A distributor who stocks kitchen exhaust purification on instinct ends up with a warehouse full of the wrong tier and a phone full of complaints he cannot answer. A distributor who stocks from a written configuration sheet knows exactly which duty classes his market buys, how deep to go on each, which consumables repeat, and what his supply agreement must say before the first container ships. This guide is written for that second dealer: the importer, HVAC contractor or equipment reseller who has decided to carry kitchen purification and now has to turn a product catalogue into a stocking plan.
Why Configuration Beats Instinct
Kitchen purification is not one product; it is a small family of architectures that answer different building and cooking conditions. A ductless recirculating hood suits a basement kitchen with no duct route. A ducted electrostatic precipitator train suits a rooftop-vented restaurant with high grease load. A floor-standing cabinet unit suits a low-headroom retrofit where nothing can hang from the ceiling. A ventless cart suits street trading and front-of-house live cooking. If a dealer stocks only the tier he personally likes, he will be forced to walk away from half the inquiries that reach him — or worse, sell the wrong architecture and inherit the service consequences.
The configuration sheet solves three problems at once. First, it forces a written mapping between market demand and duty class, so stocking decisions come from the local cuisine mix and building stock rather than from the last inquiry. Second, it defines the per-inquiry data set the salesperson must capture before quoting, which is the single biggest defence against mis-selection and returns. Third, it separates the capital stock (complete units) from the consumables stock (ESP cells, collector plates, activated carbon, pre-filters), because the two follow completely different turnover rhythms and completely different margin behaviour.
A working rule: if you cannot fill in the configuration sheet for a customer inquiry within ten minutes, the inquiry is not ready to quote — and the gap list tells you exactly what to ask next.
Map Your Market Before You Stock
Start from what your market cooks and what its buildings allow. A city of wok lines and charcoal grills loads the heavy-duty tier. A city of cafes, bakeries and dessert shops loads the light-duty tier. A market where most kitchens sit in shared buildings, basements or heritage blocks with no duct route pushes everything toward recirculation. A market with large standalone restaurant buildings and permissive rooftop plant pushes toward ducted trains. Write the split down as percentages — it will directly set your stocking ratios.
The sizing heuristics that drive the mapping are stable across markets and worth memorising, because they are also what you will use to sanity-check any inquiry: one metre of hood length corresponds to roughly 2,000 m3/h of airflow for standard duty and about 2,500 m3/h/m for open display cooklines; an open burner is budgeted at roughly 4,000 m3/h per burner; capture velocity at the hood edge should sit near 0.4 to 0.5 m/s; and the hood should overhang the cookline by roughly 150 to 300 mm on each side. Cross-check any customer-supplied airflow figure against these numbers — if the two diverge by more than about 30 percent, someone has made an error worth finding before the order is placed.
| Market segment | Typical load | Architecture that fits | Stocking weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wok, charcoal, pressure-frying, rotisserie | Heavy grease, high temperature | Heavy-duty ductless all-in-one, or ducted train where ducts exist | Highest in cooking-led cities |
| Cafe, bakery, steaming, griddling | Light fume, vapour-led | Light-duty ductless all-in-one plus odour stage | Highest in beverage-led cities |
| Basements, heritage blocks, malls | Any load, no duct route | Recirculating hood with carbon odour stage; low-headroom cabinet units where ceiling height is under about 2.4 m | High in dense urban cores |
| Standalone buildings with rooftop plant | High volume, long hours | Ducted ESP purifier with centrifugal fan | Moderate; project-driven |
| Street food, markets, events, pop-ups | Variable, mobile | Ventless catering carts | Low unit count, fast turnover |
One more mapping input: regulation. Where a fire authority or environmental regulator requires documented grease extraction and odour control, buyers enter the market earlier and accept engineered answers more readily. Where enforcement is complaint-driven, demand concentrates in the restaurants that have already received a nuisance complaint — which is a sales conversation, not a stocking problem. Note the difference in your sheet: regulated markets justify deeper stock; complaint-driven markets justify demo capability and fast delivery.
How Deep to Stock: Rules That Survive the First Year
Depth is where new dealers lose money. The discipline that works is tier-first, depth-second. Stock one working unit of every duty class you intend to sell — a light-duty ductless unit, a heavy-duty ductless unit, and either a ducted ESP train or a low-headroom cabinet unit depending on your market’s duct reality. That is your demo and approval fleet. Then add depth only to the one or two tiers your market mapping actually loads.
A practical first-order pattern for a mixed urban market looks like this: roughly half the order in the tier your cuisine mix maps heaviest, a quarter in the second tier, a demo unit of everything else, and the remainder in consumables. Resist the temptation to spread evenly — an even spread guarantees that everything sells slowly except the tier you understocked.
Factor packed volume into the plan, because purification hardware is bulky relative to its value. A compact floor-standing cabinet unit packs at roughly 0.75 CBM; a full-size ductless hood unit occupies considerably more. When you plan a 20-foot or 40-foot container, list each SKU’s packed dimensions and calculate the container fill before you finalise quantities — a container that leaves 15 percent of its volume unused is a real cost per unit. Voltage is the other pre-order check: confirm 220 to 240 V at 50 Hz for most of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, 100 V Japan, and 110 to 127 V at 60 Hz for the Americas, and confirm it in writing at order time. A container of wrong-voltage units is unsellable in your market and is the most expensive mistake a first order can contain.
The Consumables Ledger: Parts That Repeat
Complete units pay for the container; consumables pay for the year. A purification range without a consumables plan is a one-time sale followed by a service vacuum that a competitor will fill. Build the ledger around the wear items that every electrostatic purification system has: the ESP cell that holds the collection stages, the aluminium collector plates inside it, the ceramic insulators, the sealing strips, the high-voltage power supply, and the activated carbon that carries the odour stage. Whole-unit warranties — typically 12 months — exclude these as consumable wear items, which is exactly why they must be a stocked line, not an afterthought.
| Consumable | Why it wears | Sensible field ratio | Customer rhythm |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESP cell | Grease loading, wash cycles, plate deformation | 1 to 2 spare per 10 field units | Wash every 2 to 4 weeks; replace when damaged or beyond cleaning |
| Collector plates | Bending, corrosion, arcing pitting | 1 set per 10 field units | Replaced during major service |
| Ceramic insulators | Crazing and tracking from moisture and heat | 2 to 4 per 10 field units | Replaced at cell service |
| Sealing strips | Compression set, heat ageing | 1 set per 10 field units | Replaced at cell service |
| High-voltage power supply | Component failure under continuous duty | 1 per 10 to 15 field units | Swap-out repair, then repair the core |
| Activated carbon | Saturation — it is designed to be spent | Sized to refill cycles | Replace every 3 to 6 months depending on duty |
Two commercial notes belong in the same ledger. First, carbon is the most predictable recurring line in the range: it is consumed on a clock regardless of how well anything else works, so quote it into the original sale rather than discovering it in year one. Second, wash routine drives failure rates. A customer who washes cells on the 2-to-4-week interval and dries them properly will rarely need early cell replacement; a customer who lets grease bake on for months will. Sell the maintenance rhythm with the unit — it protects your consumables margin and your warranty exposure at the same time.
The Per-Inquiry Configuration Sheet
Every inquiry that reaches a stocking dealer should be converted to a filled sheet before any price discussion. The sheet below is deliberately short enough to complete on a phone call and complete enough to prevent the classic mis-selection errors. Print it, laminate it, and make it the entry document for every order.
| # | Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cuisine and appliance list (fryers, woks, grills, ovens, open burners) | Sets duty class; burner count feeds the 4,000 m3/h rule |
| 2 | Cookline length and hood length available | Feeds the 2,000 to 2,500 m3/h per metre rule |
| 3 | Ceiling height above cookline | Under about 2.4 m points to floor-standing cabinet units |
| 4 | Duct route available? Rooftop or wall termination possible? | Splits recirculating from ducted architecture |
| 5 | Building type: standalone, mall unit, basement, heritage | Heritage and malls usually block new penetrations |
| 6 | Neighbours and complaint history | Odour-sensitive sites need a stronger carbon stage |
| 7 | Operating hours per day and days per week | Scales consumable intervals and warranty exposure |
| 8 | Local regulator or insurer requirement, if named | Some sites need documented extraction as a licence condition |
| 9 | Voltage and frequency at the site | Confirmed in writing before the order |
| 10 | Airflow figure the customer already holds, if any | Cross-check against heuristics; over 30 percent divergence, re-derive |
| 11 | Who installs: dealer crew, customer contractor, or third party | Defines the delivery boundary and commissioning responsibility |
| 12 | Who services: wash interval owner, carbon replacement owner | Protects the consumables plan and the warranty |
| 13 | Target delivery window | Stock order versus project order behave differently |
| 14 | Decision date and who decides | Prevents demos dying in a stalled committee |
Fields 1 to 4 select the architecture. Fields 5 to 8 size the odour and compliance stage. Fields 9 to 14 protect the transaction. A sheet with 1 to 4 blank is not a quotation opportunity — it is a qualification conversation.
Demo Units and Local Proof
Buyers of purification equipment are purchasing an invisible result, and nothing converts them faster than seeing grease leave the air. Reserve one working unit per tier as a demonstration asset, and treat the ESP cell as your showpiece: a cutaway or a before-and-after pair of collector plates, one clean and one loaded, tells the whole story without a single adjective. If your market has a live kitchen willing to host a side-by-side test, one afternoon of demonstration typically outperforms a season of catalogues.
Certification paperwork is part of the demo kit. European markets expect CE documentation per unit; fire-authority markets respond to type-test reports for the ESP cell; buyers with facility audits respond to material declarations for stainless contact surfaces. Keep a single printed pack per architecture, and make it standard issue with every demo — the dealer who can hand over the compliance pack on the spot is the dealer the project engineer shortlists.
Warranty Pass-Through and Terms Worth Defending
Your supply agreement is where stocking risk is either contained or amplified. Six terms deserve explicit language before the first order:
One, warranty scope and duration in months from shipment, with the standard 12-month whole-unit coverage and an explicit list of consumable wear items — ESP cell, collector plates, sealing strips, ceramic insulators — so the exclusion is agreed rather than argued. Two, spare-parts availability: a written commitment that service parts remain obtainable for at least five years after your last purchase, which is what lets you sell confidently into a ten-year equipment life. Three, documentation per shipment: packing list, CE declaration, test report references, and installation instructions per unit, because customs and facility audits both read paperwork. Four, defect handling: the replacement-versus-repair rule, who pays freight in each direction, and the photographic-evidence standard that triggers it. Five, voltage and frequency confirmation at order time, as a named line on the purchase order. Six, lead-time and backorder treatment, so a stockout on your best tier does not silently become a twelve-week gap.
Pass these through to your own customers honestly. A dealer who promises a lifetime guarantee he cannot source is renting a future service disaster; a dealer who says “12-month whole unit, consumables on a 2-to-4-week wash and 3-to-6-month carbon cycle, parts available for five years” is describing a range the customer can actually operate.
Turning an Inquiry Into a Selection Without Guessing
With the sheet filled, the selection is mechanical. Derive airflow from the appliance list and cookline length using the heuristics; compare against any customer-held figure and re-derive if the divergence exceeds about 30 percent; classify the duty as light or heavy from the menu; and let the building answer the architecture question — duct route available means ducted is the default and recirculation is the retrofit answer, while no duct route means recirculation is not a compromise but the correct engineering response, provided the odour stage is sized honestly for the cuisine and the neighbour distance.
Keep three closing checks in the habit. Duty first: a heavy charcoal or wok load pushed through an undersized light tier will surface as complaints, not as savings. Consumables second: every selection is quoted together with its carbon mass and wash interval, so the operating rhythm is part of the sale. Boundary third: installation, commissioning and electrical work are assigned to a named party in writing, because the most common post-sale dispute in this trade is not product failure — it is an undefined scope.
How the Range Maps to the Three Architectures
The ductless range hood range covers the recirculating tiers that most urban markets load heaviest: light-duty all-in-one units for cafes, bakeries and steaming lines, and heavy-duty all-in-one units for fryers, wok lines and grills, with the odour stage carried by the paired carbon tower. For a dealer, these two tiers are the depth stock in nearly every city market — the N-series answers the light-fume side of that split and the ND-series answers the heavy-fume side, and the Odor Removal Tower pairs with either wherever neighbours sit close.
Where the market’s buildings allow ductwork and the load is high-volume, the ducted ESP purifier range with its matching centrifugal fans covers the project side of the book — rooftop-vented restaurants, food courts with shared risers, and sites where a fire authority expects a documented ducted train. Stock this tier to the project pipeline rather than to the shelf, and hold the project-grade consumables accordingly.
The mobile end of the market — street trading, market pitches, event catering, front-of-house live cooking — is served by the ventless catering cart family. Carts are a low-count, fast-turnover, demonstrable product: one or two units on the floor, a working demo in the yard, and a consumables line matched to daily trade. They are also the best first conversation a dealer can have with a market, because the purchase decision is fast and the result is visible on the street the same week.
The Sheet Is the Strategy
A dealer’s advantage in kitchen purification does not come from carrying the widest catalogue; it comes from knowing which duty class the city buys, holding depth only there, keeping the consumables ledger turning, and refusing to quote on an inquiry whose configuration sheet has blanks. Build the sheet, fill it for every inquiry, review the stocking ratios every quarter against what actually sold — and the range will earn its floor space instead of consuming it.
