tanem: it's a fair question. Thanks, sjeff and stephanie for vouching for me. I am a big fan of MA--but also of other small dedicated hood companies. It is based on my personal experiences--I only began making these observations after buying my MA hood (at full price!), having already owned a VAH hood. I do feel strongly about this subject, but it's mostly because I feel I can speak to a "minority" opinion that otherwise might get drowned out by the VAH crowd. Realize that VAH sells hugely more hoods than MA, Prestige, Independent, Metallo Arts, etc. Therefore, on a forum like this, questions about "what hood should I buy" tend to be flooded with VAH owners. They are happy with their hoods, which is great, but most of them can only speak from their experience with their one VAH hood, or at most, with their VAH hood compared with their prior OTR MW or downdraft unit. Thus, the VAH looks good to them in comparison. I had the same reaction going from my lousy downdraft jenn air, to our VAH. What I can speak to, that many others cannot, is how the VAH compares to a custom product like the MA hood. Not only speaking from experience, I've even tried (perhaps amateurishly) to quantify my opinion by measuring sound levels generated by my two hoods. That is one of the few posts I know of that attempts to do more than just offer blind opinion. I will say it again, I do not have any financial stake in MA, receive no special consideration (and let me tell you, after our kitchen reno, I am NOT going to be in the market for many years to come). What I do hope is that small American companies, who still take pride in their products, will continue to compete successfully with the big corporate guys. And, I will state it again as clearly as I can: it's not just Modern-Aire! If you are looking for a hood, you really owe it to yourself to check out Prestige, Independence, and Metallo Arts too. And I am confident that there are other companies out there as well. And, finally, I would never claim that someone who in the end chooses a VAH, or a Broan, or a Viking, etc etc made a bad choice--hey, I own one! So, tanem, please take what I say with many grains of salt, but know that I'm not shilling or spamming. Thanks.

Here's our experience with a 42" VAH ARS hood. It sits 24" above a 36" induction cooktop. Our first experience with a recirculating hood. Its pretty, its well made, its basically useless. Our condo is 94" across with the kitchen at the far end. If I start cooking 2 slices of bacon, within minutes the smell has travelled down a hall, through a door and down another hall into a guest bedroom 94 feet away from the cooktop. The unmistakable smell of bacon permeates the air. We've been using it for about a month now. Suction is fine. Anything we cook, can be readily smelled. Save you money and buy cheap. All this does is sweep the cooktop, carry it up the duct and recirculate it into the room. Unfortunately, we now crack our windows at each end to clear the air while cooking. Unfortunate as the prevailing breeze is into the kitchen and out the far end of the condo. But its better than nothing which is how we feel about the VAH ARS hood.

One thing to be aware of is that it's OK to "step up" from a smaller orifice on the hood to a bigger duct, but not OK the other way around. For example, it's OK to go from a 6" hood orifice to a 7" or 8" duct, but not OK to go from an 8" hood orifice to a 6" duct. The routing of your ducting sounds very good - the run is short and two 60 degree turns is not bad (60 degree turns are much better than 90 degree turns, so you can give a high five to whoever did that for you). The most common duct size is 6" and most 600cfm hoods are configured with 6" orifices. This is the most common configuration and you'll have the most options in this configuration. So if you have a 6" duct, then a 600cfm hood with a 6" orifice is a good choice for you. 7" ducting is also common. Hoods with 7" orifices are relatively rare, but you can mate a 6" hood orifice with a 7" duct. So if you have a 7" duct you'll probably end up getting a hood with a 6" orifice and "step up" to 7" at the wall, which is a good arrangement. 7" duct probably isn't big enough to get you higher than 600cfm though. There are some hoods with 6" orifices that claim up to 900cfm, and this would probably work OK with a 7" duct, but I don't think it makes sense to use a 900cfm hood with a 6" duct. 8" ducting also available, and most hoods in the 900cfm range are configured with 8" orifices. So if you have an 8" duct then you could go this route. I think it's overkill though. 1200cfm is enormous and typically requires a 10"+ duct. I can't imagine using a 1200cfm hood for anything less than a 48"+ hood against a wall or perhaps a 36"+ hood over an island (extracting exhaust over an island is inherently more difficult), but even then I'd question the need to draw so much air. Another issue with oversized exhaust hoods is that they can create pressure imbalances in your home than can cause bad problems - see link. Here is a link that might be useful: Makeup Air

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.