I have been trying to understand this whole hood business with little success. When buying an insert, is there anything else that has to be bought if making a shroud other than the things the fabricator makes? Am I safe to assume the insert goes in; and it includes motor, wiring, lights if specified on insert model, and any trim pieces for insert? Basically, once the insert is in the shroud, the electrician wires in the fabricated hood.?

We did this. It was kind of by accident. We ordered a BlueStar hood, but the top chimney piece was just too tall for our ceiling. We needed it trimmed an inch or so. We ended up meeting a guy at the park who our kids go to school with and he worked in copper roofs and such and he said it would be easier for him to just make a whole new piece. He did. Fit perfectly. Wasnt expensive.

Kristin: I am hoping I can get the shape I want at a less expensive price than the online custom companies quote. I thought it is worth trying to find someplace local.

Vent-a-Hood is local to me, so I went with them. However, an insert plus a local fabricated hood should work just as well if the craftfolks are up to par. A hood is just some stainless steel that's been cut and folded. The trick to a custom one is being able to correctly describe what you want and then making sure that they do what you told them. (I have about a 50% success ratio on this--even when I've drawn up plans.) It helps if you are there to supervise, which I'm not so by the time I get there, if they didn't do it the way I requested, it's often too late to change.

Jerry: I appreciate the suggestion of clear directions and close oversight.

We had intended to do a standard chimney hood, but were appalled by the prices ($3500!) and then the framing didn't work. We ended up having to go with a ventahood simple because of the spacing we had. We asked the cabinetmaker we're working with to design a matching hood cover, but he was not particularly creative and offered us a design we didn't like for $2500! We went looking for other options.

We found a metalworks close by (I would google metalworks or metal fabricators and your area?) and asked them to price out a simple design. Copper came back at $1200! So now we're doing a fancy hammered copper hood cover, based on tje specs provided by ventahood for our model. DH is a trades guy, so he was able to provide a detailed drawing. But many custom shops will help you come up with somethīng that will work--take the range hood specs in with you and a picture or drawing of the kind of thing you are looking for.

Good luck!