Whirlpool range hood is not clearing the smoke

Wash the filters and find out where the air goes

Take the metal grease filters out and put them through the dishwasher, or scrub them in hot water with degreaser. A filter that has been in place for a year is carrying enough grease to halve the airflow, and this alone fixes a large share of these calls. Then work out whether the hood vents outside at all: hold a tissue to the outlet with the fan on high and go and look at the vent on the outside wall or the roof. If there is no outside outlet, the appliance is recirculating and its charcoal filter needs replacing rather than washing.

What it usually means, by the kind of machine

Whirlpool sells one appliance in several forms — a top-loader with an agitator and one without, a front-loader, a stacked pair, a laundry tower and an all-in-one; a vented dryer, a ventless one and a heat pump — and the same behavior points at different things on each of them. A top-load washer has no drain pump filter to open and a front-loader does, which is the whole first hour of the same complaint on two machines.

• Under-cabinet vent hood — The straightforward case: filter, blower, duct. If it is ducted outside, everything on this page applies in order.
• Over-the-range microwave — Does the hood's job on most Whirlpool kitchens in this area. Many are set to recirculate through a charcoal filter rather than vent outside, which changes what it can possibly achieve.
• Retractable downdraft — Pulls across the cooktop rather than up through it, and Whirlpool publishes its own poor-performance page for these. Rising heat is working against the fan by design.

The honest answer about recirculating hoods

A great many kitchens in condominiums and townhouses across the three counties cannot duct to the outside at all, so the hood — or far more often the over-the-range microwave — recirculates through a charcoal filter and puts the air back into the room. Those units take grease and some odor out and they do not remove heat or steam, because the air never leaves. If that is your installation and the complaint is a kitchen that gets hot and steamy, no repair will change it, and it is better to hear that from us than to pay for a motor.

Salt air on a coastal installation

Hood dampers and duct terminations on the outside wall of a building near the water corrode, and a flap that has seized part-closed reduces the airflow without giving any sign indoors. It is worth looking at the outside termination on any coastal property where the hood has quietly become less effective, because that is a repair that never gets found from inside the kitchen.