Which range hood to buy

17 years ago

Hello everyone,

I recently purchased a Wolf 48" Dual Fuel range which has 4 burners, a griddle and a Bar B Que. I'm having a little trouble finding a range hood without salespeople scaring the crap out of my wife and I.

We were looking at the Jenn-Air model JXT9048CDP, which is priced at $1595.00 + taxes in Canada. This unit has 6 speed, 2 warming lamps, auto shut off and 2 centrifugal motors(?). My wife and I went to a place that specializes in high end appliances and the salesperson explained that with my range, I would need a vent hood with an external blower unit. Well, that's really nice because there would be no noise but the cost is $3000.00. He also explained that having a Bar B Que and a griddle, it would create ALOT of smoke and that my, 1100cfm Jenn-Air would not be powerful enough to draw out all the smoke. But I read on another site that too much power can pull smoke and carbon monoxide from the fireplace and from the furance vent which can cause major health problems.

My question is, am I okay with the Jenn-Air or what the salesmen was telling me is true? I don't want to call Jenn-Air because they will try and sell their product and same goes with Wolf or Ventahood.

Thanks,

Patrick Bitton

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Comments (17)

alexrander
17 years ago
Interesting question. First, for a lot of cooking, you don't need a fan at all. The fan has several uses. One is to remove heat and steam, and maybe some byproducts of the burning of natural gas. Another is to remove smoke. As you may know, stir frying/wok cooking will create alot of heat and moisture.. And the barbeque (grill) will create alot of smoke as well. That's when you need the hood the most.
The 'capture' area, or how big and how deep and tall the hood is -is also important to confine the smoke/steam while the fan does it's work. And the duct length and diameter and number of bends is important as well.

It's best to run the hood fan before you start cooking to create a draft. A 1100 c.f.m. is alot and will be noisy at high speed, but if you grill alot you may want even more.

Which brings up the question of make-up air. That is, the air you need to bring into the house to make up for all the air you're sucking out. So consider how you'll be cooking- my folks got along o.k. frying bacon and burgers etc without a fan at all. Then look at the huge hoods that restaurants use.

Here is a link that might be useful: make up air
ny888
17 years ago
See if your dealers carries the Independent line of kitchen hoods. They are the makers of the hoods for Wolf except you don't get the name on it but it's the same hood. They used to make the hoods for Thermador as well but no longer since the Bosch/Thermador merger.

I bought the Thermador 48" range and getting the Independent hood and blower instead of the Thermador saved me about $1000.

Here is a link that might be useful: Independent Hoods
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In principle, any hood with an internal blower could be gutted of the blower and operated with an in-line or roof mounted blower. (GreenDesigns may have meant that using it while leaving the blower inside would be a poor plan.) I can imagine construction details that might cause non-optimal internal hood flow patterns, but I have no detailed knowledge of the internal construction of myriad hoods to know whether such are prevalent. There may be nanny jurisdictions that would claim that code approval of the hood was violated when it had its blower removed. Any hood available for order without a blower likely is fully compatible with an external blower. This, of course, can be confirmed with the manufacturer. The most important adaptation requirement is that the blower be continuously controllable, and that the hood control be a continuous motor control. A hood with just a few motor speed positions on a switch might require a compatibly-wired motor. While a multi-position hood control could in principle be replaced by a continuous control, par. 2 may apply. When I was doing my kitchen reno, I chose a compatible hood/roof blower combination (supplied by Wolf) because the entire scope of the project (gutting and reconstructing part of a house) made playing with the details of the blower circuit a side project of tertiary importance that I couldn't afford the time to deal with. As it happens, inside my Wolf (Independent) hood is a diac/triac motor control circuit, about the simplest design available that goes back to the '70s. The compatible Wolf (Broan) roof blower uses a typical induction motor that is easily controlled by this type of circuit. The cost versus time value trade-off needs to be considered when dealing with issues like this. kas
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line the cabinet to the right up with the blocked spot above. It's ok to give exposed hoods some room on sides. I actually prefer this to give a more open look & keep the occasional heavy steam that did not get sucked up off the surrounding cabinets. same sizes on both sides for symmetry. Tile all the way up. Read the stove and hood instruction manuals for suggested placement. It also depends how much you cook, in what is the best type of hood & the spacing needed. Here's an example, that explains why.. From Proline Range Hoods FAQ section: "The third variable which affects the effective capture area of your range hood is the size of the hood. You can have the strongest and most powerful vent hood, with the best design, and if you don’t cover the cooktop and trap the cooking exhaust you can never get rid of it. This is especially true for range hoods over island cooktops. Once you have considered your cooking style consider the size of the range hood. Try to size the hood 6” larger in width than the cook top. Most range hoods come in 22-27” depths with some of the range hoods being 30” deep. The more coverage the better for the serious cooks. If you use your cooktop and you are serious about cooking then remember “coverage is king” especially in an island range hood setting. You can also help yourself by trying to keep your cooking over the primary capture area of your range hood. BBQ and Heavy Smoke cooking environments, both indoor and outside need coverage so size of the range hood is critical. Again, if you can catch the smoke and exhaust you can get rid of it but if you don’t “trap” or catch the smoke it is almost impossible to get rid of without removing an inefficient unnecessary amount of additional air in the room. All of which must be heated or air conditioned in most cases." http://www.prolinerangehoods.com/1-801-973-3959/support/common-questions/
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friedajune
17 years ago
Patrick, you may find the Appliances Forum FAQ's/Overview on vent hoods helpful (link below). Also, regarding make-up air, a lot of that issue is dependent on how tight your house is. Mine is absolutely not tight. In my kitchen in the winter, I have terrible drafts around my legs, and in the summer, ants come in through the cracks. Oh, don't get me started....but that's a subject for another forum. But I do not worry much about makeup air because of the amount of air coming into and out of my home, even with all windows closed. However, new construction homes are ususally as tight as a drum, and makeup air is a real and serious issue that must be considered in your hood purchase decision.

Here is a link that might be useful: Overview on Vent Hoods
fritzgarden (7a)
17 years ago
Vent a Hood for the $, quiet and looks.
http://www.ventahood.com/hoodmodels.jsp?id=9

I switch on one fan, it's very quiet. Switch on the 2nd fan, it gets quieter,
This is because the fans are physically out of phase with each other, their noise are cancelled. Bright halogens.
jm_wi
17 years ago
I'm guessing the price difference here is primarily due to the fact that the Jenn-air unit is pretty much self-contained. The blowers are in the hood, so the added cost (if required) to run the duct and backdraft door is much less than if you had to also mount an external blower. An external blower mount may require a much higher installation cost, and can involve an electrician as well as a regular HV installer. Of course, if you do it all yourself, none of this matters really.

In any event, I still think the pricing sounds very high. You can buy an exernal 1100 cfm Broan blower from www.airshack.com along with various hood "shell" for around $1500, so that would leave a substantial amount of extra money for installation labor and some duct work. Bottom line is, I would suggest you hunt around the appliance stores a bit. Our high end stores in this area frequently have massive price differences for the same product we can get from the more average stores.

I have a wolf 36" with a grill, and 1000 cfm if more than adequate as long as the duct work is fairly a straight run, and the hood shell you choose has a decent "capture" area. In other words, avoid hoods that are flat on the bottom, and buy one that has kind of a big inverted bowl in the bottom. These are great for grabbing smoke surges for a few seconds before the air grabs it into the hood. The pro style you are looking at are designed for that. The Wolf ranges have recommendations on their web site in the ventilation guide.

Its the grill and the griddle smoke that causes problems with selecting proper ventilation on these ranges. The units without the features are perfectly fine with 600 cfm. Sometimes I think the sales folks push it a bit by assuming that your burning kabobs on the grill and burning fish on the griddle at exactly the same time.

Final notes - systems with 1100+cfm in the kitchen can be very loud. At those levels, you should really consider an external blower for noise control.
jm_wi
17 years ago
Heres a great link on some issues associated with oversizing range hoods...

http://www.homeenergy.org/archive/hem.dis.anl.gov/eehem/99/990113.html
moo_
16 years ago
Hi. I was curious if you purchased this Jenn Air hood as I am looking at it currently.

If you did, do you like it?

If anyone has the JXT9048CDP I'd love a review on it! Thanks.
susanilz5
16 years ago
jm wi,

great article, thanks for sharing!
fredboy
16 years ago
I'm guessing you've already made you purchase. I liked the Broan RM603004 which has a 1200cfm internal fan option or external fan options.
patrickbitton
Original Author
16 years ago
Actually, I ordered the Jenn-Air 5 weeks ago and it was back ordered. I am finally getting it this Thursday and hopefully I should install it by the end of the week.

Also, one major problem I was faced with was that my kitchen did not have ANY ventilation ducts installed. So, I got a tin smith to make a roof cap for $65.00. I called many companies in Canada and since it is not something that is in demand, they were charging sky high prices.
The Jenn-air required 8" duct work but Wolf said that I need 10". The tin smith said that 8" would be just fine.

Oh...a word of advise...DO NOT TRY TO BURN-IN THE WOLF STOVE WITHOUT A RANGE HOOD! Your smoke alarm will go off.
It happened to me. ;) Live and learn.

I will post feedback on the Jenn-Air range hood when I have it installed.

Thanks,

Patrick
dottieq
16 years ago
I don't think your salesman was lying to you. With these Pro ranges you need a more powerful hood. I have the Vent-a-Hood also and I'm very pleased with it. I hate noisy fans and never used the down-draft when I had an electric range. Gas is different, particularly with a pro-range. The Vent-a-Hood is pretty quiet.
patrickbitton
Original Author
16 years ago
I finally got my Jenn-Air range hood today. First off, I don't think Jenn-Air manufactures these range hoods. The box doesn't even say Jenn-Air on it.

Anyway, I opened the box and found this HUGE, massive stainless steal box with 2 MASSIVE motors. Before installing it, I wanted to feel and hear the power of these babies. When I plugged it into an extension cord, the unit was set to ON. I thought, "That can't be full power, it's not that loud!" Turns out it was on full blast. And when I say FULL BLAST, that is what was coming out of the vent. The fact that it has 6 speed setting, 3 halogen bulbs, 2 independant warming lamps and I paid $1599.00CDN. I think it was a great purchase.
I am very happy with it and so is my wife. Now I can't wait to get my duct work done so I can start using my Wolf and Jenn-Air range hood.

I looked at Vent-A-Hood, but they are VERY expensive in Canada.

Thanks for everyones help and Moo, I hope this helps you with your decision on buying this unit.

Cheers,

Patrick Bitton
ganks
16 years ago
I have the Monogram 48" hood and love it. It pulls 1200 CFM and requires a 10" duct.
patrickbitton
Original Author
16 years ago
Hey Everyone,

I am extremely happy with my range hood but there is one slight(or maybe major) problem. When I switch on the range hood, a few minutes later I smell the burnt wood from my fire place. I beleive that my rangehood is sucking all the air in my house and I don't have enough make up air.
Is it possible to buy a make up air unit? Or do I have to McGyverize a fan to bring in air while the fan is on?

Thanks,

Patrick
perel
16 years ago
The simplest option is to open a window when you turn the hood on high..
HeyPearly
16 years ago
VENT-A HOOD all the way. Love mine, not a single complaint. Do the research, go Vent a hood!
bell_builder
12 years ago
Hi Heypearly
It's been a few years. Do you still love your vent-a-hood. If so ,why? If not, why not? THANKS!

Which range hood to buy

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