When Did You Last Clean the Filter Above Your Stove? (Most People Never Have)

MY BOOK: The Spotless Method, the whole system written down in the order I'd actually do it. spotlessmethod.com Stand at your stove and look straight up. There is a metal panel under that hood. When did it last come down? For most people the honest answer is never. Not once, in the whole time they have lived there. I promised you this one last week, and it is the least glamorous video I have made, and possibly the most useful. That metal mesh panel has a job, and the job is to catch airborne cooking grease so it does not coat the inside of your ductwork and your fan. Which means that when it is loaded, it is doing the opposite of its job. It is a saturated grease pad hanging directly above open burners. In the hotel kitchens I worked around, hood cleaning was on a schedule, logged and inspected, because grease in a hood system is one of the most common ways a kitchen fire starts. Nobody applies that thinking at home, because nobody was ever told to. THE PART THAT SURPRISES PEOPLE: there are two kinds of hood, and most people do not know which they have. A DUCTED hood blows the air outside. It has only the metal grease filter, and that one washes. A RECIRCULATING hood has no outside vent at all. It pushes the air back into the room, and to do that it has a SECOND filter, made of activated charcoal, usually sitting behind or above the metal one. Charcoal filters are NOT washable. Washing one ruins it. They are consumable, and they get replaced, roughly every six to twelve months. And that is the answer to something I said last time. A saturated charcoal filter is why so many fans roar away while the smell and the grease stay in the room. People conclude their fan is useless and stop using it, and then the grease goes on the cabinets instead, which is exactly the video we did last week. What's inside: • How to tell whether yours vents outside or recirculates, in ten seconds • Getting the filter out safely, and the two hand rule • The gentle soak that suits every filter: hot water, dish soap, baking soda • The stronger method for a filter with years on it, and when NOT to use it • The toothbrush edges, where the last of it always hides • Wiping the inside of the hood canopy while it is out • How often, honestly ⚠️ THE ALUMINUM WARNING, which almost no video gives you: Most household hood filters are aluminum mesh. Dishwasher detergent is strongly alkaline, and strong alkalis react with aluminum, dulling it, darkening it, and over time etching it. It is the same reason aluminum pans come out of a dishwasher grey and blotchy. So do not run an aluminum filter through the dishwasher, and do not leave it soaking for an hour in dishwasher detergent. Use hot water, grease-cutting dish soap and a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, and give it a longer soak rather than a stronger chemical. Gentler and longer beats stronger and faster. Also: no wire brushes, no scouring pads. That mesh is delicate, and once it is crushed or torn, air does not pass through it properly again. SAFETY, and I mean it. The hazard here is not the cleaning, it is the reaching. The stove must be OFF and completely COLD, never anything cooking. Both hands, because these are greasier and heavier than you expect and they slide in the fingers. Clear a space on the counter BEFORE you reach up, so it goes straight down. Never lean across a hot cooktop, and nothing on a chair or a stool. Both feet on the floor, as always. If reaching overhead is difficult for you, this is a delegate job, exactly like the cabinet tops last week. Ask someone to take it down and put it back. The knowledge is still yours. I read every comment. Go and look up at yours right now, and come back and tell me honestly when it last came down. And tell me whether yours vents outside or recirculates, because I suspect a great many of you are about to find out you have a charcoal filter nobody ever mentioned. New videos every week on keeping a lovely home after 60, gently, and in the right order.