The gas stove panic of 2023 taught a lot of people the basics: Cooking pollutes (PDF) your home, especially if you cook with gas, but even induction can kick up particles that are risky to breathe.
Researchers already know how to keep air clean enough that long-term health risks should be minimal, and the surest solution is mechanical ventilation. That means a fan, ideally in a range hood above your stove, to suck up air and whatever pollution is floating in it, and blow it outside through a duct. It also helps get rid of steam and odors and can control grease buildup.
But vented range hoods aren’t always required by law (PDF) even in new buildings, and they can be expensive and impractical to retrofit. Cracking a window will flush out the pollution eventually, but what if you want to do more to keep the air fresh?
If you can’t get a real range hood, consider a window fan instead. No installation needed, no buy-in from your landlord required. The air-quality experts we spoke to stressed that it’s an imperfect solution but an improvement over other low-cost, low-effort strategies to manage cooking pollution.
I put it to the test by burning a few pancakes and measuring my air quality, and the results were solid.
