I'm in the Portland Oregon area and we had ordered a VentaHood under-cabinet model NPH9 with a chrome pot rail from our local dealer, Standard TV and Appliance. Because of the pot rail, it was considered a custom order. The initial shipment arrived on time to Standard's warehouse. I went to pick up the hood, only to find - no pot rail. The shipping box was properly labeled with our custom order number including a description of the hood with attached pot rail. After four (4) days of discussing with Standard on how to reconcile this mistake, we were told a new unit had to be re-ordered and would arrive within 4 - 6 weeks. It's been 2 months since then. We finally probed deep enough into the problem (called the Seattle distributor, Luwa, as our Standard sales rep and manager were of no help) only to find another hood had been shipped, but was lost somehow in the delivery. We are now on our second (2nd) re-order. Moral of the story, if you're looking for one of their standard models - it shouldn't be a problem. Be careful if you want something custom. SIDENOTE: This is the second VentaHood I've installed. One of the first that I installed had a very minor manufacturing flaw (sheet metal didn't line up and created malformed corner). We didn't catch it until after we had installed the hood and stood back to admire our work. So look very close at your hood when it arrives. In the future, I will most likely go with an alternate product.

Theoretically, the baffles would remove the easily precipitable grease and the rest would go up the ducting, leaving the interior of the hood above the baffles relatively clean. I doubt that this will be the case with either hood, so in both cases be prepared to wipe out the hood interior. Otherwise, cleaning baffles in the dishwasher would seem to be easier than cleaning a motor/blower assembly, but I haven't had to do either yet. kas

@sarina: I have had the Kobe RA02 for about 8 months now. Being an engineer, I did the install myself, although the chimney cover is still not in place, as I need to redo the crown molding behind it (procrastination is the name of this game). Overall I like it, but that doesn't say much, as my previous ventilation was just a fan-in-a-ceiling-hole. The quiet setting is quiet, but the other two are noisy; without previous experience, the "sones" numbers don't translate well into actual noise levels. Otherwise, on High, the hood is pulling out all the smoke and airborne grease steaks in a cast-iron skillet produce. You will have to open a window or install a MUA to help it pull all that air volume. The baffles need scrubbing every month or so, but that's a very small price to pay for not having cabinetry and walls smeared in grease. The model you're looking at is a little more elaborate, as it has some sort of electronic control. The RA02 is bare-bones, just two rotary switches.

Broan/NuTone/Best make a large range of ventilation equipments and generally you get what you pay for as far as I can tell. However, why a "high end" appliance dealer wouldn't include some other brands is unclear. At a minimum, I would expect a Wolf dealer to have examples of Wolf hoods. (My hood is a Wolf, made by Independent before Wolf moved production in-house.) Decide how high you want the hood for good site lines and reaching to the back burners, and missing one's head, while keeping in mind that the front burners will be emitting plumes that expand as they rise, so height corresponds to increases in needed overlap -- side to side and front to back. 10 degrees from vertical measured from the flame diameters when pans are on the burners can be used for plume expansion estimation. Sketch it out. Given a height and hence width and depth, calculate the square footage of the entry aperture of the hood. For wall hoods the light bar in the front may qualify as partial or whole entry aperture area. Multiply area by 90 CFM/sq. ft. Multiply by 1.5 if you don't know all the pressure losses. Find a blower that has that result as a rated value. Decide on in-hood, in attic (in line), or on roof. Farther away is generally quieter. If there is room for a silencer (Fantech) between blower and hood then the result will be quieter still. There is a lot of dissension about ease of hood cleaning by type. I can say that my Wolf hood baffle assemblies easily remove and can be cleaned in a dishwasher. (I have ten of these, so it takes two loads.) One still wants to reach up inside and wipe the surfaces. I use Simple Green, but likely there are myriad possible choices. I have never owned a VaH, and was initially repulsed (2007) by the Magic Lung® claims. Others like them. If you have guests sitting where they can see into the hood, a baffle system may be aesthetically superior. Duct should be sized so that full power actual flow rate achieves a velocity in the duct between 1000 and 2000 ft/min for best balance between grease condensation and grease impingement. You can go lower (larger duct) if you pre-heat the duct in cold weather. On CFM focus. Standard (if that actually ever applies) residential hoods are designed to fit into residential kitchens. Commercial hoods are designed to fit into commercial kitchens. At a minimum, the typical difference is two feet of ceiling height. When the commercial hood can be built so that there is tremendous volume below its baffles, there are conditions where the specific flow rate (CFM/sq. ft.) can be reduced below the value I suggested above. This is due to "baffle averaging" resulting from the reservoir volume vs. plume steady state and transient volumetric rates. At the other extreme, residential hoods with little volume below the baffles will allow plume escape (capture failure) if the plumes are not immediately entrained into the baffle flow. And, of course, plumes not initially captured are not contained and removed except as a matter of long term kitchen (and whole house) air replacement. So CFM focus varies. Another difference is that commercial hoods are typically operated at a fixed CFM and the MUA is balanced for this case, whereas residential hoods, along with bathroom fans, etc., operate at variable CFM, and this makes the MUA control more complex.