A Rather Disgusting All-Day Project

We've had an old, beat-up, dented, filthy range hood residing in our kitchen longer than I myself have lived here.  Shortly after I moved in, I noticed it was an eyesore so I cleaned it up and sprayed a nice new coat of paint on it.  Now it looked a bit better but it didn't work all that well and, as a result, it always seemed to be perpetually covered in slimy grease.  When I moved into this house, the light wasn't working on it anymore either so I replaced the electrical bulb socket too.  This was a "temporary fix" until we were able to renovate the kitchen.  Now it is almost 20 years later and I still have not gotten to renovating the kitchen.  Life and poor health have gotten in the way multiple times.

Although we still have not yet gotten to renovating the kitchen, quite a few temporary fixes were done to various parts of the kitchen.  We've been slowly reconfiguring the kitchen to our planned new kitchen.  We never did anything with that old, dented, ugly range hood though other than my initial repairs and deep cleaning.  At the time, there was no pressing need to spend money on that.

About a week ago, I knew that the range hood filter was in need of cleaning so I pulled that out in an attempt to clean it again.  I immediately noticed that the entire underside of the hood was dripping grease...  behind the filter, the fan and motor was caked in grease...  the light bulb and socket was covered in grease...  the wiring was covered in grease...  this was not good...  this old range hood was now a major fire liability.  I either needed to immediately attack the kitchen renovation project or come up with another temporary fix.  Regardless of which direction I chose, I knew I couldn't use this range hood again.

It didn't take me long (only a matter of seconds) to decide that it is not the time for a major kitchen renovation.  I need good weather for big projects.  We have no garage so all woodworking (building cabinets) needs to be accomplished outdoors.  We are socked in with snow now until spring so the only projects that get done around the house this time of year are smaller indoor projects.  This meant I needed to find another temporary fix for this now dangerous range hood.  

Even if I chose to go the route of buying a new filter, rewiring the hood, and cleaning it up, this would cost me about $50+ in parts and require a lot of work cleaning and rebuilding the old range hood.  Also, I'd have to do this messy work outdoors and, as mentioned above, the weather is not cooperating for that type of work.  Even if I went that route, unfortunately, I'd still be stuck with the noticeable dent along the front of the hood even after all that work in the frigid outdoors.  This range hood is not worth that amount of effort.  

If I could find a "good" range hood for less than $100 that would make this task a whole lot easier.  All I'd have to do is remove this old range hood and install the new one in its place.  This was the way to go!  Well...  that was the very simple plan anyway...  things never work out to be very simple when it comes to upgrades in an old house.

I still plan to install a far better and even larger range hood when we renovate the kitchen but this recent new purchase would be a temporary fix that also provides a step up in quality.  (This new range hood is pictured in both photos here in this blog entry.)

I got online and quickly found an acceptable range hood that was still under $100.  The specs for the fan showed that it is far more powerful than our old range hood...  this new range hood is clean...  it has no dents...  it has a light...  and this new range hood has multiple filters.  I really liked the idea of multiple filters.  I ordered this range hood and it arrived yesterday.  

The plan was to quickly install this new range hood.  I figured it was a simple job...  unscrew the old hood, let it drop down off the cabinets above the range and then easily screw the new range hood in place.  I should be done with this in about 30 minutes!

Well...  that didn't go as planned and this quick little 30 minute task required about four or five hours of frustrating, filthy, greasy, and unexpected work.  

The wiring needed to be in a different place than where it was coming out of the wall.  I needed to install a new outlet inside the upper cabinet for the new range hood.  Moving that wire to the new outlet was a bigger problem than expected because I had to move it to the other side of a wall stud but I didn't want to open up the wall.  

I also found that I needed to reroute wiring for our under-cabinet lighting too and this was time consuming.  

I also quickly found that the cabinet that was above the range wasn't mounted correctly (something that was done long before I moved into this house) so I had to fix that as well.  This meant completely emptying that cabinet which was a pain in the butt for a project that was supposed to be a 30 minute task.  

Just like the old range hood, this upper cabinet was covered in a thin coat of grease so I needed to degrease that before I installed the new range hood.  I didn't want to get any of that old grease, nor water, nor cleaners on the new range hood so this time consuming task needed to be accomplished now before I installed the new hood. 

I removed the doors from this cabinet...  I removed the hardware...  and I cleaned everything that was covered in grease.  Then I had to reassemble everything.  

I had holes to drill in the upper cabinet for the rewiring and a new duplex electrical outlet.  This created a huge mess on the stove, on the countertops and even behind the range.  Once I finished installing the new hood, I would need to pull out the range and clean up the mess I made.  In hindsight, I should have pulled the range out at the beginning of this project but I really did think this was just going to be a quick and simple task so I left it in place.  I covered the range but I left it in place.

I also found that this new range hood was a different height than the old range hood!  It was noticeably thinner which meant I was left with a two inch band of old wall exposed under the new hood and above the backsplash on the wall behind the range.  In the end, I chose to mount a piece of wood with hooks in it to hang our primary cooking utensils.  This wood covered the large band of old wall that was now exposed.  This took some time as well.

All in all, this little 30 minute task to swap range hoods really required about four or five hours of frustrating and pretty disgusting work.  Everything was covered in grease.  I had to keep wiping my hands off so I could grip things.  Besides, I didn't want to get grease on everything else I was touching especially the new range hood.  

I'm still recovering from this latest bout with COVID so my breathing is terrible and I'm exhausted which didn't help any.  My thumb is still healing after a serious tablesaw accident in July so anything requiring fine motor skills or gripping small things like screws is frustratingly difficult and a little painful.  

Fortunately, after about four or five hours of greasy, filthy, slimy, disgusting work, we now have a sleek looking and far more effective range hood in our kitchen and, better yet, it isn't about to spark a major kitchen grease fire!