With outdoor air pollution becoming lately a grave public health issue, the Consumer Council has just completed testing of a household electrical product that will help beat the vexing problem of indoor air pollution in kitchen - the cooker hood.
The choice of a good cooker hood is not a matter to be taken lightly. Buying a good cooker hood that fits snugly into your kitchen and convenient to use, and clean, will certainly help change your lifestyle for the better.
But, more importantly, is its performance in removing the cooking fumes that could be potentially very harmful to health over long term exposure.
The harmful effects of cooking fumes, quite common in cooking of Chinese cuisine, have been documented in a Chinese University of Hong Kong study conducted during 2002 to 2004 in Hong Kong.
According to the University's then Department of Community and Family Medicine (now School of Public Health and Primary Care), exposure to cooking fumes generated by frying, stir- or deep-frying, could increase the risk of lung cancer.
It found that if a non-smoking woman cooks an average of 5 dishes daily for more than 20 years, her risk of lung cancer would be at least 2 times higher than one who cooks an average of 5 dishes daily for less than 10 years.
A cooker hood of good performance will obviously go a long way to help reduce the exposure to cooking fumes.
A total of 12 cooker hood models were put to test to assess their performance (energy efficiency, extraction of grease, odour and steam as well as noise level), safety (both electrical and mechanical), and ease of use (design, lighting and cleaning).
Consumers especially housewives can heave a sigh of relief. The results of the test showed that cooker hoods are generally effective, safe and easy to use.
Their overall rating scores, based on performance (60%), safety (30%) and ease of use (10%), on a scale of 5, indicated only slight variations within a narrow range of 4.5 (1 model) to 3.5 (also 1 model) with the rest all awarded a score of 4.
Cooker hood manufacturers are often engaged in the practice of promoting claims of exhaustion flow rate and fan speed of their products, and consumers are likely to base their shopping comparison on these claims.
However, in the test, it was found that cooker hood samples of lower measured exhaustion flow rate or lower measured fan speed were not necessarily worse off in terms of grease extraction. 2 samples measured with the lowest extraction flow rate - one with only 1 fan and its measured fan speed was the second lowest among all samples - turned out to be good performers in grease removal.
5 other samples also fared comparatively better in grease extraction performance.
All samples were found to perform well in odour extraction, and 2 samples were rated favourably over the others in steam extraction.
On exhaustion flow rate stability, 3 samples were found to be better than the others. This means their flow rate will have only relatively small variation, or be slightly affected, under different pressure or resistance, for instance, by the length or way of installation of the ducting.
A cooker hood in operation that generates excessive noises can be irritating and certainly does not make for a comfortable cooking environment. One sample stood out among all others as the top performer in quietness.
On safety, with the exception of 1 sample, all others were found to have room for improvement in safety such as material resistance to fire and potential access to live part when replacing the lamp. But under normal operation, these would not pose safety hazard. The results have been notified to the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department for consideration of follow-up investigation.
Consumers are advised to clean the cooker hoods regularly to maintain the efficiency of the appliance. To ensure safe maintenance, users will do well to follow the instruction manual, to switch off the power supply and preferably unplug the cooker hood before cleaning or replacing the lamp.
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