Skip the grill. You'll asphyxiate yourself. You are already going to need a massive amount of heated makeup air that may cost more than the range and vent combined

Oh no! The grill function was my favorite part of the range and what made me pick the Wolf after cooking on it at the showroom. I saw a post from someone who had the grill that said as long as you get a 1200 cfm hood and turn it on a few minutes before that it works great?

Did any of the hood salespeople mention the required ductwork? A 1200 cfm hood will need a 10" diameter duct from the hood to outside the house. Do you have that, or if not, have you included the ductwork in your kitchen renovation?

"I want quiet"

Even the quietest hood in the universe can't be quiet at 1200 cfms. Any motor, placed at head height, will be noisy. Your bathroom exhaust fans are likely around 80-120 cfms - how quiet are they? If you want to truly reduce hood noise, you will need an exterior blower. Add $$$ to your budget for that.

As Sophie mentioned, that amount of cfms will require a make-up air system ("MUA"). That can add to your costs significantly.

"They showed me how to clean it in 30 seconds"

How is that possible? You need to take a VAH apart and put each piece in the dishwasher. There's the cover and the housing assembly. Plus the fan blades (2 in the higher-cfm VAHs).

Other brands for you to look at are Modernaire and Prestige.

My personal preference is to grill outside. That said, there have been a few times that I wouldn't have minded having a grill inside for convenience or to avoid going outside when it's below 0f. Then again, our new kitchen will have 4 burners + 24" griddle, likely Bluestar, and a 1200 cfm exhaust hood. And a Memphis pellet grill outside.

You definitely want a good MUA system matched to your hood. If you're in a cold climate you'll also need to pre-heat the incoming air.

You'll not clean a VAH in 30 seconds. IIRC it takes me about an hour to pull two blowers apart and put them back together. I should do it far more often than I do.

VAH supposedly does a better job of removing contaminants vs a baffle. A baffle could leave more build-up in ducts, on fans, and on roof or siding (depending on direction of exhaust).

VAH is the quietest I've heard. I would love for someone to do a good non-biased comparison of VAH vs a baffle hood with a silencer and external fan. My guess, based on time spent in commercial kitchens, is that VAH would likely be quieter but the baffle system not as high pitched and so, while louder, less annoying.

clinresga did a comparison back ca. 2010 between the kitchen ventilation in two houses he owned, one baffled and one VaH. The baffled was quieter. I believe my external blower, in-line silencer system is quieter than a comparative flow rate VaH.

Whether the centrifugal impingement method of a VaH squirrel-cage blower works against a broader extent of the grease particle spectrum than a baffle system is an interesting question. I have not seen any such data from VaH. Commercial filter manufacturers of baffles and more complex arrangements do provide such data. Residential baffle hood manufacturers do not, as far as I know, provide such data.

In any case, in commercial systems (all baffled or better), the baffles are intended to capture the portion of the spectrum that would likely deposit in the ducts, whereas the smaller part of the spectrum remains mostly un-deposited and expelled from the system at the roof. While a household might take decades to require a duct cleaning, commercial cooking should be expected to result in a deposit build-up. This is why commercial cooking vent ducting has to be inspected (yearly, I vaguely recall) and, being welded, requires access panels to allow inspection and cleaning.

@kaseki, I believe commercial fans function the same as VAH using direct centrifugal force to separate some portion of particulates. E.G., the baffles separate out what they can and the external exhaust fan separates out a bunch more (and has a fairly large drip tray for it) before the air is exhausted in to the environment. Does your Wolf system function similarly or is the expectation that the baffles do it all?

Found the thread (thanks for the ref): http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2324336/vent-hoods-and-noise-the-real-scoop-on-vah

The Wolf hood has only baffles. The roof fan has a centrifugal disk with fan blades. Any grease accumulation there should be expected to work its way to the roof shingles.

I am not familiar with exhaust fan drip trays, nor have I ever seen anyone on a restaurant roof cleaning the systems. Nonetheless, I looked deeper into the Greenheck Kitchen Ventilation Systems Application & Design Guide and found (page 31):

"Upblast
"Upblast fans are the most common type of kitchen exhaust fan. They use a centrifugal backward inclined fan wheel, are either direct drive or belt driven with an isolated motor, and can be roof or sidewall mounted. The belt driven units have adjustable pulleys for final system balancing. Be sure to check the current load (amps) on the fan motor after a change has been made. Small increases in fan speed results in large power increases required by the motor. Grease drains/traps should be used on the fan to collect grease that has passed through the filtration system and may cause roof damage. A vented curb may be required in heat applications such as kitchen ventilation. Hinged curb cap and cleanout ports allow easy access to the inside of the fan and duct."

[Bolding is mine.] Evidently, the higher tip speed in the blower (relative to baffle air speed) is capable of additional particulate collection, hence the suggestion for drip pans. However, this does not read like it is a design feature, but a damage avoidance scheme. The goal of commercial ventilation is to move the post-baffles residual grease vapor into the environment.

I am not aware of any roof blowers intended for residential applications that have grease drip pans. This includes Wolf, Broan, and Abbaka. As they all blow down the roof slope, any grease deposits from typical residential users will be washed off or degraded by UV. (Cedar shakes could be an exception.) I can imagine a serious indoor griller overpowering this process, and I would suggest in that case, assuming the roof is reasonably accessible, to go to a proper upblast blower sized to move the desired flow rate at the anticipated pressure loss and spec grease drains for it. Greenheck might be able to suggest a larger slower blower that minimally deposited grease while still providing the desired flow rate.

Or use a commercial hood and more elaborate filtration. I doubt that the VaH manages to collect the entire spectrum.

Page 23 et seq. of the Greenheck Guide addresses grease extraction efficiency and you may wish to review that part for background.

http://www.greenheck.com/media/pdf/otherinfo/KVSApplDesign_catalog.pdf

kas

I can comment on noise, having had a 42" 1200 cfm Zephyr Monsoon II that we replaced with a Wolf insert, inline silencer, and 1400 cfm Abbaka blower mounted on the roof.

We bit the bullet and replaced the Zephyr about six months after installation because it was so loud. Even on low (450 cfm), you couldn't hear the Sonos speaker 12 ft away set at a pleasant volume or someone talking to you across the room, and there was a "thank god" moment as soon as we turned the fan off. The new setup is so much better that I still smile when I turn it on.

When the Zephyr was driving me nuts, I wanted to check the noise level against what the company literature claimed, so I downloaded a decibel meter onto my phone. With the phone sitting on the stove 35 inches under the hood, the reading was 80-82 db with the Zephyr on LOW. In contrast, the Abbaka on HIGH now reads about 72 db. So we now get 1400 cfm with less noise than 450 cfm on the Zephyr, and the Abbaka will happily hum along more quietly at lower cfm, so we're much more likely to use it consistently. (note that those cfms are the settings; I have no idea what the actual airflow is given the factors that kaseki so ably notes in a number of threads.)

RACMRC, does your Wolf insert have a grease collection reservoir? I was surprised to find that ours doesn't; grease just runs off the baffles onto the ledge they sit on, which doesn't strike me as a very sensible design.

Our insert seems to function the same as yours. The grease runs down the baffles and collects on the backside of the hood tray where the baffles rest. When we remove the baffles to clean, I am just tall enough to wipe it clean without standing on a step stool. We looked for something with a removable grease tray (they are out there) but decided we could deal with this since we really liked this insert. It hasn't been a problem and we would do it again - but it would be nice if Wolf would add a removable tray to this insert.

In respect to noise . I have a 2000 cfm fan with 12 duct for my 48" wolf with grill . Works great .

But it was way to loude without a muffler .

http://www.supplyhouse.com/Fantech-LD12-Galvanized-Steel-Silencer-for-12-Duct

after I added on of these it's quieter then many 400 cfm hoods .

Thanks that is very helpful. Can I ask what vent hood you have-that is next on my list.

It's the only hood I could put high enough so a 6 foot person can walk underneath with out having to bow dowen .

The hoods fit and finish is not as refined as residential hoods so

I am getting a vent liner for my custom hood. Can I use a silencer with that or do I have to have an external blower? Do you have an external blower?

Have you looked at Modern Air? We have a 1200 cfm hood from them and love it! Variable speed and dimmer light function. We're have a stainless steel chimney style at home but are getting ready to order a liner for our beach house kitchen.

My understanding is that the silencer has to go before the motor (i.e. vent liner --> silencer --> motor). It's silencing the fan and motor noise, so it wouldn't make sense to have it after the motor. If you have enough space in the attic to put an inline blower after the silencer, then you wouldn't need an external blower. For us, the silencer barely fits between the attic floor and ceiling, so we had to have an external blower. The contractor was worried it would be loud outside (it's on the slope above our deck) but it's fine.

Yes , after the hood and before the motor .

I have an inline blower so both the silencer and blower are in the attic .

Also I have 2 of them , one for the vent and one for the makeup air

deetle63: What are you using for a roof cap?

For the vent

http://www.supplyhouse.com/Fantech-RC12P-RC12P-Roof-Cap-Black-Painted-Steel-12-Duct

For make up air

http://www.supplyhouse.com/Fantech-FML12-FML12-Fixed-Metal-Hood-for-Supply-or-Exhaust-12-Duct-Single-Unit

Thanks

I didn't. I have heard great things but ventahood was at the top of my budget and I was told those are pricier than ventahood so I didn't check them out. We're doing and addition and kitchen reno so I am tapped!