I have a 48" Bluestar with 24" charbroiler. From past experience using commercial charbroilers I wanted a lot of capture area. We extended the capture area of a 58" Prestige high capacity liner by setting it into a 9' x 30" x 8" inverted stainless "pan". The liner and pan are hidden in the stove alcove.

I chose baffle technology as opposed to magic lung because I like the quick disassembly and the ability to chuck the baffles into the dishwasher or hit them with a pressure spray. Besides, I know that baffles work. We have a 22' foot duct run with one 90 degreed bend and a 1600CFM external blower. I am bringing makeup air in under the cooktop.

I like quality of the Prestige products. The continuously variable fan speed control is important to me. The remote mounting of fan and light controls were also required by my design.

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You have not told us about your range and how much heat & smoke it is likely to generate. The exhaust system you install should "match" the cooking appliance, and some cooking appliance manuals give guidance on that question. If your cooking requirements are "average" family style (30" range with 4 burners), you could probably be fine with about 300-600 cfm in an undercabinet installation, but higher cfm in an island configuration. If you're planning a restaurant style upscale range that puts out a lot more heat than a typical home range, and you plan to use 3-4 or more burners simultaneously often, then you need more exhaust capacity, and you will also need make-up air capability.

In our outdated system, we have a Broan 15 year old hood that's rated 235 cfm, which is low by current standards. It's motor is remotely located in the attic just inside the openin where the duct sends the exhaust outside. The system is quiet because we do not hear the motor, but we do hear the rushing of air. The new Broan hoods have a larger "air capture" surface, the whole underside of the unit, which I think will reduce the air noise compared to ours.

We're still satisfied with our sub-optimal system, and we're in no big hurry to replace it. It works fine except when we really cook up a storm, which we don't do very often. When we do, we just make sure to leave the exhaust system on for a bit longer.

Good luck in your decision.

I have heard very good things about the Prestige. My problem is I know NOTHING about what to order..... Do the units come complete??? Blower, liner, everything except the vent ducting???? If not, how do you determine what to order and the price of a complete unit???
I have ordered a Capital 36" Range top with chargrill so I will need more than a standard unit. I will go on the internet and see if I can figure anything out.... I know I need to get one 42" based on info from this forum and am thinking 1000 CFM or 12000 CFM. Any recs on vendors???
Thanks for your input....

I purchased my Prestige hood from Eurostoves. There are lots of options from simple to complex. My solution is designed to deal with the way I like to cook and would be excess for someone who doesn't have similar tastes and equipment. I found Trevor at Eurostoves to be very helpful.

If you are considering Prestige, give Chris Ricci (973-461-1031) at Signature a call. He was extremely helpful to me in helping me decide which insert to buy for my 48" 8 burner Capital rangetop. I bought a UIBTF46OWC15 (46"x22.5" x 14") and a Prestige RB1600 Remote Blower. The blower was mounted on the roof and was pretty big. We have a slate roof, so it had to be clad in copper. (It better be quiet!)

We installed a Wolf 46" hood liner (baffles for easy cleaning) with a 1500 CFM roof mounted blower over our 36" GE monogram LPG cooktop (4 x 17,000 BTU + 18,000 BTU Griddle). Works great.

We bought the hood liner and the roof mounted blower from Wolf; the ductwork, and the hood surround were thought through, connected and built by our finish carpenter on the fly.

I love being able to run the blower at minimum speed or max as the need arises. It can get a little "whooshey" at high speeds (moving air makes noise) but it does handle everything I've thrown at it. I can see steam and smoke(!) get captured and pulled in and up. In it's most extreme draw (stir-frying) I've cracked a transom and that is more than enough make-up air to supply the flow to the hood. 98%+ of the time that is not necessary. Much better than setting off the smoke detectors in our condo.

Dixiechick - definitely investigate Independent further. Very high quality hood at a good price. they were the most competitive in terms of pricing in the styling we were looking for (they used to make the Wolf hoods among others).

Do you know the style you prefer?

To answer your questions - on a lot of them you buy the hood and fan together but seperate (probably a couple choices on fans - internal vs external, different CFM, etc based on your needs).

You will also need to buy the vent ducting seperate (or have your GC do so).

For a point of reference - our 42" SS Independent Incline hood with a 1200 cfm internal blower cost about $1700. Its the one shown here:

http://www.universal-akb.com/42inwahoin.html

For all of the Independent hoods - you can check out the link below

Here is a link that might be useful: Independent Hoods

BTW, Signature is a distributor for Prestige, not a retailer; they won't be able to sell you anything directly - you'll have to go through your local appliance dealer.

With the Capital 36 RT you will likely want to go with a 42 or 48 (if you have the room)inch hood or hood liner and a 1200 CFM blower. Since quiet is important to you, you will want a remote or in-line mounted blower. I have had internal blowers and now remote and I can tell you, there is no comparison. Next, I agree that baffels are the way to go. I do not have experience with the VAH magic lung but one poster in another thread likened the design to a spitune and remarked they were very ackward to clean. Baffels go straight into the DW and clean nicely.

Trevor at Eurostoves is a great resource for help with sizing and the Prestige line of hoods. I used the high capacity liner and love it. That said, you can never go wrong Independent either. If you are not going the hood liner route and want a very distinctive look, Independent makes some really nice hoods. Another very distinctive hood designer is Abbaka. Pricey but some really nice stuff.

I too am looking for a high cfm liner for my new American Range, 6 burner 86,000 BTU total. Just came from my local appliance dealer. He wanted to sell me a Kobe 700cfm liner (33" x 18 1/2") or the Broan 850cfm with similar measurements. He says there are no 42" liners & that this is sufficient.
Also interesting discussion about baffles vs. screens. He claims at low speeds screens are superior for grease capture & baffles just repel it, but that baffles are superior on high speeds and are better able to draw the heat, grease & steam up & away. It seems a trade-off & you can't have everything. I definitely can't see myself cleaning a VAH at my age!
So, baffle vs. screens for efficiency & ease of cleaning anyone?? Only 700cfm?
Thanks for any input!
Luisa

I think your local guy is under sizing you or keeping you at the bare minimum. As to sizing, he is wrong. With respect to hood liners, there are many alternatives around that size and I believe in pro wall hoods, most make a 42 inch model. Don't skimp on ventilation unless you have to. You can go with the minimum and be satisfied but over sizing a bit and going remote or in-line will serve you much better. Our first high performance range was limited as to ventilation size. We had a 36 inch AG Wolf and matched it with their 36 inch pro wall hood (the 27 inch deep model) and a 900 CFM internal blower. The hood itself was extremely well built and got the job done but was quite loud. With heavy searing, it kept up but not effortlessly. We had a bit of over spill from the hood but not much.

Thanks Breezy. I think you are so right. I found a higher cfm liner by Independent (1200) with a 42" width. This brand has been mentioned favorably here before, but I find it interesting that the distributor tells me Thermador makes their blowers. The sones level is between 8 & 10 which seems very loud. Anyone have experience with the Thermador fans?
Thanks!

I have a Modern-Aire hood. They did a great job for me. Very helpful and I have been very happy with the hood.

Does everyone with a 600cfm or larger blower install a make-up air system? I was "auditioning" a GC yesterday, and the first thing he said upon learning I would be installing a gas range was that I would need make-up air. In my jurisdiction, it is a code requirement unless one already has a high effieciency furnace and water heater. I was a bit surprised, since my med effiency furnace has its own air supply, and my house is old enough to be leaky enough, and I had hoped I could manage without it.

So, while I have learned lots about hoods, brands, and capacity requirements here on this forum, local code requirements can vary a LOT, so don't forget to do some local homework.

I think the idea that something as limited as a 600 cfm blower would need makeup air is excessive unless you have an extremely tight house. Code is another question of course. Jeff Herman at Modern Aire (who has been extremely helpful to me in choosing a hood for our coming Lacanche range) says that with a 1400 cfm remote blower we don't need makeup air for a "typical" house like ours.

BTW: Modern Aire can customize a hood liner to any size, duct and electrical configuration you want for a very minimal extra custom charge. Definitely worth checking out. We're looking at an Abbaka remote plus Fantech silencer. They will sell to us directly.

And, to speak of something we already have experience with, we have a 600 cfm dual blower VAH hood liner at the other house. I've been happy with it. It handles a rather small (Dacor 30" drop-in cooktop with 15K, 11K, and 9K x 3 burners if my memory serves me correctly) cooktop well--although I certainly would NOT want to put it over anything bigger than this range--I can almost overload it using the 15K burner when searing. Cleanup is not a biggie, and we have not had the peeling paint issue mentioned elsewhere, at least to date, though it's relatively new.

We are going to the Modern Aire rather than a VAH not because of a baffle vs Magic Lung preference, but rather that we clearly wanted a remote blower given the size (60") and cfm rating we needed. The VAH is not terribly loud, but no one would accuse it of being quiet when both fans are on high.

wow, just found this thread after having posted the following innocent/unaware question earlier today:
"i've just begun looking for a hood to compliment my 36" bluestar 6 burner, purchased from eurostoves about 18 months ago. have been using an exhaust fan presently that vents directly outside the house through the wall. in all honesty, have been traveling for at least half that time, so it's not as bad as it seems. in any case, i'm hoping to find a good one (maybe like an independent) that i can just pop into the same hole, that vents out the back. aside from independent is there any other low cost options anyone knows of that will do a decent job? have briefly spoken with trevor at eurostove & independent or prestige were his thoughts. i live in the middle of nowhere, iowa & it's online or a trip to chicago for me."
you all are a thorough bunch. thanks. and even though i'm a new questioner, i had run into the gw 2 years back when in the throes of range hunting & bought the bluestar after reading the comments. great site.

Hi joniir

Was very interested that you bought a BlueStar online to be installed in Iowa. Has all gone well with it?

Thanks to all the other posters who have saved me having to do a lot of homework on hoods-- I will just look at Prestige, Independent and Modern Aire.

I am struggling with the which range hood question myself and last week decided the prestige liner (it will be an insert) was THE answer. I was ready to give out the credit card number to eurostoves when I did the math. The height of the prestige unit ended up being a few inches too tall to go out the wall. The roof would be fine. I am now "down" to abbaka or modern-aire as their units can fit my application either way. A little more than I wanted to spend but NOTHING (OK - very little) in this kitchen has come in on budget. Both appear to be very high quality.

You're better off anyway! (not really, the prestige is a great hood I understand, but...)

I will totally vouch for the quality of the Modern-Aire hoods. As I've posted (many) times before, we have a custom 64'' MA liner. I have been delighted with it. It is beautifully constructed and fit to the 16th of an inch (we chose custom dimensions). The baffles are just gorgeous--a chrome finish stainless steel. I have remote switches for lights (5 halogens) and for the remote fan (a Fantech FKD10XL inline fan and LD10 silencer).

The performance is superior. Last night, as a "christening," I made my daughter's favorite seared salmon recipe. This involves putting a saute pan on the highest heat (on the Lacanche 18K BTU burner) for 4 minutes, then dumping in salmon filets liberally coated in olive oil. There is an incredible amount of smoke produced. Virtually all was captured by the hood. No odor at the other side of the kitchen. On high, it's barely audible.

This is markedly superior to the 600 cfm 42'' VAH hood we have at the lake. The last time I did this recipe there, I held a sheet pan beside the range trying to divert more of the smoke into the hood, with limited success. On high, it's also gratingly noisy. Not true with the MA!

The other reason for my MA enthusiasm was the fabulous support I got from them, specifically from Jeff Herman. He patiently answered literally dozens of my emails on all kinds of issues until I was totally confident I knew what I wanted.

I believe Abbaka is also a quality product but can't speak personally to that, but I can for MA.

We have purchased a Captial Precision Series 30" gas, self cleaning, range. The burners are capable of 19,000 btu and I think the center wok burner goes higher.

Given my skills as a cook I do not expect to have more than one burner at a particularly hot output except for maybe when I am bringing something to boil.

We will be venting out.

Capital recommends 600 cfm.

I am looking for a simple hood that will be easy to clean and will be sufficient both in size (as in physically how wide does it have to be) and in terms of capacity. I welcome any helpful suggestions.

Clinresga,

I have just received a LaCanche Cormatin Range.

I am currently considering a ModernAire Hood and, like you mention, I want to capture all the smoke from heavy searing recipes and wok work . . . . Is your fan a 600 CFM unit or higher??

Ginger Paul

Clinresga,

Thank you for your recommendations on this and other threads of Modern Aire. I would never have checked in to them otherwise but I saw the gorgeous barrel hoods in several kitchen photos on this website and then after you recommended them and said how nice the baffles were I called them up. They sent me a quote for the barrel hood in white with steel band accents including an internal blower. I was so nervous as I thought it would be ridiculously expensive but it turns out to be no more than a plain looking ventahood. I am so pleased. I cannot consider a remote blower as you recommend as this is a retrofit in an old house and I will be lucky as it is if I can actually get this thing vented outside. That will have to be done somehow but there is no question of going up to the attic or anything. Modern Aire told me their new motors are much quieter than their older ones and so I am hoping that the internal 600 CFM blower will not be too ridiculously loud.

Thanks again.

Tina

clinresga,

1) why did you change from the abbaka inline blower to the fantech? 2) Did MA wire everything per fantech requirements and did they buy the fantech parts adding to their price for one total bill? 3) Did you add a backdraft damper? 5) at what height and depth did you install the insert? I hope this is not to many questions because I'm sure I will have some more.

gingerginger, you are the first person I found who has the Cormatin- that is what I am considering. Any input would help. Thanks

I am so glad I found this post BEFORE I spent a lot of time researching a range hood. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I LOVE THIS SITE! I'll keep you posted.

I have a Kobe CH176, which I bought after reading many favorable postings on GWEB. So far have been very happy. Lately it is not drawing the way I hoped. Have been trying to get service for 2 weeks now. No local technicians. 2 e-mails from company apologizing for not responding to previous e-mails. Consider who is going to fix your hood before you buy.