It also looks as if this hood is meant to have the top of the hood mounted at about 30, not the bottom, with the canopy at about 24" above the cooktop, which would put it at 62" above the floor. Why not get a taller cabinet? maybe you can split the cost with the KD since s/he also designed for a hood that was taller, not the one you selected.

ours is really high. my dh wanted it that way. he's over 6' and didn't want to constantly bash his head. I'm really short and I can reach everything just fine. I don't think it looks ridiculous.

But, you don't usually bash your head when it is lower than your head, only when it is forehead height. You may be more likely to hit your head on one that its six feet if you are 6'2 because it is above eye level, than one that is lower and in front of you.

I always thought a vent should be more than 30" above the burner tops. How high do you think yours should be? Ours is 29" and I want it raised. The installers put it in where it is because they did not realize my stove was too low. When we raised the stove, the vent became too low.
I am curious as to how high yours should be ideally. I thought one worked with how high off the burner tops and not how high off the floor. 34" sounded reasonable to me. Perhaps since ours is a large style island hood, there may be a difference.

yeah, I thought we were on the high range but not way over or anything like that. Also, it was my dh's preference and he felt strongly about it, since I got to make a lot of the other choices and he's the cook, it's high. :o)

I think this was the hood we replaced our old one with when it died. Yes, like you I thought it stuck out very far. But we eventually got used to the look. Understandable, afterall we were used to looking at the old hood for 10 years. It's bound to take a little time to get used to the new one. You may want to consider posting pics to see what others think about the height and depth who aren't used to seeing your kitchen everyday.

I've included a link to the Broan Hood owner's manual for that model that explains how to turn off the night light or "ambient light sensor" as they call it. See page 3.

I hope the GC can arrange an easy fix for you! Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Broan Hood Manual

Vent hoods are mounted at various heights depending upon the power of the hood and the cooktop fuel.

Some hoods are designed to be mounted as low as 18" over the cooktop (electric cooktops) which puts the bottom of the hood even with the bottom of a typical cabinet line; or 24" over the cooktop (gas cooktops). Capture will not be good if it is mounted too high, and not designed for it

Larger or more powerful hoods such as island hoods can be 30" above or higher. There is now a hood that can be mounted 48"-60" over the cooktop, which is flat in the soffit or in the ceiling. To compensate for the distance it is also 54" wide.

Like palimpsest said, the installation instructions say that the top of the hood should be 24-30 inches above the cooking surface. So, yes, yours is installed way too high. In fact it is installed so high that it will probably not function the way it is supposed to. I think you'll want to change it. Changing out the cabinets above it is a good idea.

Rangecraft recommends hood heights up to 36" from the range top, as I recall. This might depend on how far out the hood extends over the top of your range -- ours is recessed only a couple of inches from the front of our range, and if it had been hung at 30" we would be driven crazy by it, and we are about 5'8" tall in this household. The hood functions perfectly at 36" from the range top. And I guess that is the question: is your hood functioning as it should? If you are comfortable operating the controls and don't feel as though the thing is looming too close to your head or in your line of vision, I woudn't worry about it. Is it really hard to reach the controls? Maybe there's something I'm missing about the Broan hood.
lynn

What you're missing is that the specs say it recommended that the TOP of this hood be mounted at 30" leaving the bottom at around 23" above the cooking surface.

This hood moves 100 CFM on low speed and up to 450 on power boost. Rangecraft's low speed is 6x on average what the low speed of this hood is, and high speed is about 3x. That's why your Rangecraft works at that height and this one probably won't. It's fine to have a hood that high *if that's where its meant to be.

Its kind of useless to give advice based upon experience with a product thats completely different, don't you think?

I don't know if this means anything to you or not, but the standard for hood height in the restaurant industry is 6'6" from the finished floor, or ~42" above the rangetop. I have a 60"x36" commercial hood above my 48" Bluestar at this height, and it looks right to me.

Hi,palimpsest, you are absolutely right, and I apologize -- was not my intention to be kind of useless, though

lynn

Palimpsest- Sending you an email as well, but I'd love to know if you could share the brand/model of the hood that's designed to be mounted so high. My current hood is 58" above the range top. Im replacing it, and I *really* don't want to lower it.

Thanks!!