I don't own nor have I ever owned a VAH hood. My specific knowledge of them in action is limited to reports here by people I consider competent to comment on them. For example, I refer to clinresga's [IIRC] posts about the VAH he had in one location and more conventional style hood of at least equal air flow he had in another location. Measurements using the same audiometer revealed the VAH to be noisier. However, those components are a few years old now, so VAH may have made changes. My general perception of the merits of VAH vs. "conventional" hood designs is based on two aspects: First, understanding the capture, containment, and flow requirements that a hood has to meet, and second, the fact that commercial style hoods are the most efficient at meeting these requirements. The pro-style, baffled, pyramidal hoods that Wolf, Modern Aire, Broan, Independent, and others make are intended to closely mimic in performance commercial hoods while being sufficiently aesthetic to sell to residential customers. I won't claim to be able to perform computational fluid dynamics in my head, but there are plenty of published examples of Schlieren photography of rising hot air from cooking surfaces for good and bad hood conditions to provide insight. I personally prefer cleaning stainless steel baffles and stainless steel hood interiors then the cleaning process that I anticipate I would be dealing with from VAH based on what I've read here. All of that said, baffle type hoods, mesh type hoods (when assiduously kept clean), and VAH squirrel-cage blower type hoods can perform adequately when properly sized for capture, with sufficient flow rate for the aperture, and blower sized for the restrictions through the air path from cooktop to outside and back to cooktop. Disclosure: I own a Wolf (Independent) Pro-Island hood large enough to encompass a 36-inch Kenmore (Electrolux) induction cooktop and adjacent 3500W Cooktek induction wok hob, powered by an external 1500 cfm* Wolf (Broan) roof-mounted blower. There is a Fantech silencer in outgoing path. kas *This is the zero-static-pressure rated flow rate. In my configuration assuming imperfect MUA at the 0.03 inch w.c. level, the actual flow is estimated by me to be at least 900 cfm, yielding an adequate 90 cfm per square foot of hood aperture. Given the baffle design, the flow velocity through the baffle openings should be in the vicinity of 180 ft/min or 3 ft/s, the upper end of effluent velocity from anything I expect to be cooked. Duct velocity is in the desirable range for minimizing grease condensation under cold conditions.

Ajsmama, that trim looks great. Yes, DH gets OT. I think his job is pretty safe. But you never know. I'm back in school working toward a degree so I can go to work FT in a few years just in case! Update on my cabinets. My replacements came today. Everything looks good, except the replacement door came in without the drillouts for the hinges. Hey, I'm good, but not that good! I can't hang them by magic! Just met with my KD at HD on another issue. This guy is a doll. We designed something that the system took and charged me for, but didn't deliver. It can't be done. He figured out how to do what I wanted and they absorbed the cost. The fix was closer to what DH wanted to do anyway, so that worked out! Told the KD about the door and he said that was the wrong door then. I should get pre-drilled. Also brought in another door that I found a problem on at the hinge when I removed it from the box that was getting replaced. He agreed that needed to be replaced. Then I brought up about the hinges not sitting flush to the frame. Showed him what I meant and told him a number of them are so far out that I was able to put an envelope with two pieces of paper triple folded behind them. Others are out, but not as far. They are adjusted back as far as they will go. He is having the rep come out. He said there are too many issues with my job and he wants me to be happy. It seems to be largely the wall cabinets with issues. My custom sizes (made deeper) are fine/perfect. I have 3 3042 cabinets. Two of the boxes had to be replaced (chips, cracked frame). One door is now going to be replaced. The other box has hinge issues. The 3642 had to have a door replaced (our only finish issue) and 5 of the 6 hinges are markedly out of place. And so on. I am pleased with the customer service response. However, if we were on schedule with our reconstruction (and we aren't because we are fixing work previously done on the house) the cabinets would have needed to go in by now. We've got a little over two weeks before we're ready. Hopefully this will all be resolved by then!

Thank you everyone for all of your help:) I'm sorry that I didn't get back soon enough to thank you. This board moves really fast-- I came back at the end of the weekend and the post was on the bottom of page 4! I really appreciate the head's up on so many things ranging from the sturdiness (or lack thereof) as well as ideas for where to get them. I confess I have hesitations of buying a couch over the internet without feeling it, but may very well get the Restoration Hardware one. I generally am impressed with the quality of their stuff and I can't complain about the price. Plus, I can totally see my own kids playing pirate ship on the couch!

I just saw them advertised on TV and they were doing a demonstration and easily cutting through branches making clean cuts every time. Being a skeptic, I wondered if they were careful of what kind of branch they chose, maybe one that is known to make clean cuts easily. I was impressed that at least they are made of stainless steel, and I thought maybe that was a company trying to make a good product. I pull out the lopers when the hand pruners aren't able to do the job, but, I find unless I use leverage across my body, I don't really have the strength to do the job either. Someone who helped me for awhile used a chopping motion and I didn't think that was a good technique. We do a fair amount of pruning on this small property and I wish I did a better job of sharpening, but I'm always disappointed with my results, even after watching YouTube demonstrations. It's frustrating. I love a nice sharp pruning saw, but aren't those harder to sharpen even than pruners?