Galaxy Pistachio Green Replacement Filter Cabinets

Every hood built on these inserts has a grease filter, and it comes with the insert: washable mesh on the 250 CFM and 400 CFM units, a hybrid baffle on the 600. Those metal filters catch grease droplets before they reach the fan and the duct. They are cleaned, not bought, and they last as long as the insert does if you look after them.

The charcoal filter is a second stage that only exists on a recirculating hood. After the grease filter has done its work, activated carbon in the charcoal filter traps the odour molecules that would otherwise come straight back into the kitchen. A ducted hood sends those odours outside and has no use for it. So the first question on this page is not which filter, but whether your hood recirculates. If it does not, you can stop here.

Activated carbon works by holding odour molecules on an enormous internal surface area. As that surface fills, the filter stops absorbing, and there is no way to empty it at home: water does not release what is trapped, and soaking or running it through a dishwasher mainly damages the medium and anything bonded to it. Once it is saturated it is spent, and the only fix is a new one.

The practical sign that it is spent is simple. Cooking smells that used to disappear start lingering in the next room, or the kitchen smells of last night’s dinner in the morning. The hood may sound the same and move the same air; it has just stopped cleaning it.

The easiest way to make charcoal last is to keep the metal filter in front of it clean. Grease that gets past a clogged mesh or baffle coats the carbon, blocks its surface and shortens its life sharply. On a recirculating hood, cleaning the grease filter is not only about airflow; it is how you avoid buying charcoal more often than you need to.

Wash the metal filter in hot soapy water or as the insert manual directs, and let it dry fully before refitting. The painted shell around it wants gentler treatment: a soft cloth and mild soap, as in our cabinet care guide, never a degreaser strong enough for the steel.

On a recirculating hood two filters wear in different ways, and the symptoms tell you which one needs attention.

The order in the last row matters. A clogged grease filter can make a fresh charcoal filter seem useless, because too little air is reaching it. Clean the cheap, washable part before buying the consumable one.

On a ducted hood only the middle two rows apply. Lingering smells on a ducted hood usually mean it is not being run long enough, or the duct run is losing airflow — a question for the installer, not a reason to buy charcoal.

The people who most often end up with a recirculating hood are the ones with the least control over the building: condo owners and tenants. For them the charcoal is a household running cost, like a water filter or a furnace filter, and it is easier to live with when it is planned as one. Put the filter on the same calendar as the other household filters, keep one spare, and decide the replacement date by the smell test above rather than by guesswork.

If there is any chance of venting outside later — a building rule changing, a renovation of the unit, a move to a different wall — keep the question alive. The recirculating kit converts an insert; a ducted installation would stop the charcoal spend entirely. Our design team can look at whether a route exists.

The replacement interval is in the kit’s instructions, and in practice it depends on how much and how you cook. We do not publish a single number for that reason. What we can do is show the arithmetic, so the running cost is part of the decision rather than a surprise.

At two or three changes a year, a decade of charcoal costs about as much as a mid-range insert. That is the real cost of recirculating, and it belongs in the comparison with ducting. If the ductwork your contractor quotes is close to that figure, the duct usually wins — it costs once, needs nothing after, and removes heat and moisture too. The recirculating kit page covers what a ductless hood leaves behind in the room.

Every filter the air passes through adds resistance, and a recirculating hood has two in series plus a bend and a grille. As a general rule of ventilation rather than a published figure for these units, that means a recirculating setup delivers less effective airflow at the cooktop than the same insert ducted outside through a short, smooth run. A saturated or partly blocked charcoal filter makes that worse, because the fan is pushing through a denser layer.

Two practical consequences. First, on a recirculating hood, lean toward the stronger insert rather than the weaker: the blower page compares the three. Second, if the hood seems to have lost power and the grease filter is clean, a spent charcoal filter is the next thing to check before blaming the fan.

1. Switch the hood off and let the insert cool.
2. Reach the charcoal filter the way the kit’s instructions show, and note where it sits the first time so the next change is quick.
3. Take out the old filter and fit the new one seated so air cannot bypass it.
4. Wash the grease filter while it is out, and refit it dry.
5. Write the date inside a nearby cabinet door. Without a note, nobody remembers when it was last changed.

If the colour in the product title has you wondering: it is only the collection. The filter sits inside the kit, out of sight, and is the same part whatever finish the cabinets are.