Soak the filters flat in hot water with a non-caustic degreaser, never a dishwasher if they are aluminium mesh. Then check the discharge path, because these hoods are frequently built into tall joinery where a partly blocked vent pushes moist air into the cabinetry instead of outside.
Fisher & Paykel hoods are usually specified as part of a whole kitchen rather than bought to replace something, which means they tend to be installed neatly into joinery rather than hung on a wall. Canopy and undermount are both common, and the undermount versions in particular disappear into the cabinetry so completely that people forget they are appliances at all.
The general method for any hood, filters out, soaked flat, then the impeller housing behind them, is covered on our rangehood cleaning guide. One thing is specific to this brand, and it comes from how they are installed rather than how they are built.
The discharge path through joinery
A hood built into a bank of cabinetry has its duct running up inside the joinery before it reaches an external wall or the roof. That is tidy and it introduces a failure that is invisible from the kitchen.
As fat accumulates in the duct and around the discharge, the path narrows. The fan keeps running and keeps sounding normal, but an increasing share of the moist, warm air it moves cannot get out. It goes where it can, which is into the void inside the joinery.
The symptoms read as unrelated faults and almost nobody connects them to the hood.
- The cabinetry above or beside the hood discolours, or the veneer lifts at a front edge.
- The inside of the cupboard next to the hood smells faintly of cooking.
- Condensation appears on nearby glass or on the underside of a shelf.
- The kitchen holds a cooking smell for hours after the extraction has been switched off.
None of that is fixed by cleaning the filters, and it is the most expensive thing on this page because it damages joinery rather than the appliance. If you have a hood built into cabinetry and have never checked the discharge, that is the check worth making.
The filters
Fisher & Paykel uses aluminium mesh on most models, with stainless baffles on some of the wider canopies.
Mesh must never go in a dishwasher. The strongly alkaline detergent oxidises aluminium and leaves it a chalky grey that never comes back. Soak the filters flat in hot water with a non-caustic degreaser for an hour instead, then work them with a soft brush along the mesh rather than across it, because mesh distorts and a distorted filter no longer seals against the hood.
On an undermount model the filters are directly above the hob and directly in your line of sight when you cook, which is at least a useful reminder. On a hood recessed into joinery they are not, which is why those get left longest.
Recirculating models
If the hood does not discharge outside it has a charcoal filter behind the metal ones. Charcoal filters are a consumable, replaced every six to twelve months, never washed. This matters here because a hood built into joinery in an apartment frequently cannot duct outside at all, so the charcoal filter is doing all of the odour control and is often the original one.
Canopy or undermount, and how much each hides
Fisher & Paykel sells both, and the difference is mostly about how visible the appliance stays.
A canopy hangs below or against the wall with its filters angled down at you. It is impossible to ignore, which in practice means canopy hoods get cleaned roughly twice as often as the alternative.
An undermount sits inside the cabinetry above the hob with only a slim control strip and the filter faces showing. Some Fisher & Paykel undermount models are close to invisible once installed, which is exactly the design intent and exactly why they get forgotten. The filters are still directly above the hob and still in your line of sight while you cook, but a flush stainless face does not read as something that needs attention the way a hanging canopy does.
Neither is better or worse to maintain. The undermount simply needs a reminder where the canopy provides its own.
What actually goes wrong
A partly blocked discharge pushing steam into joinery. The failure specific to this installation style and the one that costs real money.
Grey mesh filters from a dishwasher cycle.
An undermount hood nobody has opened, because it does not look like an appliance.
An original charcoal filter in a recirculating install, years past replacement.
Should you do it yourself?
Do it yourself for the filters, every couple of months.
Get someone in for the impeller housing, and particularly if there is any sign of moisture or discolouration on the cabinetry around the hood, because that is a joinery problem developing rather than a cleaning one.
Most people book it with the Fisher & Paykel cooktop and the oven below, since the whole kitchen usually went in together and reaches the same point together.