When it comes to extracting fumes from a household or commercial kitchen, most people choose to install a range hood fan. But there's a good number of people who choose regular ventilating fans as their kitchen exhaust fans. The Japanese have for long been using regular wall mount exhaust//ventilating fans for their kitchen needs. When the age of plastic came, they designed & built wall mount exhaust fans for kitchen use. Those fans have grease catch trays, shrouds designed to catch grease & dust flying off of the fan blades, and sometimes replaceable filters on the intake side. The Indonesian market had ventilating fans built for kitchen use back when we use 110V, but they're never seen again after the switch to 220V... until recently when this KDK 25AUFA came around.
KDK saw their huge number of ventilating fan sales back in the early 2000's, and thought that the Indonesian ventilating fan market can do with a bit of diversification, so they brought in 3 types of wall mount ventilating fans made outside of Indonesia; a small 6" ventilating fan, a 10" exhaust fan with aluminium blades, and a 10" kitchen exhaust fan which is what mine is. I have a feeling that KDK was a bit over confident back then, as proven by the low sales numbers of all 3 fans. All 3 of them can still be purchased today, but unless the store you go have those fans in stock, you have to go to an authorized KDK supplier, and request one to be imported to you.
This fan brought me several surprises. It was first built when Indonesia is still making the RUN3 with the big old school motors, so I expected it to have the exact same motor & fan blade as 10" Matsushita vent fans sold here in the early 2000's, but instead it already has the smaller 8 pole motor, and a totally different blade construction. I also thought that this fan had an electronically operated shutter, but instead the shutter is opened by airflow generated by the fan. I guess I should've seen that coming as this is an exhaust only fan, and is only sold in developing countries as far as I know. It also has a removable grease catch tray at the bottom, with a small clear window to check how high the grease level is. The grille which looks to be made of aluminium has some sort of non stick paint on it which is chipping off in some parts.
My parents bought this fan pre-owned to use in their office. I was honestly expecting more scuffs on the plastics & rust on the body, but other than the bent & chipped front grille, it's in really great shape. So far I have only seen 2 of these with my own eyes anywhere. Those 2 places are a store and my friend's home, and the last time I saw both fans was more than 9 years ago. I've seen 3 more online, but that's it. The price tag for this fan is a lot higher than a regular 10" Panasonic vent fan, plus it doesn't have an intake mode, so hardly anyone thinks it's a good purchase.
#ExhaustFan
