me based on usage. I can't actually remember how long that is as I switched to the ones that last about 10 years that you can regenerate by blasting them in the oven - a snip at £485 (think the RRP was around a grand 🤣).
This is why I duct mine to the outside rather than just recirculate the air.
Are you not able to just scoop out the carbon yourself and replace it with something like used/dried coffee grounds?
Outdoor venting would be preferable, but the location doesn't make that easy.
Erm, I'm using the fact that I only put it on a few times a year because it's so sodding loud as an excuse for never changing mine.