ITA. I have Vent-a-Hood, and love that bright, white light it throws down. But you'd better look where you're aiming when you reach up to turn it off. I would love to swap out for LEDs, but experiences here have left me daunted . . .

I have LEDs factory installed in my hood it is a Zephyr, specifically the Monsoon dcbl line, you can look them up to see what else they have now. Mine is going on 2+ years old now since we remodeled the kitchen.

Love the LEDs they don't get hot and are plenty bright enough for us.

Also, I don't see what damage a LED bulb could cause replacing an halogen bulb. As long as the wattage is within the specs and the pins or contacts are the same there shouldn't be any issues that I can think of. Though i am no expert so don't take my word on that.

Phil

My Wolf/Independent hood (2007 era) incandescent mini-flood lights could easily be swapped with LED-based lights. For cooling reasons, however, the LED lights are slightly longer than a standard PAR20, so the bottom edges of the LED lamps are outside the hood cavities that the incandescent lamps were inside of. Lamp beam dispersion is somewhat narrower, so the light on the cooktop is not as even. There should be no safety issue. Lamp dimming may or may not work as expected.

kas

CFLs would be a poor choice for a hood. Generally for a hood you want a lot of light as soon as you hit the button. You don't want to be waiting for the bulb to "warm up" to full capacity.

LEDs are expensive and thus not as prevalent. Also, the energy used by halogens is not as much of a concern in hoods than other applications since hood lights are generally used less and on for shorter periods of time than other lights in the home.

There are hoods with LED lighting out there, you just need to look more carefully for them.

I also think the 100 CRI (outstanding color rendering, important for lighting up food) plus low cost plus not on too often keeps halogen bulbs in use here. LED light bulbs are an electronics device that lights up, and they are more susceptible to heat/moisture/grease/smoke that ventilation hoods must deal with. And only recently have high-quality, reasonably priced LEDs with good color rendering become available.

If your hood takes reflector bulbs (MR16, PAR20, PAR30, PAR38) or regular incandescent bulbs there are good LED replacements available now. The LED replacements for tiny halogen bulbs are still too dim.

Anyway, cooking isn't really an energy efficient activity no matter what kind of light bulb you use. The heat source and even the exhaust fan motor are going to add up to a lot more than the 100 watts needed to power a couple of halogen lights.

I understand that the halogen lights that we have -- and I now need to replace some of them -- are shatterproof safety bulbs. I was told that's why I need to replace them with the same thing. They also are beam lights that insure that each one throws light in just the right circle.

As a cautionary tale - my husband was putting shelves up for the wall under our nifty new VAH with halogen bulbs. We both smelled something burning at the same time - but only I saw the smoke! The lights were on and caught his hair on FIRE. He is fine - I screamed and we patted it out before it got to his scalp.

Range hoods (and most appliances not made by Samsung and LG) are not redesigned very often. When most of the range hoods currently on the market were developed LED bulbs were not widely available.

old thread, but still applies. I think it' because leds can't handle alot of heat. Halogens obviously can as they're hot without a range underneath.