In our first kitchen remodel we had a GE Spacemaker OTR MW with vent hood and moved this on to our new kitchen. But my wife was never happy with the vent performance and when the heat from our range eventually cracked the door handle and plastic front of the OTR MW, we replaced it with a "upscale model" Whirlpool Velos. Our thought was that it was 400 cfm verses 300 cfm for the old one and it stuck out further for more capture area.

Nope, now three years later and the Velos is suffering the same fate as the GE with cracked door plastic and recently the vent fan has started working intermittently.

We don't really use the microwave that much (soften butter, occasional reheating) and have never really used the fancy capabilities of the Velos.

We recently purchased a new GE Cafe Gas Range to replace our old Hot Point stove and are planning on removing the OTR MW and putting in a real vent hood.

The OTR MW is mounted on an outside wall and vents directly through the wall via 3.25 x 10" rectangular vent pipe. So ideally I'm looking for a vent hood that will perform better and not require cutting new holes in the walls or cabinets.

After much research here on Garden Web and on the net in general I'm leaning towards the Kobe CH-122 SQB series (CH2230SQB). This along with the Kitchenaid KXU8030YSS and KXU4230YSS models appear to be only ones that I can find that can use the existing out the back 3.25 x 10 vent from the old OTR MW.

The Kobe vent hoods appear to be much quieter, higher CFMs, better capture area, and have been well reviewed here on GW than the KA.

However, I'm sick of spending money ever 3 years on a new solution and am looking to the wisdom of crowds here on Garden Web to validate this approach, or point me in a better direction.

Does anyone have an experience with the Kobe 122 series or replacing a OTR MW with vent hood?

Thanks in advance