Independent · Multi-brand
Northeast Florida
Mon–Fri 8–6 · Sat 9–4
In a dry climate a range hood removes smoke and grease. In Northeast Florida, where the annual mean relative humidity is about 75 percent and the region takes roughly 53 inches of rain a year, it also removes water vapour that the room cannot absorb.
That second job is invisible until it stops. When a hood loses capture, moisture from cooking goes somewhere: onto cabinet faces, into the ceiling above the cooktop, and onto the coldest nearby surface — which in most kitchens is the refrigerator door and its gasket. We have traced more than one gasket mould complaint back to a hood that had not moved air properly in two years.
The motor is rarely the problem, and homeowners nearly always suspect it first.
Loaded filters. Baffle and mesh filters are the first stage of grease capture, and they load steadily. Airflow falls off gradually enough that nobody notices the day it stops working. Monthly through the dishwasher solves it.
A greasy blower wheel. What gets past the filters lands on the wheel. Congealed grease adds mass unevenly, the wheel goes out of balance, it moves less air, and it gets louder while doing less. This is the classic “loud but not pulling” complaint, and the fix is pulling and cleaning the wheel, not a motor.
The duct and the termination. A long or convoluted duct run, a crushed flexible section, or an exterior damper stuck shut with paint or a wasp nest all produce identical symptoms to a failing blower. On coastal ZIPs — 32082, 32250, 32266, 32233 and 32084 — exterior dampers also seize from salt corrosion. We check the termination from outside as part of the diagnosis.
Downdrafts. A downdraft has a lift mechanism as well as a blower. Slow, sticky or partial travel is usually the lift rack and its guides needing cleaning and lubrication rather than a motor or control fault.
An induction element that works fine at medium power and shuts itself down after several minutes at high power is almost always doing exactly what it was designed to do. The electronics under the glass are cooled by a fan drawing room air, usually through an intake in the cabinet or the toe kick. In a Florida kitchen that air is warm and it carries dust.
Restricted intake, warm ambient, high sustained power: the module reaches its thermal limit and backs off to protect itself. Clearing the intake path and the cabinet around it is a genuine repair. Replacing a perfectly good generator module because the fault was misread is not.
If an element fails cold — no response at all, or a fault indication from the moment it is switched on — that is a different diagnosis, and it involves the coil, the generator and the user interface.
The seasonal complaint on gas is a burner that clicks and will not light, or that keeps sparking after ignition, or that sets every igniter on the cooktop going at once. Boil-over residue plus humid air leaves a conductive film on the electrode that never fully dries between uses, and the spark tracks through it.
Cleaning and drying the electrode and its ceramic insulator resolves most of these without a part. A yellow or sooty flame is separate — that is a fouled port, a misseated cap, or an air and pressure problem, and we check manifold pressure with a manometer rather than judging by the colour alone.
Airflow and capture assessed at the pan, filters and blower wheel inspected, duct run and exterior termination checked, induction cooling path and thermal behaviour tested under sustained load, ignition and manifold pressure measured on gas.
$80 flat diagnostic, credited toward the repair on approval, written estimate before any part is ordered, genuine OEM parts, 90 days on labor, 365 days on parts.
Run the baffle filters through the dishwasher monthly and keep the cabinet around an induction cooktop's cooling intake clear. Both are five-minute jobs. A loaded filter and a blocked intake are the two most common causes of the faults on this page, and neither of them is a broken part yet.
Use the hood every time water is boiling, not only when something is searing. A pot of pasta puts a surprising volume of water vapour into a room that is already at 75 percent relative humidity, and it lands on cabinet faces and on the refrigerator door seam a few feet away. Ventilation here is humidity control as much as smoke control.
If the blower sounds normal but no longer pulls, stop assuming the motor is failing. Check the filters, then the blower wheel itself, then the duct run and the exterior termination damper. Grease on the wheel unbalances it and destroys airflow long before the motor gives up, and a stuck exterior damper produces identical symptoms for a different reason.
One fee to find out: $80, flat, and it comes off the bill the moment you say go ahead. Past that, work on cooktops and ventilation across this coast sits between $200 and $990, and where inside that band a job lands is decided by the part that failed rather than by the badge on the door.
The rows are the repairs this category actually generates, so the table narrows as the subject does.
| Repair | Parts and labor |
|---|---|
| Diagnostic visit, flat | $80 |
| Igniter, spark module or surface element | $200–$570 |
| Electronic control board | $440–$990 |
| Convection fan or motor | $270–$730 |
You get a written estimate before any part is ordered or any labor begins. Nothing proceeds without your approval.
The same table again, entered from the symptom rather than from the part. Nobody rings up asking for a defrost heater; they ring up because something is wrong and they want to know what it is going to cost.
Every figure below is a row of the table on this page, narrowed to the repair the symptom leads to. The $80 diagnostic decides which row you are actually in, and it comes off the bill once you approve the work.
| What you would call it | The repair it leads to | Parts and labor |
|---|---|---|
| Gas burner clicking and will not light | Igniter, spark module or surface element | $200–$570 |
| Induction element cutting out at high power | Igniter, spark module or surface element | $200–$570 |
| Cooktop control panel unresponsive | Electronic control board | $440–$990 |
$80 to come out and find the fault, credited back the moment the repair is approved. The work itself lands between $200 and $990 on this kind of equipment — $200–$570 for igniter, spark module or surface element, $270–$730 for convection fan or motor — and which of those it turns out to be is the thing the visit settles. Your own number goes in writing before a part is ordered.
Most often: induction element cutting out partway through a sear at high power; gas burner clicking continuously without lighting after damp weather. If your symptom is not on that list, describe what the appliance is doing rather than naming a part — the diagnosis then starts from a measurement instead of a guess.
The model and serial number off the data plate, the address, and what the appliance is actually doing rather than what you think has broken. The serial matters more than the model: built-in equipment is revised mid-production, and it often decides which board, gasket or motor is the correct one.
Rated 4.6 out of 5 across 101 customer reviews. Every entry below is one appointment, written up afterwards by the householder whose kitchen it happened in.
Filed under this category, so these are visits to this kind of equipment.
Two of the burners lit but dropped out whenever the hood ran on high. He found the makeup air path blocked and the burner shutters set wrong for our supply. He corrected both and they stay lit at any fan speed.
Ignace D.2025-12-16
The cooktop works and the diagnosis was careful, but I was not warned how long the part would take and I planned a dinner around it. The work itself, once the part arrived, took him no time at all.
Norwood T.2025-12-19
Grease was dripping back down onto the cooktop from the canopy. He stripped the baffles, cleaned the plenum properly and resealed the roof cap where water had been getting in and running back down the duct.
Hester V.2026-01-27
You get a written estimate before any part is ordered or any labor begins. Nothing proceeds without your approval.