Ventilation Hoods & Custom Stainless Steel Fabrication

Two Problems, One Stainless Steel Shop

Ventilation and custom fabrication end up on the same page for a reason. Both are the parts of a kitchen package that cannot be ordered out of a catalog by size alone, and both are where a job goes sideways late — after the slab is poured, after the walls are up, after the equipment schedule was approved by someone who never stood in the room.

A hood has to line up with the equipment line under it, the ceiling above it and the duct riser the mechanical contractor already located. A fabricated counter has to land between two walls that are not parallel, clear a column nobody drew, and still leave the door swing alone. Standard equipment solves eighty percent of a kitchen. The remaining twenty percent is what this page is about.

MH-USA represents Eagle Group — founded in 1947 in Clayton, Delaware, with more than 17,000 standard models — including the Spec-Air ventilation line and the SpecFAB custom fabrication division. We read the plan, take the field dimensions, get shop drawings back to you for approval and coordinate the hand-off to the trades who own the ductwork and the suppression.

Condensate Hoods Over Dish Machines

A dish room without a condensate hood tells on itself within a month: fogged ceilings, corroding light fixtures, rust bleeding out of drywall screws, and a floor that never fully dries. A door-type or conveyor machine dumps a slug of hot vapor every time the hood lifts, and that vapor has to go somewhere.

Eagle’s Spec-Air condensate hoods are built for exactly that duty — commercial kitchens, dish rooms and other non-grease heat or smoke removal applications. Heavy gauge type 304 stainless steel, continuously welded liquid tight, with a full perimeter gutter and drain tube so the water that condenses on the underside of the hood runs to a controlled drain point instead of onto the operator. An exhaust collar and front and rear hanger brackets come with the hood.

Three details worth fixing early: where the gutter drain terminates (it needs an actual receptor, not a bucket), how far the hood overhangs the machine’s vent openings on the load and unload ends, and whether the hood is supported off the structure or the ceiling grid. Sort those out with the mechanical contractor before the hood ships and the install is a two-hour job instead of a change order.

Planning the rest of the dish room at the same time? See dishtables and warewashing for the tables that go under the hood.

Capture and Containment: The Basics That Matter On Site

Capture and containment is a plain idea with a lot of ways to fail. Capture is pulling the rising plume into the hood. Containment is keeping it there until it is exhausted instead of spilling back into the kitchen. A hood can move plenty of air and still fail both if the geometry or the room air is wrong.

• Overhang. The hood has to extend past the cooking surface on every open side. A hood cut flush to the equipment edge to save an inch of aisle is the most common preventable failure.
• Hood height. The higher the capture edge sits above the cooking surface, the wider the plume has spread by the time it gets there, and the more air it takes to hold it.
• Cross-drafts. Exterior doors, drive-thru windows, ceiling fans and supply diffusers aimed at the line will strip a plume out from under a properly sized hood.
• Equipment placement. The heaviest-duty piece — charbroiler, wok range, fryer bank — should not sit at the open end of the hood where containment is weakest.
• Filters. Filters have to be present, in the right orientation, and cleaned. A missing filter changes the airflow across the whole hood, not just its own slot.
• End panels. Where drafts cannot be controlled, side end panels close off the open ends and improve containment without increasing exhaust volume.
• Air balance. If the kitchen is under negative pressure, the exhaust cannot pull its rated volume and doors get hard to open — a symptom worth chasing before blaming the hood.

Who Does What: Scope Split on a Hood Package

Most hood disputes are scope disputes, not product problems. Here is how a typical job divides, so nothing sits in the gap between two contracts.

When Custom Fabrication Is the Answer

SpecFAB is Eagle’s custom fabrication division, and it covers everything from a small modification of a catalog model to a fully drawn, purpose-built piece. Here are the situations where we stop looking through the catalog and start drawing.

Wall-mounted work is a recurring custom request because it solves floor-cleaning problems. Wall mounted tables are designed to accommodate small rolling cabinets that roll in and out underneath, available with flat top, rear upturn or rear backsplash, with a rolled edge or a box marine counter edge, in 16- or 14-gauge type 304. Wall mounted drop tables and shelves are 3/4-inch thick with rounded edges, ship with two drop brackets and six screws, come in 10-inch and 12-inch widths and 24- to 36-inch lengths with an 80-pound capacity, and are available in poly, Richlite or 16/304 stainless.

Overhead, wall mounted pot and utility racks are built from 3/16-inch by 2-inch flat bar in aluminum or stainless, bolted together, with a stainless double-prong sliding pot hook every 12 inches and stainless mounting brackets. In tight kitchens that rack is often the difference between a usable prep aisle and a pile of pots on the only clear table.

How to Submit Dimensions and Drawings for a Custom Quote

You do not need a finished drawing to start. You need enough information that we are not guessing. Here is the checklist we work from.

Frequently Asked Questions