I’m mulling over putting a vent hood into my basement laundry room, I just want to make sure it’s worth the trouble. The laundry room has 36" of counter space, a commercial refrigerator, a large tub sink, and storage for all the brew-toys. So a vent hood would be stellar so I could brew right in the room.
So here’s the the questions I’d like to run past the community to give me some more perspective, ideas, or just stop me from doing something stupid.
1.) There is already a dryer vent that exits the house in this room. The path between where the hood would go and where the exhaust currently is would be perpendicular across all of the joists, not ideal. I am going to put a drop ceiling in so I may be able to traverse the distance between the joists and the drop ceiling. See anything wrong here?
2.) I’d like to see some folks’ hoods if they’d be willing to post links or pictures of their setups or any slick ideas.
3.) Does anyone have any other creative ideas or alternatives to a vent hood?
I got this extra-wide (42") range hood from a Sears store that sells refurbished appliances. It’s dented right in front, but it was cheap, and it has twice the flow rate of a standard unit. There were knock-outs for a standard-sized (10"x3.25") rectangular vent in the top and back. I opted for the top and adapted it to 6" round pipe.
In the next photo, you can see the round pipe running from the hood through the joist bay to the rim joist. I really ought to insulate that pipe.
Here’s the vent assembly on the outside of the the house.
To put that in, I had to cut a hole in the side of the house. A friend with a hammer drill came over to help me (thanks, Tom).
Keeping the fan on full blast during the boil keeps condensation and humidity in check. It doesn’t completely eliminate the smell of boiling wort in the house, but it’s a considerable improvement. I keep the fan on low when working with cooled wort or yeast, thinking the resulting updraft will prevent bacteria-laden dust from landing.
You could probably build it out of plywood and paint it, but you’d have to find your own blower then. A second-hand stove hood is probably the cheapest way to go. I also imagine that you mostly need the hood over the boil kettle, so you could get away with a smaller one that doesn’t cover the mash and HLT.