Commercial kitchen ventilation (CKV) systems are responsible for removing smoke, volatile organic compounds, grease particles and vapor that results from cooking. It’s an important part in the puzzle to maintain an efficient, clean and safe kitchen environment.

Ventilation systems are one of the most complex systems in a commercial kitchen and are challenging to design. Many are over- or under-designed and many simply don’t work.

“One of the main reasons CKV systems aren’t effective is because they are often designed by foodservice consultants in a vacuum,” says Don Fisher, president and CEO Fisher-Nickel, inc. (operator of the PG&E Food Service Technology Center). “There is a disconnect between the foodservice consultant who is designing the CKV system for the kitchen and the mechanical engineer, who is designing the HVAC system for the rest of the building. To be successful, these two parties have to work together.”

A white paper issued by Foodservice Consultants Society International, a professional organ-ization offering design and management consulting services across the world, focuses on this disconnect. The white paper offers specific best-practice design enhancements, including:

• Encourage better communication with the mechanical engineer. Although the design of the replacement air system is not, and probably never will be, the responsibility of the foodservice consultant, there must be an increased influence on this side of the design equation.
• Review the mechanical drawings. Anticipate the problems that may occur during the design. Strive to influence the mechanical design when potential deficiencies are recognized.
• Develop specific display cooking ventilation guidelines and specifications, emphasizing the operational limitations and significant exhaust airflow requirements for hoods that are exposed on all four sides.
• Utilize hood manufacturers’ software or calculations for selecting an appropriate design value for a given project. Do not base the design exhaust rate on the UL “cfm” listing for a given hood.
• Eliminate the specification of short-circuit hoods – possibly as far as taking an FCSI official position against this style of hood/makeup air combination.
• Specify performance and secure a guarantee (from the ventilation system manufacturer, mechanical engineer, installing contractor, and others involved) for the performance of the CKV system.

Fisher says foodservice consultants already employ several universal best practices to improve CKV performance, but they have to do more.

“There are standard industry best practices, such as not positioning broilers at the end of a cook line or using the right style of hood for a certain piece of equipment, adding end panels and eliminating four-way diffusers. But this won’t guarantee overall CKV system efficiency and performance if the system isn’t designed properly at the onset,” he says.

PG&E’s Food Service Technology Center offers several resources to help foodservice consultants improve CKV design and performance, including the following design guides:

• Selecting and Sizing Exhaust Hoods: This design guide focuses on the fundamentals of kitchen exhaust, providing design guidance and examples.
• Optimizing Makeup Air: This design guide augments the previous guide with an emphasis on the makeup air side of the equation. It is based on a PIER research project conducted by the CKV Lab in Chicago.
• Integrating Kitchen Exhaust Systems with Building HVAC: This guide provides information that may help achieve optimum performance and energy efficiency in commercial kitchen ventilation systems by integrating kitchen exhaust with building HVAC.

For more information on how to design an efficient and effective CKV system, contact Don Fisher at dfisher@fishnick.com.

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