Kitchen Ventilation & Make-Up Air in Pomona, CA
Restaurants and breweries in downtown Pomona often operate in buildings never designed for commercial cooking, so kitchen exhaust and make-up air are retrofits with limited roof space and awkward routing. In hot weather, a kitchen without adequate tempered make-up air becomes unbearable for staff. We measure exhaust and supply airflow, check fan belts, motors and make-up air burners, and rebalance so the kitchen and dining room hold sensible pressure. This work is about fans and air balance, not hood or duct cleaning.
A mixed inland city of Cal Poly Pomona, the Fairplex, industrial parks and a revitalizing downtown, where hot, dry summers drive heavy cooling loads.
How kitchen ventilation & make-up air work plays out in Pomona
A kitchen in a converted downtown Pomona building tells you about its ventilation the moment you walk in. Doors that are hard to open, a line that is unbearable by 5 p.m. in July, smoke that drifts into the dining room, a hood that seems to pull nothing. Almost every one of those buildings had exhaust added during a tenant improvement, usually with the make-up air left as an afterthought or omitted entirely, so the exhaust fan is fighting the building envelope and losing. In a climate where outside air is 100 degrees for weeks, untempered make-up air is not a fix either; it just moves the heat problem from the hood to the whole kitchen.
Larger kitchens exist here too: hotel and banquet operations near the Fairplex, campus dining, hospital food service and the commissaries in the industrial parks. In those, exhaust and make-up air are usually designed in, but the balance drifts as belts wear, dampers stick, motors are replaced with the wrong speed and fire-suppression interlocks get bypassed. A good visit measures exhaust volume at the hood and supply volume at the make-up air unit, inspects fans, bearings and burners, and rebalances so the kitchen holds a slight negative pressure relative to the dining room without starving the hood.
The scope is fans, make-up air and balance. Hood and duct grease cleaning is a different trade, and when a cleaning contractor's work affects the airflow we coordinate rather than overlap. See kitchen ventilation and make-up air for how the service runs, and the restaurants industry page for the rest of the kitchen equipment picture.
Pomona's climate and what it does to this equipment
Pomona lies in the eastern part of the Los Angeles basin where the marine layer rarely reaches in summer, so days are hot, sunny and dry, with frequent stretches above 95 degrees and occasional triple-digit heat. Cooling coils work long hours, condensers reject heat into very hot air, and compressors see sustained high head pressure. Santa Ana winds in fall bring dust and debris that clog outdoor coils and intake screens. Winters are mild but nights can be cool enough for heating calls. Smog and fine particulate also load filters faster than at the coast.
For the equipment background behind this page, read our kitchen ventilation and make-up air guide or the full Kitchen Ventilation & Make-Up Air service page.
- Cal Poly Pomona campus and surrounding institutional areaUniversity buildings with chilled water, lab ventilation and public-agency procurement requirements.
- Fairplex and the Fairplex Drive corridorExhibition halls and event facilities with highly seasonal loads, large spaces and temporary-use cooling.
- Downtown Pomona and the Arts ColonyOlder masonry buildings housing restaurants, breweries and galleries, with tight back-of-house refrigeration and rooftop access challenges.
- Mission, Holt and Garey industrial parksMulti-generation warehouse and manufacturing buildings with mixed-vintage rooftop fleets and aging controls.
- Make-up air unit service, repair, and replacement
- Exhaust fan belts, motors, and airflow verification
- Kitchen-to-dining pressure balance so doors and hoods behave
- Documented readings, not guesses, on airflow and temperature
What a kitchen ventilation & make-up air visit includes, and the problems we most often find
- Walk the kitchen during or near service to see what the building actually does
- Measure exhaust and make-up airflow, temperatures, and building pressure
- Inspect fans, belts, motors, dampers, burners, and controls
- Repair or adjust, then re-measure to confirm the balance
- Document results and flag items for the hood-cleaning and fire-protection vendors to handle
- Make-up air that is undersized or off, pulling conditioned air from the dining room
- Exhaust fan belts and bearings worn, cutting airflow below what the hood needs
- Kitchens running negative, causing hard-to-open doors, drafts, and burner issues
- Make-up air units with failed burners or controls during cold or hot weather
Kitchen Ventilation & Make-Up Air in Pomona: questions we get
Our Arts Colony restaurant never had make-up air installed. Can it be added to an old masonry building with almost no roof space?
Usually, though the routing takes creativity. Options include a compact tempered make-up air unit on the roof near the exhaust fan, a sidewall intake where the building allows it, or a dedicated unit feeding the kitchen through existing chases. The constraint is almost always where to run the duct and how to temper the air in summer. We survey the building, measure the actual exhaust rate and propose a route that works with the structure rather than against it.
Our kitchen exhaust fan on a Pomona commissary runs constantly but the hood still does not capture well. What usually causes that?
Common causes are a worn or slipping belt, a motor replaced with the wrong RPM, a fan wheel caked with grease that has lost its blade profile, a backdraft damper stuck partially closed, or a kitchen so negative that air is short-circuiting the hood. We measure airflow at the hood and at the fan, inspect the drive and wheel, and check the make-up air side, because capture problems are often a supply problem wearing an exhaust fan's disguise.
Do you clean hoods and ducts?
No. Hood and duct cleaning is a separate specialty. We handle the mechanical side: exhaust fans, make-up air, and HVAC balance.
Why is my dining room hot when the kitchen is running?
Often the make-up air is not matched to the exhaust, so the kitchen pulls conditioned air from the dining room. Measuring airflow and pressure shows where the balance is off.
Can you replace a make-up air unit?
Yes. We size to the hood's exhaust requirement, coordinate permits, and handle rigging and controls.