Did you check out Broan online? My neighbor has one and does not have halogen lights, but maybe they have changed. They do get hot, that's for sure.

I think Best by Broanand Vent a ahood both offer flourescent light options on at least some of their hoods. You might find some with incandescent, but those will also get hot. Mine dont' have a dimmer, but I would think that dimming halogens might make them less hot.

Most halogens-- not all, but most-- have standard screw in bases, so can be replaced with anything you want.

thanks, all.

david, took your advice and visited broan...they do have a few halogenless models. thanks!

and lascatx, i'm checking ventahood also. i didn't find "best" by broan. could you elaborate?

oruboris, really? the only halogen lights i've ever seen have sort of a plug in type thing. but then again, I haven't seen all that many halogens!

Best by Broan is a line made by Broan. They seem to be a higher end vent while there are some builder grade under the best name also. I found it a bit confusing and can't help you on that.

Anyway, I've put a link to the website to help you. You can download a catalog from there, and if it like the one I had, near the end there would be a chart that has a comparison of the features and might help you find the kind of lighting you are looking for.

I got the first one listed under the pro style hoods (K260A with an EB12 blower -- external 1200 cfm). I couldn't find the exact hood we wanted, so we got this one and decided not having multiple light settings was okay. We wanted the light for seeing our cooking better -- not really for mood lighting. It has been fine in that regard and we don't miss the lower setting. I also don't find that they get too hot for me. I do sometimes feel them as warm, but not hot. We mounted it 36" above the counter height, so that may help -- they aren't right in our face. I have a tall family, and that was one of the things that we liked about this hood -- we could mount it higher and not bang our heads on it.

Good luck. Hoods are one of the tougher appliances to shop for -- you can't see that many of them and you can see and hear very few in operation. I bought mine in realiance on the appliance salesman at the store where I bought the rest of my appliances who had been to shows and factories and seen and heard them. I hadn't talked to him about any other appliances, but my cabinet lady had me talk to him when I had some questions about the Ventahood after reading here.

Can I tell you it's the perfect hood? Not really. Like I said, I'd have liked the variable blower and dimmable lights. I like the classic styling of this one, but I liked a lot of others too. And in an ideal world, I'd have had the room to install a silencer on the duct. LOL But, it looks good, works very well and does so much more and more quietly than the downdraft we had in the island before that we are quite happy. We've been known to leave it running and forget it for a while. That would never have happened with any other vent I've owned or used.

Hope that helps.

We never run the halogen lights on our Vent-A-Hood on high, and even on low the original bulbs were pretty warm. I substituted the lowest wattage bulbs of the same configuration at our local hardware store. They're plenty bright and not too warm on low. (I took one of the bulbs out but I can't read the wattage.)

I forgot the link, adn then my computer froze up when I tried to come back and post it. I'll try again here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Best by Broan