Your range hood stopped working. Before you panic or start pricing new units, take a breath.
A range hood not working comes down to three culprits in almost every case: a power problem, a worn-out fan or motor, or a bad control part.
The same goes for a kitchen exhaust fan not working. The trick is reading the symptoms, because your hood is already telling you where the fault sits.
Fan dead but light on? Light dead but fan spinning? Is everything silent? Each answer points somewhere different.
Why Is My Range Hood Not Working?
Most hoods give you 10 to 15 years of service. When one quits early, blame the electrical or mechanical side first.
Sort your problem into one of these buckets:
- Bucket 1: The fan runs. The light stays dark.
- Bucket 2: The light comes on. The fan refuses.
- Bucket 3: Nothing. Total silence.
One rule before anything else. Unplug the hood before poking around inside. Always.
There is a fourth situation, too. The fan spins, hums along, and pulls zero air. Different beast entirely. We cover this one further down.
So, let us discuss this in detail!
Range Hood Light Not Working but Fan Runs Fine
When the fan works but the light quits. It can be a problem with the bulb.
Yes, check the bulb. Half of these calls end here. Buy the exact type and wattage your manufacturer lists. A mismatched bulb cooks the socket slowly over months.
The switch or socket. New bulb, still dark?
Now the switch or socket becomes the suspect. A technician confirms with a multimeter in minutes.
Wiring in the light circuit.
A loose harness connection at the socket mimics a bad socket perfectly. Worth a look before ordering parts.
The board.
Rare for lights, but possible. Same partial-failure story as the fan section above.
Small warning on halogen bulbs. Never touch the glass with bare fingers. Skin oil creates hot spots, and the bulb dies young. Use a cloth or gloves.
Range Hood Fan Not Working but Light Is On
Good news hidden in this symptom: power reaches your hood. The light proves this. So the fault lives somewhere in the fan circuit alone. Here is the list, ordered from most likely to least.
It might be a bad fan switch.
This switch feeds current to the motor and sets the speed. One broken contact inside, and the motor never gets its signal. The light keeps shining because its circuit runs separately. Test: press every speed setting. Nothing on any of them means the switch deserves suspicion.
It can be a failed fan motor.
Burnt or seized, either way, the blades sit still. Listen closely. A faint hum with no movement usually means a seized motor. Dead silence points elsewhere, maybe the switch.
It can be a defective control board (PCB).
Hoods with touch panels run everything through a circuit board. Boards fall apart. One output dies, the fan quits, and the light carries on as if nothing happened. Watch for this: the panel displays speed levels, you tap them, and the blower ignores you.
It can be loose or broken wiring.
A connector shakes loose between the board and motor. Same symptom, cheaper fix.
One tip worth remembering. If the touch panel cycles through speeds but the blower never wakes up, test the board before buying a motor. People replace motors first because motors feel like the obvious part. Then the new motor sits there, silent, behind the same dead board.
Range Hood Completely Dead: Fan and Light Both Not Working
Both dead at once? Look upstream. The hood itself is probably innocent.
Work through this order:
- The breaker. Walk to your panel. Find the kitchen breaker. Tripped? Reset and test. Now pay attention here. If the breaker trips again within seconds, stop. A short lives somewhere in your wiring. Call an electrician, not an appliance tech.
- The outlet. Grab a phone charger. Plug into the same outlet. Dead charger means dead outlet, and your hood was never the problem.
- The internal fuse. Some models hide a fuse inside. Your manual shows where. Blown fuses cost a few dollars and take minutes to swap.
- The board. Breaker fine, outlet fine, fuse fine? The board has died completely. Leave this repair to a technician. A botched board installs fries the replacement too.
Kitchen Exhaust Fan Running but Not Pulling Air
This one fools people. The fan spins, the noise sounds normal, yet smoke and steam hang over your cooktop like the hood does nothing. Your motor is probably healthy. Something is choking the airflow path. A kitchen extractor fan not working this way has four usual suspects.
Clogged grease filter.
Number one by a wide margin. Grease packs into the mesh until air has nowhere to go. Atlanta kitchens deal with this faster than most. High-heat cooking plus our humidity loads filters quicker than the manual predicts. Cook daily? Clean metal filters every 4 to 6 weeks.
Running a ductless hood
Swap the charcoal filter every 3 to 6 months.
Stuck damper. A flap above the fan opens when the hood runs, letting air escape. Grease glues this flap shut over time. The fan then pushes against a closed door. Checking requires access above the hood, so most homeowners stop here and call.
Blocked ductwork.
There might be bird nests. Lint. Grease buildup. Long duct runs with several bends collect junk in the corners. A straight, rigid duct with few bends stays cleaner for years.
A tired motor.
Motors lose torque before they die. The fan spins, air barely moves, and the decline stretches across months. Common past the 8- or 10-year mark.
Restaurant owners, take note. A commercial vent hood not pulling air usually means a saturated grease trap plus a restricted damper working together. Commercial systems need professional cleaning on a schedule, both for CFM performance and fire code compliance.
Diagnostic Quick-Reference Table
| Symptom | Most Likely Cause | DIY Friendly? |
| Fan won’t start, light works | Bad fan switch or fan motor | Possible with research |
| Light won’t turn on, fan runs | Burnt bulb / bad socket | Yes — start with bulb |
| Both fan and light completely dead | Tripped breaker / outlet / PCB | Check breaker first, then Pro |
| Fan runs but no suction | Clogged filter / stuck damper | Yes for filter / Pro for damper |
| Fan runs, suction gradually declining | Worn motor / grease-loaded blades | Pro |
| Fan makes loud noise but little airflow | Fan blade damaged or motor misaligned | Pro |
Thermador and KitchenAid Range Hood Problems: What to Know?
Do you have Thermador hoods?
These run on sophisticated electronic controls, and this creates a known weak spot. The touch panel stops responding, and everyone assumes a bad switch. Wrong guess most of the time. The board is the real failure point on these units.
So if your Thermador vent hood is not working and the display ignores you, flip the breaker off for a minute, then back on. This power cycle resets the board and fixes a surprising number of cases without a single tool. Still dead? See our Thermador appliance repair specialist.
Or do you have KitchenAid hoods?
A KitchenAid hood fan not working traces back to a worn switch more often than a dead motor. Switch and motor swaps are the two most requested KitchenAid hood repairs, and the switch fails first in most units.
Worth knowing: KitchenAid hoods outlast budget brands by years, so repairing one under 10 years old makes financial sense almost every time. See our KitchenAid appliance repair page for details.
What to Check Yourself and When to Call a Pro?
Handle these yourself, no technician needed:
- The circuit breaker, always first
- The outlet, tested with another device
- The grease filter is removed, cleaned, or replaced.
- The bulb is matched to type and wattage.
- Loose connectors at the socket or switch, reconnected only, never modified.
Stop and call a pro for:
- Motor replacement
- Board replacement
- Internal wiring faults
- A stuck or broken damper
- A hood past 10 years showing several symptoms at once
- A breaker tripping immediately after reset
Appliance Care of Atlanta has repaired hoods for Metro Atlanta homeowners since 2003, covering Gwinnett, Fulton, DeKalb, and the surrounding communities. Our range hood repair service page has scheduling details.
Should You Repair or Replace Your Range Hood?
Repair makes sense when:
- The hood is under 10 years old
- One part failed, a switch, a motor, or a bulb
- The brand holds quality, think Thermador, KitchenAid, Wolf, Bosch
- The repair quote stays under half the replacement price
Replacement makes sense when:
- The hood has passed 12 years, and multiple parts are failing
- Suction never recovered after a filter clean and damper check
- Repair quotes rival the cost of a new unit
- A kitchen renovation calls for higher CFM or a new look
One more piece of advice. Get a diagnostic before spending on a new hood. Total failures turn out to be single-part repairs more often than you would expect.
So here is the whole picture. A range hood not working tells you its story through what still works. Light alone, fan alone, nothing, or spinning without suction, each symptom narrows the search. Run the safe checks yourself, then hand the rest to us.
Contact Appliance Care of Atlanta for range hood repair in Atlanta and get an honest answer before you spend a dime on parts.
Key Takeaways
- Fan works, light dead? Bulb first, switch second.
- Light works, fan dead? Suspect the fan switch or motor.
- Both dead? Breaker first, before touching the hood at all.
- Fan spins with no suction? Clean the filter and check the damper. The motor is usually fine.
- Hoods last 10 to 15 years. Several failures on an old unit mean replace, not repair.
FAQs
Why is my range hood not working at all?
Start at the breaker box. A tripped breaker kills more range hoods than any other cause, and the fix takes ten seconds. If the breaker looks fine, plug a phone charger into the same outlet the hood uses. No power there? The outlet is your problem, not the hood. But if the outlet works and the hood still sits dead, something inside gives out. Usually a fuse or the control board. Both of these are jobs for a technician.
My range hood fan is not working, but the light is on. What is wrong?
The light tells you something useful. Power is getting to the hood. So the fan itself, or something feeding the fan, has failed. Three parts cause this: the fan switch, the motor, or the control board. Which one? Hard to say without testing. A technician checks all three with a meter before ordering parts, so you never pay for a motor when a ten-dollar switch was the real problem.
Why is my range hood light not working, but the fan runs fine?
Nine times out of ten, the bulb burned out. Swap in a new one. Match the type and wattage printed in your manual, because the wrong bulb slowly ruins the socket. New bulb and still no light? Then the switch, the socket, or a wire behind them has failed. Those need a meter test to pin down.
Why is my kitchen exhaust fan running but not pulling air?
Pull out the grease filter and look at the mesh. See a thick layer of grease? Found your problem. Wash the filter or replace a charcoal one, then test again. Still weak? The damper flap above the fan might be stuck shut with old grease. Blocked ductwork causes this too, especially in older homes where the duct twists and turns on the way out.
Is repairing a Thermador or KitchenAid range hood worth the cost?
Most of the time, yes. These brands build hoods worth fixing. A hood under 10 years old with one bad part almost always deserves a repair over a replacement. Have a technician diagnose the exact failure first. You get a real number to compare against a new unit before spending anything on parts.
