Cooker hoods give the finishing touch to any kitchen. They help eliminate any unwanted smells and odours from the kitchen by drawing up the air from your cooker hob as well as steam and smoke to prevent damp and staining.

Cooker hoods also have grease filters which absorb grease from the air and help to reduce the build up of sticky grime on your kitchen appliances and units - if you love frying and stir-frying this is essential! To get the most out of your extractor fan, make sure that the width of the cooker hood is at least as big as the width of the cooker it is covering.

Important factors when comparing cooker hoods:

• The type of grease filters - can they be washed in the dishwasher? What are they made of?
• Noise Level - some extractor fans are very quiet - do you have an open plan home? After you've cooked and sat down to eat, the last thing you want is a noisy cooker hood. The more powerful the hood, the louder they tend to be.
• Lighting - Most cooker hoods come with lights under the hood canopy. These range from powerful halogen lights to small light diffusers. As well as making kitchen appliances sparkle, cooker hood lights can be really useful in helping you see what you are cooking.
• Extraction Rate - the higher rate of extraction, the more smoke, grease, smells and dirt your extractor fan will suck up. If you are cooking stir-frys and have a massive kitchen and a 110 cm range cooker with all 6 burners blazing away you will need to get adequate power.
• Ducting vs Extracting - you need to decide whether you want to (or whether you even can) duct the extractor chimney outside via a ducting kit or whether you simply want to buy carbon filters and recirculate filtered air back into the kitchen.