I too, have been doing a lot of research looking for an island range hood. I have finally decided on Vent a Hood because of the 'magic lung'. I like that it doesn't have mesh or baffle filters so it is very easy to keep clean and do an effective job. You might like the contemporary Island model IZTH. Because it has the magic lung it is very quiet even when jacked up to it's highest setting.

I actually had the appliance salesman turn all the fans on so I could listen to them. Then he took each one apart so I could determine the ease or difficulty of each type. Vent a Hood won hands down!!

Here is a link that might be useful: vent a hood range hoods

11b1630 - thanks for the suggestion. I'll check into it.

To compare styles, one can use AJ Madison's web site to review the appearance of a large scope of candidate hoods, along with the sites of such companies as Wolf, ModernAire, Broan, etc. This effort may lead to a somewhat reduced set of candidates that one could then search this site for for comments about them. The Garden Web has a search engine of some value, or more exhaustive searching can be performed using Google Advanced Search and specifying the site address: ths.gardenweb.com.

My hood is a Wolf Pro Island Hood used over a 36-inch induction cooktop and a Cooktek wok induction unit.

kas

Thanks Kas. I'd love to have a remote blower but it seems the units that will take one are very robust looking - like the pro hoods. My island is only 30" wide and it feels like a pro hood would overpower the space. Do you think one could buy a non pro hood, gut the interior and connect a roof blower to it?

A 30" wide island is NOT wide enough for a safe cooking station! It's a code violation actually, in most municipalities. You need a minimum of 9" behind a cooktop for safety, and 15" is much better. And that is if you have no seating.

You need to post your layout in order to find an alternative location. Only 10% of kitchen time is spent actually cooking anyway, so you would benefit greatly if you had an island that was ore dedicated to prep, which is 70% of the time spent in the kitchen. Your venting costs will go down, and venting efficiency will go up with a wall cooking station.

GreenDesigns - the island is actually 32" wide and the cook top is 20" deep, so if the cook top is 2" back from the front of the counter, I'll still have 10" behind it. There will be no seating on the back side of the island. Thanks for your concern.

Since fans (blowers) have to be removable for repair, I would expect every hood with an internal blower to have means of fan removal. I think it unlikely that such removal would interfere in any way with the mounting of the baffles / filters. One hopes it doesn't interfere with the operation of the damper.

You should be able to connect a roof blower to it whether the internal fan is removed or not, although running both would require two controls. The control designed to go with the internal fan might or might not be compatible with the roof blower, and the hood might or might not be compatible with replacing the original control with one that was appropriate for the roof blower. At worst, the roof blower control would have to be mounted on a nearby wall.

kas

Thanks Kas. My husband was sure that we could hook up the remote blower as either a booster or primary fan until someone told him the two fans would counteract each other in some way. Many of the interior fans are functional enough but we are seeking the quietest possible so like the idea of the remote. A separate set of controls would not be a problem - we could even use a remote one. Perhaps we should explore this further. We actually have an existing very old but still functional blower on the roof. As long as we wouldn't burn out the interior fan by running them in tandem, we could give it a try.
Do you think that there is a functional reason why none of the sleeker, "prettier" hood fans never have remote blower possibilities? I am particularly thinking of the glass ones.

Generally, (or maybe I should write hopefully), fans for hoods have monotonic fan curves so that the fan cannot get into a hunting mode where its speed oscillates. I think two such fans in series would also not hunt, but it is always a possibility given that with two controls each could be run at a different point on its fan's fan curve and that there is a lag between air flow changes at one fan before that flow gets to another.

In any case, what I meant above was that the roof fan could be installed and operated with the hood fan turned off. Removal of the hood fan, or its use as a booster, would be something that one determined second. Removal would reduce noise, even if the roof fan were sized to equal the flow possible from running both together. Non-removal but not operated would cause some undesirable flow restriction.

I don't see a mechanism for burn-out from series fans so long as they don't hunt.

As always, the larger the roof fan, the lower the blade tip turbulence and noise when run at a speed that has the same flow rate as a smaller fan run at maximum.

I don't want to try to divine the thought processes of the marketing departments of stylish hood manufacturers. But I imagine that they don't believe their customer base has sufficient interest in that feature.

kas

Thanks Kas for your thoughtful reply. If we go for it, I'll let you know the results.

Yes, there are options for sleek designer range hoods with remote blowers.

Many manufacturers of range hoods, especially European brands such as Miele, Gaggenau, Futuro Futuro, Faber, etc., locate the blower motor inside the vertical chimney, not inside the hood body. This gives them the freedom to make the hood body thinner and experiment with different shapes, without worrying about having the space to accommodate the blower.

In addition, with a separate blower placement like this, you can often remove the blower from the hood & install it in a remote location. This can be done with either a manufacturer's kit/adapter (see link below for example), or you can build your own enclosure. If you build your own, you would have to extend the wiring, which connects the blower to the other electronics, but any electrician should be able to take care of this.

I have seen plenty of sleek designer range hoods with remote blowers, my favorite is Futuro Futuro due to easy modular installation, but there are many other options available. So don't worry, you're not going to be stuck with a box-style industrial-looking hood if you want a remote blower.

Here is a link that might be useful: Futuro Futuro Remote Blower Kit

"[B]ox-style industrial-looking hood[s]" provide aperture area and volume that are needed to ensure effective and immediate capture and containment of cooking effluent while using air flows with tolerable noise levels.

kas

robert_sett - sorry, somehow I missed your reply from many weeks ago. I am very interested in the futuro-futuro hoods. The one called 'Acquilina glass island' is the perfect shape and the right dimensions for my kitchen and it has the remote blower option. My only concern is the 6" vent. Do you think one could transition from the 6" vent to an 8" vent in the attic above the cook top? Would this improve the draw or make no difference. In my case, the vent would then have to make a 30-45 degree turn to connect up to the existing exit to the great outdoors. The inline blower could be situated anywhere in the attic between these two points.
Carol