Had a Vent-a-Hood in my previous kitchen. In my new kitchen, I'm going with Prestige (baffled) hood with a remote blower. Before proceeding, let me say that noise level, efficiency, and performance are all very dependent on the particular install.

Pretty much from day one, the hood was not as quite as I had hoped. The showroom demo units typically don't have any ducting behind/above it so they just vent directly. This cuts the noise down to just the fan motor noise. Thus, it's a bit decieving. With a remote blower, typically, fan/motor noise is minimal and the only thing you have is noise generated from the air passing through the baffles and ducts. In my old kitchen, the combined motor and air motion noise was considerable even with just one of the blowers on.

Another issue I had was cleaning. The "box" around the blower can sometimes be hard to remove without it smashing down on the cooktop but that was simple compared to putting the stupid thing back. Without fail, every time I took it out for cleaning and put it back, the blower would scrape some part of the inside of the "box". First couple of times, it was because the paint used started to bubble inside after a trip through the dishwasher. I had to scrape/cut those bubbles out leaving exposed metal in spots in order to getit back together. Then I stopped putting it in the dishwasher but that meant I had to clean it by hand. Even then, it always took a bit of fiddling to get it just right so that it doesn't scrape.

Cleaning the squirl cage was even harder. Removing it require an allen (hex) wrench that was either very long or had a very tight bend. I think they actually list one on their website. Once removed, soaking and then scraping one blade at a time was the only way to clean it. Be very careful not to knock off any of the balancing weights or you'll be in for a world of hurt. I had an unfortunate instance where we had to cust some tile under the hood and it got turned on at one point so it sucked up a bunch of tile dust. The resulting gunk on the blower blades was extremely hard to remove.

From a performance standpoint, it was decent. I would not say absolutely great. I'm not sure I buy into the 900cfm is equivelant to 1200cfm. Perhaps if you are comparing to mesh filter but baffle filters are used in restaurants around the world and airflow across baffles has shown to be very efficient. The only thing with baffles, is you need a larger overall capture area which is not a bad thing for venting in any case.

For me, the decision was pretty simple. For the same price as a 900cfm vent-a-hood system, I could get a 1600cfm remote blower system.

Thanks amcook!

My concern is twofold--getting a hood that will perform well with 100,000s BTUs/grilling and also being able to afford it!

The VaH sounds and looks great, but at $3500 is a lot, given all the other appliances/materials I will be buying to build the house.

I am hoping the "Best" hood will work as well, at less than half the price.

I hear ya! If the 900cfm VaH was the same price as the 1200cfm Best then maybe I'd suggest you consider both but with the price difference, I honestly think you have a much better value with the Best. Just make sure the one you are looking at has the baffle filters.

Good Luck.

Ditto what Amcook said.

Outside of a scratch'n dent,craiglist or ebay hood with similar imperfections you will not find a hood to adequatly vent a 100k btu 48" range for less than $1000.

The Best may be your "best" bet.

- BEST / Broan is a very nice unit. VAH is getting a bit pricey lately and I don't care for there marketing.

If I told you that my range burner only put out 10,000 BTUs but that it was "equivelant" to yours making 15,000 or 19,000 per burner - would you believe me???

At 2.5 times the cost it's a tough sell in my view.

If I told you that my range burner only put out 10,000 BTUs but that it was "equivelant" to yours making 15,000 or 19,000 per burner - would you believe me???

If it had a magic burner I would.

I don't know much about the Ventahood, I'm an architect who does a lot of custom kitchens, and we almost always use the Best hood "guts" for custom hoods, and have had no complaints from contractors or clients.
We often price the comparable hood assembly from the range manufacturer just in case, but the Best almost always is cheaper.

Thanks very much everyone. I'm thinking Best is the best choice and good to hear others have used it and like it.

Of course, all this has led me to wonder if I TRULY will use the grill and maybe should drop down to a six burner 36" no grill and save on both the range and the hood. SIGH.

dee - ROFL

that's a good one !

Amcook,I looked at the prestige insert( a nice unit) and it was on my short list but I ran into a couple issues. The high capacity inserts would not allow me to do a wall exhaust for my application (ended up doing roof but...) and the controls for the lights and location were in the upper end of the unit and seemed to me they would get greasy there as well as difficult to reach. We ended up with an Abbaka and are very happy. Modern-aire and several others make similar baffle units and they do NOT cost $3,500

the amount of noise is going to be dependent on the blower, filters, type of filters, location of the blower, size of venting, restrictions, silencers, installation etc.

Has Anyone used a Sirius hood? Most high end appliance stores in the Denver area have a slick VentaHood display and the standard Magic Lung pitch. The hoods are quiet but I wonder how loud the squirrel cage gets when its caked up and unbalanced with grease?

As I see it VAH is also not 100% SS construction - the motor housing and grease trap are a baked enamel type of finish which would probably not survive oven cleaners or other harsh treatments to get rid of stubborn grease.

I am thinking of going with Sirius which has a 600 cfm rated at 4.4 sones and baffle filters. A 30" is priced below $1000 compared to a $2000 VAH 30".

My VAH squirrel cages never get "caked up and unbalanced with grease" because I clean them regularly. And I would never even think of using oven cleaner when warm soapy water works just fine.

Now I am doing the same research and I have quotes for the same hoods and they differ greatly from yours. My quote for the VAH #BH346PSLDSS is only $1,520 and the BEST #CP471422SB is $1,614. Now my vent is a liner for a custom hood and maybe that is the difference but both are 48".

You might want to consider one of the Broan branded "Elite series" hoods that have blower options up to 1500 CFM. You won't be paying a premium for the "Best" brand name while still getting sufficient CFMs to do the job. A broan Elite stainless steel will complement a stainless steel range just fine. They also have inserts available for use with custom hoods.

We had a Venta-a-Hood undercabinet model with the 300cfm (rated as 450cfm) Magic Lung fan. I recall asking VaH tech support if I needed the two-blower model, and he said 'yes', since we were using it over a gas range. Nevertheless, I opted for the one-blower system, since we just had a 30" range and it wasn't a Pro-level stove, just a basic Thermador.

The fan and hood worked great, no complaints-- not too noisy and plenty of suction. Cleaning the grease really was no big deal. I found the cover with the grease trap to be easy to remove and clean. I scooped out most of the grease with a paper towel every month or two, then just used a sponge and Dawn to remove the rest. Sometimes, I would put the housing in the dish washer, which did not damage it at all.

I never bothered to clean the blades of the squirrel fan, and it seemed to perform just fine for the following 13 years (we moved away about a year ago). The inside of the hood did not get dirty quickly... every so often I'd spray some cleaner on it and wipe it with a paper towel.

The duct run was only about two feet to the outside wall. In the condo where we now live, there's a useless microwave with a recirculating fan above the stove; why do they even pretend these things do any good? I am planning to install another Vent-a-Hood undercabinet model where the microwave is, but the duct run will be at least 20 feet with two 90-degree turns. I'm wondering if this time I'll need a two-blower system.

If anyone has faced a similar situation, please post about how much oommph your hood required. Truly you can't go wrong with ventahood. The 30" stainless undercabinet model is priced just about the same as a BEST hood-- maybe the bigger Vent-a-Hoods with powerful external blowers are more expensive than the BEST equivalents.

I’ve now had my vent a hood for nearly 4 years. I don’t find the concept of oil being flung to the sides and then to the drip tray actuated. Most of the grease is stuck to the power lung fine’d wheels and inside the ducting beyond the vent. There is also a good portion adhered to the interior body of the vent hood.
There are often times that the vent a hood is unable to keep up with the fumes of cooking. I would be willing to sacrifice silent operation for those times when i need to kick the suction up to clear the air.
In all honesty, my Kenmore vent hood was more capable then vent a hood on any power level. I’m guessing I will pull this vent a hood out and change it to something more capable in the near future.

On a cleaning front, its not really that band if you have a good cleaner. As said above, much of the grease is stuck to the inside of the hood and not captured by the lung drip tray. I lay Polly over my gas burners, spray the inside of the hood with “natureclean” (which is the only cleaner i found breakers up cooking grease). I allow it to sit for 4 or 5 min then wipe. The magic lung components are a different matter all to gather. The lung wheels are ridiculous to clean. I place them in the dish washer and say the hell with what doesn’t come off. I don’t believe you’re meant to put them in the dishwasher, but the sooner this thing fails, the sooner i replace it.

Somehow, this thread went on for years without a mention of make-up air. Assuming a hood with sufficient flow rate, particularly for the larger cooktops, make-up air is another significant expense and (for an existing house) potentially an architectural pain to implement.

Also, the claims of the VaH sales lady that the centrifugal extraction process of the squirrel cage blower removes ALL of the grease particles is beyond suspect. If it were true, the configuration would be a great help to commercial kitchens that have to pay to have their ducting inspected and cleaned once a year. It is true that the extraction efficiency is a function of the rotational air velocity, but the finer particulates would need something like a turbocharger impeller ( > 100k RPM) to be affected). Also, the VaH wheel is not moving extremely fast; if it were, then the acoustic noise from the air turbulence would certainly exceed that from the supposedly less effective baffles, yet in the testimonies above the VaH fans are described as quiet.

The plot below shows a baffle example, and I would yield on any assertion that a squirrel cage blower could have a different extraction efficiency curve. But I won't yield on the claim that the VaH embodiment is 100% effective.

The way baffles operate is to remove the larger particulates that would settle or impinge on the duct surfaces and hope that the remaining particulates would be expelled into the outdoors. There is a factor often overlooked in that commercial systems have external upblast blowers, and these can also perform some centrifugal grease particulate removal of their own. Wolf/Broan and Abakka down-roof centrifugal blowers may also achieve some effect there, but at that point the grease is outside anyway.

One other comment on VaH squirrel cage blowers: These blowers are more affected by duct and MUA restriction than conventional blowers. They start out with the advantage of no baffles (this is a significant pressure loss in a conventional system), but when an entire system, including MUA is evaluated, VaH will start to lose advantage with added ducting or insufficiently controlled house pressure.

Last, I want to remark on the claim that commercial hoods have vastly more airflow than residential hoods. What is important for containment is the velocity of the air entering the hood. If 90 ft/min is achieved, the Greenheck Guide table copied below suggests sufficiency for most residential cooking. One difference is that commercial hoods, which are very high, typically have only one bank of baffles, so the air velocity in the baffle slots can be two or three times that of a typical Wolf hood, say, with its expansive baffle arrangement covering the hood entry aperture. This will improve particulate capture somewhat.

@kaseki, I have been reading all of your comments over several threads. And definitely you are very knowledgeable. I noticed that you avoid recommending any brand names of the hood. But I do understand you do not like VAH. I do lot of indian cooking with oils and spices, frying and smoke. Also our cooking style requires longer duration of tampering spices in high temp oil, which create lot of smell and smoke. We are thinking of buying KitchenAid 36 inch 6 burner range. Looking for 42 inch >600 CFM range hood. What in your opinion will be good- Braun Eliet, VAH, Zephyr, ZLine, Prolone, WOLF or Viking? Instead of calling out one name you may provide me a hierarchy. I am confused after reading all the the discussions. Your advice will be highly appreciated.

First, I don't want to recommend hoods I haven't personally lived with; and contemporaneously, the only one is a Wolf Pro Island hood. However, before I got that hood (ca. 2008), I studied the topic extensively to determine what was truth and (to a great extent) what was misunderstanding or worse. This led to my continuing to comment here. It sort of pays for all the useful information I found on the Kitchen forum.

In the case of VaH 'magic lung' offerings, I have had two objections. The first is applying the word 'magic' to a technological device, which offends my engineering perspective, and the second is the disingenuous claims of higher than actual CFM. As mentioned here and elsewhere, what really matters is the fan curve of the blower in the context of the overall hood and MUA ventilation systems. See example below. Even though a VaH has lower hood pressure loss by not including baffles, their type of blower -- as indicated by their published fan curve data -- is more sensitive to pressure loss restrictions, so the entire path has to be evaluated, either by analysis or at least by approximation to learn what the actual flow rate is likely to be.

I'll try to provide some specificity in the next message. [click to enlarge]

Assume a 42 x 24 inch effective intake aperture at the base of the hood. Then the intake area is 7 sq. ft. For what you want, the air velocity should be 90 ft/min. This calls for 630 CFM. With the usual pressure losses, a suitable standard blower type will need a rated CFM in the vicinity of 900 -- 1000 CFM (with adequate MUA).

For lowest noise this blower should be in-line or on the roof, with a Fantech silencer in the duct path between blower and hood.

I would not recommend a hood with this flow rate having its blower(s) in the hood itself. You will not want to listen to it, and hence, may not actually run it as high as is needed.

To even achieve this flow rate, passive or active MUA is needed, depending on how close the residence's interior pressure has to be kept relative to the exterior pressure to keep combustion appliances from back-drafting carbon monoxide.

As to make of hood, you generally get what you pay for. What you need at a minimum is adequate intake aperture overlap of rising and expanding plumes, a properly designed baffle array (if not using VaH), and preferably some volume below the baffles for a bit of plume flow averaging, and volume above the baffles to better transition the hood shape into the duct shape. Please keep in mind that optimal, performance-wise, is what commercial kitchens use to remove the most effluent at the least cost of ownership and electrical power, so radical deviations from their designs will likely entail performance deficiencies.

I can assert that my Wolf hood is excellently welded, uses an appropriate type of stainless steel, provides adequate lighting, and has baffles that work. I have no data on any of the others you list. You may find some info in other comments in this forum. I know I've seen some Zephyr, Zline, and Proline comments here. Broan has something for everyone, and care must be taken to choose that which meets one's needs.

As always, trades among performance, aesthetics, and affordability have to be made. It is not unreasonable, even if unfortunate, for the hood and MUA systems' overall cost to equal or exceed that of cooking appliance(s) being ventilated.

@kaseki, Much appreciated for your response. This is helpful.

@kaseki I'm confused - in the "update" thread, you seemed to me less negative on the VAH. To refresh, we cannot vent, and are buying a new Bosch 800 gas range. Would you recommend the VAH ARS, Zephry, or some other brand? Because we cannot vent, our priorities in order are 1) best recirculating solution, 2) value. Thanks again.

I am negative on VaH for using somewhat specious claims w.r.t. their Magic Lung® systems. This is not in conflict with the fact that so far only the VaH ARS performance has been described here in sufficient detail to conclude that it works under the described conditions.

If someone bought a Best ventless hood (assuming they make one) or a Zephyr (ditto) and asserted that their unit worked well for their described conditions, I would support that unit also, with the caveat that the qualitative data are sparse. I do not own any of these, so I won't support them without technical data. Such would include actual flow rate, aperture area, particulate suppression ratios by particle size, and odor control (not sure how that might be expressed).

My engineering degree and my industrial experience is not in HVAC. I believe I can apply sufficient engineering instinct to perform kitchen ventilation systems engineering -- taking requirements for cooking ventilation and flowing them down to requirements for hood performance. I do not and can not evaluate any of the vast supply of hoods, beyond in some cases to criticize characteristics I feel are too far from the "ideal" represented by commercial hood designs.