Whenever I sear steak (or cook anything on high heat), despite having our range hood on the highest setting, the smoke alarms always go off and the entire house smells pretty bad for several hours. Aside from changing my cooking habits, I was wondering if there's anything else I can do to improve this situation. I am totally willing to replace our hood if need be, but I don't want to make an investment only to find out it doesn't actually change anything. Our hood is currently a 36" under-cabinet rated at 400 CFM. We have a standard gas stove with 4 burners. Our kitchen is an "open space" concept though meaning it's kinda merged with the living room in the same space. The exhaust is supposed to go outside.
Would a higher CFM hood "fix" the issue? Any other recommendations to what I could check?