hood hight?

[Arbe0]

I am using a kitchen type vent hood for my homebrew brewery. I have had compaints about the hight which is 66 inches from the floor from people taller than little old me (40 inches from the table my pots sit on). In planning to raise it higher I fugure it can do about 8.5 inches higher. the run from the window to the back of the hood is only about 22 inches staight run without any offsets with a 6 inch galvenised fittings to a 410 FCM blower fan.
This all gets the vent hood about 48 inches above my table (about 32 inches from the top of my pots).
So is this seem too high for the hood to be at?

 

[D.B.Moody]

My first thought is to wonder why these people get to complain about your hood and setup. Are they your minions that have to use it? Does it work fine for you as is? Just tell them that it works like a buffet face shield thing: it keeps overly tall people from putting their faces into the pots.

On second (post your reply) thought, I get it, and the condensation problem is worrisome.

 

[Arbe0]

I want my Brewing Buddies to not have to worry about bumping their heads on the hood first of all so they want to come brew with me.
Also I am thinking the hood would work better and more efficient if I improve it. As of now it comes out of the top and has a 90 degree bend to get to the blower fan and then to the window. I have an opportunity because of the way it is built to come out of he back of the hood, which will make the run straight and closer to the window along with raising it up. I do have a problem with condensation (dripping) that I hope this will fix.

 

[Brewsit]

You may be overthinking this whole thing. I have a normal bathroom style vent face that is mounted on the wall above the boil kettle... it's hooked up to a 460 CFM exhaust fan. I crack a window and turn the fan on and have zero condensation, dripping or anything. Having a bunch of surfaces at all kinds of angles right off the boil kettle might be setting you up for failure, as they all provide surfaces for condensate to form. Since I'm about an hour away from you, I would say the air here is dry enough that if you set something up like this you should not have any problems.

 

[Arbe0]

Brewsit: looks like your are saying I could just take the hood off and run the fan straight out the window and it would be better? Could be an easy thing to do and may do that just to experiment with how it would work out for me.

 

[Brewsit]

Yea I would try it like that, take the hood off and see how the fan itself just performs. I would suspect that you're getting a lot of condensate on the hood just because it's a big cold surface right under the steam. You would need a ton of airflow and fresh air coming from the other side to keep it from dripping, I would think. If you have another window in that area, I would crack it while you're brewing to give you a dry makeup air source.

 

[Arbe0]

Ran the fan with the hood off 90 minuet boil. Noticed condensation on fan and above the boil pot at 60. didn't notice any drips but I kind of was cleaning kegs also. If it dripped it was minimal.