Funny I'm in exactly the same boat as you.
I'm considering the 36" Culinarian but with 4 burners + a grill. I just talked to Capital Cooking this morning and they said a 36" vent hood is fine but get at least a 1200 CFM blower.

I'm considering a Broan E64E36SS with an external blower. It looked like a good value that looks decent and meets the needs of that cooktop. I refuse to spend $$$ just to get a big name hood. I'd be curious if others have this or similar vent hoods.

BTW: since this is a new build, you will need to think about Make-Up Air (MUA). You can work with the HVAC guys (and the vent guys) to see how to implement this.

Your Dallas distributor is talking rubbish, buy the blower direct from abbaka's website then pick which ever liner you want.

Thanks for the feedback;
Roboman-I just started looking at the Broan today; I haven't decided what I think about them yet, and I would love to hear first hand experience!

Weedmeister-I have discussed MUA with my HVAC guy, and I do believe that we have some fresh air intakes in the house, mainly because we did sprayfoam insulation.

Trevor-I tried to buy the blower on the website last month, but when I put in my zip code, it directed me to the distributor list. I'm not sure if I did something wrong. I thought maybe it just had a built in feature that only allowed purchases online if you lived in an area that didn't have a distributor. I think I'll try it again tomorrow.

I came across a decently priced Modernaire blower today in the Houston area (where I live). Does anyone have an opinion about their external blowers? I have seen a lot here about the hoods themselves, but I got the feeling that it's because they make such beautiful custom designs.

Try the link below

Here is a link that might be useful: Abbaka remote blower

Thanks, Trevor. I'm feeling less overwhelmed and ready to tackle this purchase!

You can do this :)

If I'm using the abbaka hyex 1.0 on the roof, and there are several elbows between the interior and the exterior, would it still be worth investing in the fantech silencer?

If the answer is yes, can it be installed directly above the liner itself? I have a 10' ceiling, so 37" for lower cabinet and 30" space between cooktop and vent hood leaves 52" for the liner and chimney in the wood cabinet. I was thinking that the silencer could go between the liner and the ceiling if that's a good place for it.

The hyex is the blower? I think it's possible the silencer may not be so necessary ... I also think people who know about this may tell you that it is!

Here's my experience. I just bought a 42" x 27" undercabinet hood with no blower and routed the 10" pipe up to the attic. It bent there at about, um, 80-degrees and the HVAC guy put the silencer in at that point and then added the fan. It was loud.

So instead he added some more duct parallel with the ceiling which pulled the silencer further from the hood itself, if you follow. It got quiet.

My HVAC guy, who is admittedly a nut, seemed to be of the opinion that the biggest reason for the improvement was simply the increased distance from the hood. I also talked him into making that extra duct run parallel to the ceiling - i.e. at a shallower angle than right-angling it straight away after it hit the attic; that may also have helped (he was a little reluctant because it was extra work but he's a really good guy and wanted very much to do a good job so when I turned around he'd done as I suggested: yeah!).

So anyway, that's what this guy said - he's of the opinion that the silencer was "a waste of money" and the proximity-parameter was of biggest importance.

I talked extensively with this amazingly nice guy at Tradewind and I'm pretty sure he would not agree; he'd credit the silencer more.

If you have time and patience, I'd say you could try it without and if it's a problem, then get the silencer and pop it in.

Just so you know, that silencer is *massive* - it's more like a jet engine than the blower itself.

Good luck!

BTW, I hope you don't have fussy neighbors too close. I opted not to use an outside blower because I was concerned with the noise it would impose on nearby neighbors; others have noted this problem with that blower I think. If you're miles from the next elk, it may not matter. If you have cranky neighbors 20 feet away, well...it seemed a problem worth preempting.

I have roboman's Broan hood, but with an inline blower (1100 CFM). I love our hood. It's one of the best parts of our new kitchen. Gives great ventilation, esp when stirfrying Chinese food. Uses baffles instead of mesh filters. Although there is some debate about this, I think that baffles filter better and are much easier to clean. I put them in the dishwasher every other week and use the pots & pans heavy clean cycle. The need for make up air has also been debated on this forum, but we did go ahead and installed a MUA vent.

EurekaChef- How loud is the vest? I might get an external blower.

I appreciate all the feedback!

We have 1 1/2 acres, so the neighbors won't mind the hood, but it sits on the roof fairly close to a sitting porch. I want something quiet. I did end up getting the fan tech silencer. We will see if it helps inside or not, but I figured it couldn't hurt!

I just purchased the Abbaka Hyex 1.0 from Dvorson's. Thanks for the tip, Trevor! I think it's the quietest blower I'm going to find... I ended up calling them to complete my online order, and Josh in the store was lovely and helped me get an accurate shipping amount for my area. They were great to work with so far. Hopefully delivery goes as smoothly as the ordering process!

Now, I'm hunting for the right deal on a liner for my wood cabinet. I sure hope I find it soon, or I'm going to delay my house progress!

Thanks to all...

TonySak,

Sorry. I don't check this forum everyday. In answer to your question, it's hard for me to say how loud it is because my only other comparisons have been low flow OTR hoods. But it's certainly not any louder than those.

Noise an in-line silencer can reduce:
o blower blade tip turbulence
o duct turbulence past the silencer

Noise an in-line silencer probably won't reduce:
o motor rumble due to imbalance and/or induced roof resonances

Noises an in-line silencer can't reduce:
o duct turbulence on the hood side
o turbulence in hood transitions
o hood filter turbulence noise

Ideally, the silencer will remove the blower noise from the user's perception and allow the filter turbulence noise to dominate.

kas