If you have a cooking hood installed in your kitchen, and if you have tried cleaning it yourself, you will definitely have a hard time trying to clean it and you probably regret installing one.

I have a very nice Rinnai hood in my kitchen, it is not just a decoration but also a good hood in filtering the smoke and oil from my cooking.
However, I have a serious problem on the filters, which I have tried numerous method to clean them but to no avail, including using vinegar as suggested by the so-called expert featured on TV!

The filters were so greasy that I almost wanted to call Rinnai to purchase for its replacements, just before I have given up on cleaning the filters, I found the amazing use of baking soda!

Yes, baking soda, which you could purchase from the baking section in supermarket for just S$1.80. According to my research, the filter need to be boiled with baking soda added into the boiling water. As I couldn't find a pot big enough for my filters, I tried putting the filters in my basin and pour in the hot water.

These are what I used for the cleaning:
Baking soda, a thong to flip the filters, a toothbrush to brush the grease away.

Sorry for this blur picture, I was trying to show that even the toothbrush is cleaner after cleaning the filters. In my past experience, I would need to throw away all the toothbrush used in cleaning the filters, as they are too greasy and dirty after the cleaning.

As you can see the water turned so muddy and dirty, I hope I have taken the picture of the grease left on my basin, but I was in a rush to clean the filters and thus unable to take the picture.

See? The filter looked so much cleaner after cleaning with the baking soda! According to my research, it can be as clean as a new piece if you were to boil it in hot water, which I believe totally. For using just hot water, I have already achieved 80% cleaner on the filter, I should really get a pot or tray to boil this filters next time. 

Another close up picture of the filter, although there are still a little grease on it, but I'm already very satisfied with the result, I have never seen my filters this clean other than they were first installed!

If you have a cooking hood, please save your energy and money by trying out this method!

The recommended way:
1) cook a pot or tray of hot water
2) put in a spoon of baking soda (you may put more if you're boiling a big pot of water)
3) put a few drops of dish detergent into the hot water
4) put in your filter and boil for about 15 minutes, you may use a toothbrush to gently brush away the grease

If you don't have the pot or tray, you may do the same like me by putting the filter in a basin (remember to put stopper to keep the hot water in the basin), pour in a big pot of boiling hot water and the baking soda and detergent as described above.

First of all, let's take a look of my kitchen before the renovation:



Entrance to the backyard:

Not that bad, I was once thinking that no need renovation, but I'm glad that I've revamped it and gave it a new life.

My new kitchen look like this now:


Some pictures of the accessories:



I'll post out the cost of these accessories at the lower part of this article.
One point to note, you may want to consider fixing your powerpoints nearer to the table so that you'll not be seeing all the wires hanging on top of each appliances.

The rice cooker and pot will hide the powerpoint, they're purposely moved aside so that I can show you where the powerpoint is.

If you would like to see my sliding glass door to the backyard and sliding glass door at the entrance of my kitchen, click here.

The costs:
1) Supply and construct walls and floor tiles, cabinet base & patch up 2 door ways $2,800, for quotation on my renovation, click here
2) Top and low cabinets, solid surface, stainless steel backing $$3,375. Click here for my cabinet quote.
3) Rinnai hob and hood $980
4) Baron sink $380
5) Fork and spoon holder $35, Dish rack $75, click here to see my purchase from Royal Fanco.

Base on the above, the total cost to revamp my kitchen is around $7,645, and this does not include cost like hacking the existing tiles and re-wiring cost.
If you were to take into account the cost of those electrical appliances, it would easily hit $10,000!

To me Blum system is not necessary, how many times do you open and close your cabinet?

My only regrets in the kitchen are:
1) Use of black colour solid surface, click here
2) Did not build the base for fridge. The base is around $100-$150, but I did not build it thinking it is unnecessary, some forumner commented the base works as to higher up the fridge, so it'll be easier when you wash your kitchen floor. I thought I would never wash my kitchen floor, thus I did not build the base, but the base does not build just for this reason, it is actually higher up the fridge so the door will not hit on your toes when you open the fridge. Thus, many times my poor toes were hit by the fridge door when I opened it.

I bought my Rinnai Hob RB-3VA and Rinnai Hood RH-90CD from Asia Excel at IMM (see my review of this shop here).
I bought the set of hood and hob at $980. The price was not expensive consider I was getting a chimney hood and a 3 burner stainless steel hob. I like the design of the RH-90CD hood, and this is the reason why I'd waited it for such a long time.
A picture of it with the hob:


This is how it was displayed in my kitchen, sorry about the messiness.


I got my carpenter to fix the hood and hob for me, however, there were some problems after fixing, like the hood could not function and the burner very hard to start. I called the customer service of Rinnai and the lady told me I got to wait a very long time to get the problem fixed. I threw my tantrum on her and told her I waited more than a month to get the items delivered to my premise and now it couldn't function and I got to wait again?! She possessed very bad customer service and we had a few quarrels over the phone and at the end someone sound like the boss came to my place to fix the problem. I did not know who was the guy but I was very satisfied with his service, he fixed the problem and told me the hood was not functioning because of the bad job done by my carpenter, he also showed me the burner was not aligned properly resulted in the problem. He explained to me how to take good care of my hood and hob. I would advise that if you're paying someone to install the hood and hob, it'll be better to get the agent to do it instead of your contractor.



A closer look of my hood:


After a year of use, my Rinnai hood is still functioning well, but not the stainless steel hob:


One of the burners is very hard to start fire

As you can see, the inside of the burner is rusted
Look at the circled area, it was also rusted.

As my branded stainless steel pot bought from OG also got rusted, I don't know whether the hob rusted is because of our SG water (the salesman from OG told me the rust is from the steel in the water), many stainless steel items in my house seem to get rusted anyway. The salesman told me, if you can wipe of the rust by using detergent, it means the rust is not from the item, I don't know how true is that you might want to give it a try.

Overall, I don't find Rinnai products excellent in anyway compare to my previous Elba, but as the price is quite reasonable to me, I'll stick to this brand currently and monitor the hob.

The following are pictures of my kitchen when it was renovated last year:


It was designed by myself after copy here and there from magazine. I like the design because it is simple and clean. Initially I wanted to use white solid surface to give it a whole white kitchen, but I decided on black colour, thinking it'll be easier to maintain. But I was wrong!
Never never choose black colour if your key concern is "easy" to maintain, of course you can still choose it if you want to have the "style", but then, bear in mind of the maintainance, why?
Solid surface looks like granite, but it is not granite, it is molded into the shape that fit your kitchen top, the colour of the material is actually yellowish or white. It is very prompt to scratches, a spoon, chopstic, or pot left on the table can cause scratches. When it has scratches, you'll see many obvious white lines, your solid surface will soon be covered by all these lines!
Look at the solid surface what most hospitals are using, they are using white, no noticeable scratches, that's the reason behind......