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I cook 4-5 nights a week and don't have a vent. We do have a ceiling fan in the kitchen though which does a great job.

My apt doesn't have a hood, I use a plug in air filter (charcoal) to help eliminate odors. Still if you cook at high temps you may have some issues with the smoke detector. I was preheating a pan in the oven to cook something, bread maybe? It was an older pan and all of the residual oil turned brown and set off the smoke detector, and this is just from the pan, its not like I burnt something. So if you have no vent expect problems from even minor smoke creation.

Do you cook at least a few times per week?

If you do, the answer should be, YES, you should get a hood that recirculates.

It will make a dramatic difference in the amount of practically aerosolized grease particles that will accumulate on everything in your apartment.

In addition, it will draw up steam and smoke trapping the majority of it in a couple of different filters. Chimney style hoods typically have a primary cone style filter in the chimney and then a charcoal or synthetic fiber filter at the top.

My wife and I are intense cooks and are extremely happy with our recirculating hood. I have stood on a chair and put my nose up to the exhaust while was running to smell the fumes coming out of it and there are hardly any.

Depending on the frequency of your cooking you can wash the filters every now and then and reuse them.

Recirculating hoods are obviously not the best option. But when a directly vented hood is not an option, recirculating hoods should be looked at as the only option because the alternative will be a gradual yellowing grease film, smoke and steam.

Depending on your style and budget you have a lot of options. Many of the hoods that vent to the outside have a recirculating option. What typically happens when a hood is fitted with the recirculating option is that the extraction power measured in CFMs (cubic feet per minute) is lower. But is not so low as to not make a difference. Unless you have a commercial range and/or grill and create a tremendous amount of grease spatter and smoke you will be fine with a recirculating hood.

Also, the amount of CFMs you need can be calculated when you find out how many BTUs your burners put out. Since you typically use one or maybe two burners at a time most good recirculating hoods will suffice.

For sources, check out:

sirius hoods http://www.kitchensource.com/range-hoods/su-welcome.html

and even Ikea.

Good luck with your project!

just vent the hood by the roof instead of a wall. like it is already done for your plumbing and possibly your furnace.

i'd absolutely get a range hood. venting or recirculating, it makes such a huge difference - not just in preventing a smokey kitchen, but also a stinky kitchen.

many cities have bylaws that require outdoor-venting rangehoods with newly installed gas stoves.

We have a recirculating hood in our dorm, and all it does is suck the smoke and stuff up over our heads, and accumulates over the hood near the vent. Since its a campus apartment, its probably never been cleaned though -_-

My mother did a kitchen renovation about a year ago and put in a Dacor modular ceramic electric cooktop range (to allow storage space in the cabinets beneath) with a popup vent right behind it.

Seen here: http://www.dacor.com/Our-Products/Ventilation/Dacor-Raised-Ventilation.aspx

What I like about it most is that you press a button and the vent slides up from behind the cooktop, it has three different fan speeds and a timer that allows it to shut off automatically. I do believe it was one of the recirculating kind and did a great job of preventing odors from spreading from the kitchen whenever I burned something or we fried or used the griddle/grill.

I've always wondered about this. Would a downdraft vent or one of those pop-up vents like the one at http://www.epinions.com/content_41074593412 serve the same purpose?

Shortly after I moved into this house, I ripped out a set of cabinets over the stove that included a vent that didn't really vent anywhere, and the aerosol-ized grease is a very real thing.

We need to buy a new stove, so this is a very timely question!

Our hood broke months ago and we can't afford to replace it right now. Since being without my hood I've found that a) the fire alarm goes off for absolutely no reason i.e. I'm boiling water and the steam sets it off b) I can't do any deep frying because the room becomes far too smokey and c) the wallpaper is starting to curl from the dampness -- the steam is causing damage.

There are no windows in my kitchen to help get the smoke and steam out. I really miss my hood.

I have an old house with no hood and all the smells from the kitchen eventually congregate in my bedroom on the opposite side of the house. Kitchen fan, open windows/doors do little. Thanks for the discussion, since I had no idea how to proceed.

I live in a pretty old apartment building, and although I do have a hood, it doesn't vent to the outside and if I don't turn it on while cooking, the fire alarm goes off within minutes. It does help dissipate cooking smells as well, so even though it is kind of loud and seems sort of useless at times, it actually does serve a purpose, especially if you cook with lots of garlic or other strong spices.

And there is the whole grease/cooking particle thing that Art already mentioned - a hood will probably cut down on the amount of cleaning you have to do, and anything that does that is a good thing, in my opinion.

Maybe you can get an interesting hood and use it to make some kind of decorative statement, like the one illustrating this post or one of these hoods - http://www.3luxe.com/category/Appliances/Hoods. At least then it could serve as a style element as well.

Unlike everyone else I don't have anything to say about the hood, but I want to give an enthusiastic recommendation for Bosch ranges. I've been using it for 4 months since we finished the gut renovation of our apartment last year, and I absolutely adore it...of course I came from a rental apartment that had the world's crappiest cheap range, so just having a range that can actually maintain a simmer is heaven. We sprang for the model with the temperature probe, and have been enjoying perfectly roasted meats ever since. I'm also in a coop where we couldn't vent outside, but we have upper cabinets over the range...we put in an over-the-range microwave and haven't had any major venting issues so far.

After going from an apartment with a hood to one without, I'd say spring for a hood if you can. Like other commentors, I now battle the smoke detector, smells infiltrating the apartment (there's nothing quite like having your bathroom smell of roast pork for days), and the area around the stove is noticeably more messy (the grease particle thing).

Having been involved in over 200 renovations, I'd say get the hood and crack open the window, turn on the fan BEFORE you start cooking.

The aresolized particles go up in the hood instead of being deposited on everything in your home.

I've had two people go to the city when getting permits and talking the people out of making them put in hoods over their islands, but they spent 20K a piece on their cabinets and are gonna have to spend more time cleaning their surfaces than the ones who got hoods.

Also, the pop-up downdraft one fight gravity and are NOT as effective. You should have at least 350 CFM. Nutone makes one that is 1000 CFM and is mounted in the attic so it's not as loud, but not everyone can vent to the outside.

Make sure to crack a window and start the hood before turning on the stove to get the most effective air cleaning and flow.

While its definitely true that ductless range hoods aren't as effective as standard ducted range hoods, they can still do a world of good for the air quality in your kitchen. If you are cooking on a regular basis a ductless range hood is definitely worthwhile. The activated charcoal filters in these things are pretty advanced, and although the air gets recirculated, its significantly cleaner on the way out than it is on the way in.