Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A small piece of toilet paper or kleenex should be sufficient to determine airflow.
Also, have you verified the fan is even operating? Sometimes there is an interlock which prevents the fan from getting power unless the door or hood is securely closed. Could there be a bad contact, a bad wire, or something like that?
okay, I'm home and I just messed around with the fan to verify a few things.
1. The vent is a 6" round pipe. It has no draft block. I took the 4" flared cover off and stuck a flash light in, I can see/hear the microwave which is only about 18-22" away.
2. There is a lot of air coming out. I did my 55gal bag test, and it filled up in a matter of seconds, with quite some pressure.
3. I tried the newspaper test inside to test suction. I actually used a page from a magazine. Hardly any suction at all. I had to turn it on "high" to have a page stick under the hood vent.
So there's some suction, but not nearly the amount considering the volume of air expelled outside. I am ready to call the contractors back for them to take a look, but I would like to know the issue so they can't feed me a line of bullish*t, which they are prone to from past experience.
It's obviously pulling air from somewhere- just not through the filters.
Sounds like the damper is not operating correctly, the vent is not tightly secured to the microwave, or the blower configuration is not correct for the duct location.
If you turn the fan on.. and you put your hand near the vent and feel any air at all then they set the microwave to vent outside. If it was left in "indoor" mode.. you'd feel the air blowing out the vent on the microwave.
Yes, very easy to check.
Also, as long as the duct in the cabinet above the microwave oven is already there, then it should be an easy job for the contractor to reroute the exhaust out of the microwave into the vent pipe above. The vent port out of the microwave usually is rectangular in shape, and so the adapter at the lower end of the vent pipe above.
The air was being sucked from the top of the microwave, a vent which would have been used for exhaust had I set it up to recirculate.
I've called the contractors who did the work. They asked me a bunch of stupid questions over the phone, but they are coming out to fix it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
