Vented Range vs Vented Dryer Conundrum

Vented dryer for sure. You can get recirculating hood with charcoal filter without any issue except that your kitchen will be a little hotter.

What stove or cooktop are you going with?

I just did Miele pull out 600cfm recirculating for a project with Wolf 6 burner.

The building does not allow forced venting.

How many people will be living in this unit? I posed your question to mr front_porch, and he pointed out that the number of times the W/D would be used in a week has a bearing on his answer.

I have an offbeat suggestion. IQair top end Air Purifier model works really well as a supplement to the hood as even with the best hood there is cooking smell in the apartment if you use high heat cooking. It is also very good to improve indoor air quality if like most people in NYC you do not open your windows much.

Nothing beats a negative pressure environment.

No question I would vent the dryer outside

Or you could get a ventless drying cabinet.

I don't think anyone asked yet if the kitchen is separate or open, and if it has a window.

A good guess will be no window otherwise he will putting in an exhaust fan.

We have a vented dryer and a barely-vented hood that leads to the building's kitchen exhaust duct.

Any real cooking on the range (Bluestar) sets off the smoke alarm (which are all interconnected and yell at you, so they scream "fire! carbon monoxide! fire!" in unison). Nearest windows are ~30 feet away.

That said, our youngest is in cloth diapers, so the dryer gets used a lot. Back in our childless days, I would have picked to have a vented hood instead. But with two progeny, a non-vented dryer would be running 24 hours a day, so our setup now is the lesser of two evils.

We're on the top floor of a small building and tried like hell to get approval to vent the hood out the roof, but board wouldn't allow the penetration.

What smell are you happy to have linger around - oil/meat/fat/smoke or clean clothes/dryer sheets?

We have a recirculating vent and a dryer that does not vent outside, both due to condo restrictions. I do at least a dozen washes a week and have a high heat gas stove.

The recirculating vent that is virtually worthless, despite having a high end s/s model with vents that can be washed in the dw. The range vent does not dispel smoke at all, just makes noise moving the smoke around and getting grease all over. Luckily, I have a terrace door in an adjacent room and window in the kitchen, but on a high floor the window can only be opened a few inches, so there is still smoke, smells and grease all over every time I wok.

The dryer that does not vent into the building has a vent kit that requires regular maintenance, cleaning and adding water to the bin weekly, and despite covering the vent with nylon stockings, lint still gets all over.

While I would prefer both to be vented, if I only could have one, hands down it would be an external vent over the range.

Flarf,
Many small buildings have not had their vents cleaned in decades which can not only be a fire hazard but also prevent adequate draw.
Secondly, if the vent is clean and still not providing enough flow an electric draw fan ("mushroom cap") at the top with a thermostatic switch (so it's not running 24/7) might be a worthwhile investment for the building.

One thing not mentioned so far: if your stove has burners above a certain output (I think it's over 15,000 btu but I'm not sure), NYC code requires external venting. As far as I know, most buildings don't enforce this.

There's a fan on top of the kitchen exhaust duct. Problem is that when you divide the already low CFM output by the number of units served by said duct, the effect is irrelevant. The system is circa early 1980s and was designed to meet code back then, not to work well.

As one of the board members reportedly said when reviewing our proposal for punching our own hole in the roof -- "who actually cooks in this city anyway?"

I can't speak for anyone else, but I cook >90% of my own meals.

A belated thank-you to all who weighed in. Very helpful. Much appreciated.

We are renovating an apartment right now, and when we opened up our ceiling, we dicovered that our neighbor could not choose between venting their dryer or range, so they opted to vent them both using the same duct, which runs horizontally through our ceiling; not sure where the duct exits. Can anyone give me any comfort that I should not be overly worried about this?

Vented range is a must.

There is something called condenser dryer here. And there is the sun to help.

> MCR - perhaps check with your super to see if this was done with approved plans/ or illegally. Might be a start. Super might also be able to tell you if this is something that is/or is not/ a problem.

Not in plans or renovation agreement; building code violation due to fire hazard. I am looking for someone to tell me why we should not throw the book at the shareholder.

Lint + fire = bad combination. In my old building on 9th St I found out one unit had vented their dryer into the kitchen stack and I lost it. OTOH it had been that way for 15 years and nothing happened.

Thanks 30yrs. I am still inclined towards losing it, particularly because neighbor’s renovation was recent (2017) and said neighbor was part of the board that we just voted out.

That needs to be corrected, ASAP! On another note, Just spent two weeks in Paris with a non-vented dryer. Now I get all the complaints about them!

Keith

If it is Miele, it is very good. Do not know others.

My biggest concern would be that if there was ever a fire some insurance company would disclaim coverage over it.

Thanks to all who have weighed in.
@30yrs - exactly. Building has a non-delegable duty to maintain safety and building code violation to which managing agent and/or board members (now includes me) turn a blind eye puts everyone at risk from both and a safety and financial perspective. Beyond outrageous.

My google search also returned my own input from 4 years ago. A current renovating shareholder has raised the question with the board as to how all the vented ranges in our building could be code compliant. I know the one we uncovered in our reno was removed, but apparently there are quite a few others - four apartments for sale in our building right now and three if those feature ranges that exhaust to the outside. Little help from the experts? Please tell me there is some way these are all legal. I am kicking myself for getting back on this board. :(

Continuing research suggests there are many ways these all could be legal, which begs the question as to why our building's renovation approvement process denies them as a matter if course. I am guessing it is because our building architect is a revolving door of professionals who know nothing about our building. I commend the renovating shareholder who was denied this option for appealing it to the board; I am going back and recommending that we let the new renovating shareholder do it if they get a mechanical engineer to explain how their plan is code compliant.

If you live alone or maybe for a couple there are different kinds of heated drying racks: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/recommended/home/best-heated-clothes-airer/

One problem is that I have seen renovation plans from architects which had things which were downright illegal.

And then there's
https://nypost.com/2022/06/15/nyc-developments-found-to-have-faked-architect-credentials/

@30yrs - Shareholders whose illegal appliances were removed from the apartment next to me alleged that the illegal exhaust combination was entirely their starchitect's doing and they had no idea it was neither on their plans or illegal. That is why I support requiring that any vented appliance request be supported by a mechanical engineer's report, which we will then have to verify with the building's engineer in the same way the building's reviewing architect reviews renovating architect's plans. In the reno that resulted in the illegal appliances next to us, apparently there was significant acrimony between the renovating starchitect and the building's architect because the building's architect refused to approve various proposed items, including a request for vented appliances that had been made (per the shareholders) with the caveat that they could not provide venting plan until demolition, during which time they would explore any vents they uncovered. Apparently some architects are willing to do illegal configurations to implement spectacular designs. Scary because I just don't know how to police these.