Rip that bad boy out! Donate it. Get a nice, quiet hood that you'll use. You'll love it

Is it something you could replace now? If it was something I used daily that bugged me, I would probably eat the cost of a new one I liked rather than put up with it annoying me everyday.

I would love to but I wasn't sure how easy it would be and if a new one would have a different footprint... While I'm at it, I should rip out my built in microwave (which I don't hate, I rather like) and put in a microwave drawer that I was too scared to get in the first place. The bending over to look in the microwave is a little annoying...not awful, but a little annoying!

On higher speeds, powerful hoods are loud. You're moving a lot of air through a relatively small opening. Some noise is inevitable and to a degree, you just need to adjust your expectations when you're coming from an older, less powerful hood. Hoods are very simple and there aren't that many design aspects that can be tweaked to reduce noise levels, compared with other appliances.

There are things you can do though. What CFM, and what speeds do you usually use it at? The mid to lower ones should be fine for most cooking. If you mount the blower externally and add an inline silencer, that should help some with the noise, as that takes the turbulence around the blades and moves it away from the area right above your stove.

All I'm saying is, I'd hate to see you spend a lot of money on something that doesn't fix the problem. Unless you change something about the design of your overall ventilation system, I wouldn't expect simply replacing it with something similar from another brand to make much of a difference.

The hood is less than two years old, so not really too old. I have a 36" cooktop (not gas). It is the strongest one I could get without having to worry about makeup air. Honestly I don't need anything stronger. I have no knowledge of an inline silencer....I will definitely look into that. As to your other suggestion about mounting the blower externally, I wasn't aware there was a choice of where to mount it. Darn it! Is it too late, or is that something I could change now?

Lcskaisgir - me too! I didn't realize the blower could be mounted externally either. DH had that conversation with the GC. I'm not blaming DH as I didn't realize that the blower noise would annoy me as much as it does.

I also have a hood (model: UP27M30SB) by the same brand, internal blower as the exterior exhaust is just less than 2 feet from my hood and so it won't make a big difference in noise. I did get their "quietest" iQ blower already and with full power it is noisy. But not worse compared to my other friends powerful and reliable Chinese range hoods. My hood blower speed is variable, not fix setting, so I can adjust the speed depending on what I am cooking. Can yours do that? I cannot imagine I will use full power all the time (still unpacking, so I haven't really use it yet). I am not impress with the the noise level at all but it meets my needs. I chose this over half the cost of Chinese range hood for 2 reasons, 1) I don't like the "fan" looking intake of those hoods, I want baffle filters! 2) I like the look of this hood. I didn't considered Wolf hood due to cost as I went higher end on my other appliances and the hood is the area to "give".