Maytag range hood not pulling air

Two minutes with a tissue

Switch the fan to high and hold a tissue up under it. If it holds against the mesh, the fan is moving air and the problem is downstream. Then take the metal grease filters out — they slide or clip out by hand — and look at them against a light. A filter you cannot see through is not filtering, and most of them go straight into the dishwasher. If your hood recirculates rather than ducts outside, there is a charcoal filter behind the metal one, and it is a replaceable item on roughly a six-month cycle that a great many households have never changed at all.

What it usually means, by the kind of machine

One complaint, several machines. This maker still sells a top-load washer with an agitator alongside one without, a front-loader, and a stacked pair, and it sells the same oven as a range and as a wall unit in gas and in electric. The behavior you can describe is identical on all of them; the first hour of the repair is not. A front-load washer has a drain filter the owner can open and a top-loader has nothing to reach from the front, and that single difference decides how the same afternoon goes.

• Under-cabinet hood — The duct turns immediately above the hood and that elbow is where grease collects. It is also the easiest place to reach and clean.
• Over-the-range microwave with a vent — These run in one of two configurations and the difference matters: ducted to the outside, or recirculating through a charcoal filter into the kitchen. Many are installed recirculating without the owner ever being told.
• Wall chimney hood — Longer duct, more elbows, and a roof or wall cap at the far end that nobody has looked at since the house was built. The cap is often the whole problem.

Recirculating is not broken

A hood that filters and returns the air to the kitchen is a legitimate installation, and in an apartment or a condominium it is often the only one possible. What it is not is a substitute for venting outside, and it depends entirely on a charcoal filter that has to be replaced. If your hood has never cleared steam properly since the day it went in, it may be doing exactly what it was fitted to do, and the honest answer is about the installation rather than the appliance.

Grease in this climate

Warm, humid air keeps cooking grease soft, which means it travels further up a duct here before it settles. Filters load faster and elbows collect more than the same hood would in a dry climate. Washing the metal filters every couple of months in the dishwasher is the single highest-value thing an owner can do for a hood, and it costs nothing.