Struggling to find a quiet range hood to 'build in'
willis13
14 years ago
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Comments (12)
David
14 years agoRelated Discussions
Is there a reasonably priced range hood that's somewhat quiet?
Comments (3)for what it's worth... In the Twin Cities, I was able to look at the Broan Allure models mounted right next to a Vent-a-Hood in the Stellian showroom. I can't recall what the VAH model was, but it was comparable in price to the Allure III, about $350. My cooking is done on a 30 inch regular electric range. Standard cooking; some broiling but fish is usually done on outside barbecue. For our family, the sound of the vent is of much more significance than the airhandling capacity--background sound prevents conversation or hearing of other things when you're slightly deaf. Loud sound is unacceptable to us and would prevent us from using the hood altogether. The Broan Allure III, which I can purchase at Stellian for a little over $300, has a very low setting which is barely audible to me, remember I'm somewhat deaf. The Vent-A-Hood was also fairly low in sound, but my (eccentric) ears said that the Allure III was quieter on low and on pretty low, and those are the modes I will be using much of the time. The Allure III on high and on ultraboost mode is med. loud and very loud and their cfm movement will suffice for occasional short time use for big smoke/stink I think. Salesperson, an old hand type, says he prefers the V-A-H but not because of sound issues. He likes the mechanical stuff with the VentAHood because it collects grease and you wash it out afterward and he says the air collecting area is better size. The Broan has a dishwasher washable grease filter and will be fine for my purposes. I have steam issues more than fat. My Broan from the 1970s still works but it's too noisy for my old ears. I generally run it on lowest setting now, unless I'm blanching veg, etc in summer. I should have bought a replacement years ago, but at least now the quietness technology is improved. As for over-the-range microwave hoods, I don't like them. Short people can't reach them and the air handling is not as good or as quiet as a dedicated unit can offer. Also, as your kids grow up, you will be saying "excuse me" all the time as two people try to do different things in the same space. If the microwave goes belly up, your vent hood goes as well. How many microwaves have you already owned in the last few years? Broan vent connections seem to be problematical; plan to buy some specialized vent ducting. In our case, we think we can recycle the old vent connection....See Moresuper-quiet 600+ cfm range hood for condo - mission impossible??
Comments (81)Rereading this thread in its entirety -- a trip down memory lane -- reminded me of some web sites with filters on their search function such that when one clicks on enough constraints there are no candidates left to purchase. feisty68's constraints have a similar effect. Thinking that maybe there is some way out of the box, two concepts come to mind to bring up: (a) One can choose a hood with internal blowers (as seemingly required) that has more specified flow than the external duct can handle. In this case, at full power the flow will be low, (or possibly zero, depending on the fan curve shape), but when run at part power to yield an appropriate flow rate for the duct, there should be reasonable flow. Whether this is adequate flow would require some analysis. At partial power the blade tip speed will be less and lower noise should result. For example, a VaH hood with two motor squirrel cage fan assemblies run at part power would likely still expel grease onto their housings as intended. Choked flow, however, may be sooner (CFM-wise) than a similar over-sized conventional blower / baffle system due to the nature of a squirrel-cage blower (as implied by VaH CFM vs. pressure loss data). I wouldn't want to guess which approach was louder at the power setting that was at the point of diminishing returns, CFM-wise. Related to this category is using an inline axial blower designed for higher pressure loss at the desired actual flow rate. Fantech might help here. Such blowers may be noisier, so an in-line silencer on the hood side of the blower might be essential. There are screaming-mimi aerospace fans that can push 1600 CFM through a six-inch duct. (b) The other concept is a hybrid exterior/recirculating hood scheme. I think both Best and VaH have examples of recirculating hoods. In this concept, if the actual systems are so configurable, the path to the filter pack would be split with one branch going outside. When the pressure losses of the exterior duct path rose high enough as blower power increased during heavy cooking, additional flow would be through the filter pack and back into the room. Some recirculating hood users here have commented on effectiveness and noise and their threads might be discovered and checked for relevance. Obviously, the simpler approach here is recirculating without engaging the external ducting. In that case, a separate soffit blower, soffit face register scheme could be used for further kitchen overall ventilation, helpful (slowly) when the oven is opened. kas...See MoreQuiet range hoods
Comments (7)What is your budget? If you can afford a Kobe, that would probably far outdo the eBay specials. The are probably around $600-700 -- VentingDirect.com has a 10% off Kobe special right now that might be worth looking at. (I have not done business with VentingDirect, so check them yourself before ordering. They appear to me to be reasonable.) At a less-expensive level, something like the Zephyr Hurricane or Cyclone hoods might be worth looking at. They are around $350-$450. Less expensive than that might be the AirKing Vision (~$300) or the Kenmore 52340 ($225) that Consumer Reports found to work reasonably well. I haven't seen either of those pieces or makes. As you go down in price, not only do you generally lose sucking power, but also "capture area" -- the amount that the hood covers. You basically can't suck it out if you can't catch it first and it just rises past your hood. Mid-line hoods are generally 22" deep, with better hoods running 24" or 27" deep. While a blower sounds like an inexpensive approach, you'll need something to extract the grease so that it doesn't gum up the vent and potentially catch fire (or just stink). By the time you get done with that, wiring, speed control, light sockets, sheet metal, and all, I think you'd probably be better off with a stock hood. Unfortunately, low noise, decent flow rates, and low cost all work against each other. While I haven't looked much below $500 or so, there is a huge difference in how annoyingly loud a $500 hood is compared to a $750 hood. The "low" level is nice, but the reality of it for many is that if you want reasonable smoke/grease removal, you'll have it on high, especially with any of the mass-market hoods. If you generally only use a couple burners (like most people that I know), a 600-ish CFM hood should be fine for you. I wouldn't go much below 400 CFM, if your budget can afford it. Definitely run an 8" duct if you can. You may need a "transition" or "reducer" to fit the hood, but the larger duct may give you both better flow rates (less drag for the hood blower to work against) and lower noise (noise comes from air turbulence in the duct, which is generally less with a larger duct). In my opinion, CFM and noise level (dB or sones) are a lot like home or car stereo Watts were a decade or so ago -- with no regulations on how it was measured, it was little more than a number on the box for the less-expensive brands, where they claimed "100+100 Watts" in a jungle blaster, that was not even close to as loud (or even listenable) as a "20 Watt" unit from a high-end manufacturer. Within the same manufacturer, they probably give some relative comparison, but I wouldn't compare between manufacturers in the mass-market segment....See MoreRange Hood Help - in-line fantech but which hood?
Comments (21)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...See Morelauriec
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David