mounting commercial kitchen hood

[matkins]

Hi there,

I'm opening a small restaurant and trying to figure out how to best mount/vent a 10' hood that I've got. I've contacted two different local contractors that both dropped the ball and haven't returned my calls after coming out to look at the situation. Is this something I could do myself to save some time and money, or am I stuck with trying to work with a pro? I have a good idea of what needs to happen and where the ducting needs to go, and am fairly competent with tools.

Any advice is greatly appreciated... and I'm the Portland, OR area if anyone can recommend someone to work with.

thanks in advance,
-Michael

[amickracing]

Well, I think it's possible to do yourself if you have some welding skills, equipment to fabricate the duct (likely needs to be 16ga blk iron), might need to be wrapped with fire wrap, inspectors love to pick apart the codes for hoods aswell.

Honestly I'd say hire a pro though. Nothing beats a professional with the proper equipment to hang them heavy beasts, and install everything up to code.

This isn't a scare tactic, just a story. I was involved with a nasty hood installation 2-3 years ago. They hung the hoods themselfs, screwed them right to the joists, no air gap between the hood and combustables, we just tied the duct to the hoods and out of the building. We pointed out the major problems, but they never did anything to fix it. Months after it was up and running the building burnt down and killed 2 people who were living there. Been a nasty tied up legal mess ever since. Hindsight I guess our company should have walked away from it and only hooked it up once it was brought to code. Even though I was a worker-bee on that job, they've nailed me with several questions, I'm just glad I'm not the foreman on that job.

Ok, moral of the story, bad things can happen if you don't do it right.. just something to think about.

Good luck!

[secorp]

I hate kitchen hood installations, even in new construction they are not easy.
You also need to have make up air, especially if you have gas fired ovens
No, hire somebody. the local inspector surely would not let you do it.