My Wolf fan (purchased at the end of 2007) was made for Wolf by Broan according to Wolf. A few other Wolf fans were also made by Broan as of 2007. I cannot assert anything with respect to other Wolf fans or more modern Wolf fans. Contact Wolf for fan curves for their fans you might be interested in and compare them to Broan fan curves published on their web site. Basically what one buys when buying a hood and fan from Wolf is the comfort of knowing that compatibility has been established and no electrical hacking is going to be necessary to make a doit yourself scheme function. Wolf could impose additional reliability requirements on Broan, for example, but may not need to; a NuTone upblast roof fan I have used for my kitchen since the '70s is still fully functional today. So at least at one time the NuTone branch of Broan could build reliable devices. Using a circuit architecture that I am pretty sure GE published in the late 1960's or early 1970's, it is possible to control the amount of power available on a line by excising part of the sinusoidal voltage available. (The circuit actually allows part of the sinusoid.) While I can address the transfer functions and other details of triacs and diacs (once I recheck old literature), the circuitry to support them is pretty simple. This information is probably on line. These same circuits are used on lighting controls. The main difference between motor controls and similar lighting controls is that motor controls click on to full power, with rotation to lower power, and lighting controls do the opposite. More complex lighting controls also exist, such as zero-crossing switching, and have advantages in reduced electrical noise. These schemes could also be used for motor control, but are not in the case of my hood. By continuous I mean the the control rotates smoothly between full power to perhaps 10% power (have not measured this) over about 270-degrees of rotation. Ignoring quantum mechanics and grain boundaries, the resolution of the rotary potentiometer that is used for control is effectively infinite between those limits. The phase angle that turns on power each half cycle is adjusted by the control angle to fall between perhaps 5-degrees (out of 180) to perhaps 160 degrees. Turning on even later in the phase cycle would send power to the motor at too low a level for it to keep running. Is "infinite" a brand name? Induction motors of the type used by many fans can ususally be controlled over a reasonable range by phase angle control. They can also be controlled by variable frequency control, but this will be more limited as they are typically permanent capacitor split phase and designed for a single frequency. The Wolf hood control is mounted in the hood and is wired to the motor on the roof. I have seen its guts and that is why I know it is diac-triac type. Other control locations are possible, including wall controls. In that case a hood that does not contain a fan control would be appropriate. kas

OOhh I really like that cabinet style and color. I'm supposed to be looking at something else, aren't I? O yeah, the hood. It really looks like a lot of space to me. I wouldn't worry about it at all (unless it just happens to be at an eye-poking height for someone). If you're doing gas, it'll be a tiny bit less because the burner grates usually bring it up a little over where an electric would be but even so I think it's a very generous-looking gap. If anything, I think it might end up looking BETTER lower. I really really think you're good here, unless you had a 30" tall backsplash mural or something! By the way, I really like your cabinets. Are you going without handles on them?

marthavila: sounds like a good decision based on good advice. All the cfm junkies on GW are nodding their heads. Both changes will reduce noise: the duct upsizing reduces the airflow turbulence, and as you note, the larger blower may run at a lower speed with same cfm output as a smaller unit running harder. The latter is particularly true if you do have a continuously variable fan speed control so you can "fine tune" the blower to what you're cooking. I have a somewhat different take than trailrunner however, on the issue of airflow speed and grease handling. In general, the concept of a well-designed hood is to trap the grease before it enters the ductwork. Once it's in the ductwork, all is pretty well lost, especially if the duct run is at all long. Much of the grease will end up on the duct walls, never to be removed again. As a result, different hoods use different systems to trap grease. There is the Ventahood "squirrel cage" system, which uses a centrifugal fan that theoretically flings the grease particles into the fan housing, where it is trapped, while the air continues up into the ductwork. There is the mesh filter system, which is similar to what is used in most (barely useful) recirculating hoods and UC MW/hood units. The air flows through a metal mesh that is supposed to trap the grease particles. Then there are the baffle systems. These use a system of alternating U-shaped baffles that force the air to make two abrupt 180 degree turns before heading out the duct. At each turn, the grease particles that fail to negotiate the tight turn are trapped by the baffles (and shameless bias--the polished stainless steel baffles on our new MA hood are gorgeous! Almost too pretty to hide under a hood). High airflow speeds likely do not increase grease trapping efficiency: I could imagine that overly high airflow might even facilitate more grease making it past whatever filter system is being used. The reason that high cfm are desirable is not so much to whisk grease out the ductwork, which is unlikely, but to exhaust as much of the fumes/smoke/odor/grease from the temporary confinement in the body of the hood before it can spill back out of the hood into the kitchen. The combination of large capture area, a deep hood, and a high cfm blower should give maximum f/s/o/g evacuation. But totally concur with trailrunner's advice about starting the hood early and letting it run afterwards. Definitely will help.

Angie, found your comment interesting. I have a bottle green Blue Star 30 RNB. Love the range, but like Tina have often thought may-be I should have gotten black or brown-black rather than green. I do like the green with the wood, and it restates the green used throughout our house, but still I sometimes think I should have gone with something more neutral, and that black or stainless would have been more "authentic" looking as we have a period looking kitchen. Do not want to hijack Tina's thread -- may-be we should do a thread on color range -yes or no?