[408]

Are the hotplate temperatures digital? or written above the dial?  If the latter they are always very off.  It is never a reliable temperature of what temperatures you will obtain, as it will vary with the apparatus.  So setting at 100 to boil 800mL water may never work depending on how fast heat is carried away from the vessel.

Other than overfilling the flask and using a stopper, just try it again using boiling stones(break a flowerpot or something).  No need for a hood for something like this.

And when you switch to MeOH and sulfuric, a hose adapter for the top of the condenser may give peace of mind for any small MeOH vapour.  Just lead the hose outdoors.

[StarvinMarvin]

For refluxing purposes of MeOH even a balloon would be enough.

[Cultivator]

I wonder why people who have no idea in chem are buying reflux condenser and make setups...

[408]

Perhaps to learn?

"I wonder why people with no background in chemistry study it in university?"

There is no reason to pick on one's method of learning whether it be at home or in a formal academic institution.

[billnotgatez]

There are many who do science as a hobby and not as an occupation. Many who do hobbies are self-taught. Sometimes the self-taught hobby becomes the occupation. Thomas Alva Edison’s name comes to mind. Sometimes the person doing science as a hobby contributes to the field.

[CopperSmurf]

As soon as I read the subject line, I thought to myself, "AWESOME!"   

I've been taught and taught others to follow this rule: "never fill the flask more than 50% during reflux!"

I've seen a flask exploding because of too much solvent, but never the reflux condenser. I think you set your temperature way way too high on your hot plate this time.   

[Yggdrasil]

Here are a few webpages from a chemistry lab course I took which have some useful hints on how to perform some basic chemistry lab techniques:

http://www.chem.ucla.edu/~bacher/General/30BL/hints.html
http://www.chem.ucla.edu/~bacher/General/30CL/hints.html

(ignore the in-lab work pages as they are specific to the experiments performed in class)

In particular, this page on reflux setups might have been useful, especially point #6.