You probably have to spend more than that. There make up air required too.

Well I 100% agree on this. But tht isn't really my question. My question is whether there really is a huge difference in these vent hoods. Is a wolf hood or whatever so much better than these highly rated Z line hoods. I am worried they are all noisy and they all do basically the same thing. If this is true, I hear the z line is pretty darn nice. So I can't find someone out there to really assess qualitative differences and consumer reports proved ZERO use. No reviews on range hoods.

I bought a 48" Zephyr hood for my 48" range. It's more than a Zline, but not nearly as much as a Wolf. Mine is not installed yet so I cannot give you my personal experience...but all the reviews on Zephyr are great. I also got their wine cooler and it's amazing! Not sure what the CFM of the Zline that you are looking at is, but the quick online source says 400-750...the Zephyr is 1200. That makes a big difference with a very powerful range like the wolf.

As a first approximation, you are correct and all the hoods are the same. Anybody can attach a fan to a metal box.

But the devil is in the details. For a 48" range, physics requires a certain minimum number of features to make the hood do anything useful (unless of course, you only want your kitchen as a show piece and never plan on cooking in it). And you might very well discover that the cheaper manufacturers are cheaper because they skimp on some of these requirements. On the other hand, you might also get lucky and find a brand that doesn't skimp, but still offers a comparative bargain.

I am sure that if we wait long enough, @kaseki will show up and explain the basic science behind minimum venting requirements for such a big range. But let me try to channel my own inner Kaseki and give you a preview.

Gas ranges have an expanding plume of combustion gases and steam/grease from cooking. You need to make sure that you fully capture this plume. That gives you a minimum size of your hood (typically on the order of 27" deep and about 3" wider than your range on each side, or 52" in your case). You also need a bit of a "box" to contain cooking gases, as the rising plume has a tendency to reflect off the hood when it reaches it. That gives you a minimum height for the hood. Furthermore, if you can "trap" cooking gases on the sides, you'll get better performance. So, a wall-mounted hood will work much better than an island hood. And cabinets on the sides of the hood do help with guiding airflow.

As you can see, all of this is primarily driven by the size of your range and not by any other factors. A lot of what you are looking for in a hood is a direct result of you having picked a range that is almost twice as big as what other households have. That's why you get comments telling you that you need the infrastructure to match your appliance.

In order for the vent hood to do what it is supposed to do, it needs to move the air fast enough so that it won't spill out of the containment box, and it needs to move fast enough for the filter to be effective. These type of hoods should have baffle (rather than cheap mesh) filters. Baffles work by pinching the airflow and extracting grease droplets. That requires a minimum air flow of about 90 cubic feet per minute (CFM).

For a 52"×27" hood aperture, this requires an air flow of about 880CFM. But if you go and buy a hood that is rated for 880CFM, you'll be disappointed. It won't come even close to doing what you need. You'll find you just bought a very expensive noise maker that has no discernible function other than making noise. The reason is deceptive marketing.

Manufacturers measure their hood's performance without any ducts attached to it. But in practice, you lose a lot of performance in your ducts. Even short runs of ducts can drop measured CFM by several dozen percent. If you don't know the specifics of your installation (and few people do), a good rule of thumb is to oversize the fan power by at least 50%. This means, you should start looking at vent hoods in the 1300+ CFM range. And that assumes you install 10"+ ducts and the duct runs are short. If you can't do that, things really won't work. That's an unfortunate reality of things. Even just going down one inch in duct diameter comes with a huge penalty.

And just when you think you are done, things get even more complicated, this much air needs to come from somewhere. A hood can't vent air, if you don't have air coming into the house. By code, as soon as you exceed 400CFM (nominal) air flow, you must install a make-up-air system. If you live in a warm climate, things might be as easy as a new motorized diverter in your heating ducts and some circuitry that turns on your furnace's fan whenever the hood operates. You might be able to get away with about $2000 for a system like that. Of course, that assumes your existing furnace has the required CFM.

If you live in a colder part of the country, expect to install a dedicated heated make-up-air system. That'll cost several thousand dollars on top of the cost of the hood.

In the end, the price difference between a ZLine hood or a ModernAire or VentAHood is only going to be a very small part of the overall project cost. If in doubt, I'd opt for a brand that is known to build good hoods. But then, I don't have to pay for your project. So, only you can tell.

Also, if you want things to be quieter, things get more expensive. You'd want to install an external fan and an inline silencer. That also means additional pressure loses and probably longer duct runs, so better increase fan performance some more.

You can’t forget the MUA. No hod will have air flow without replacement air. Ventahood is a good hood. z line is import carp. As is most not meant for the restaurant market. Loud and poor fit and finish is acceptable in a restaurant. Not a house.

You certainly don't have to buy a Wolf hood, I personally think you are just purchasing a name at that point. But you do need to buy a powerful enough hood to properly vent your space. And yes, for a 48" range, it will be expensive. Look at a few other brands, Vent a Hood, Best, etc. Get an education and then decide. You will also need a vent for MUA.

Thank you "inner kaseki."

What can I say in addition? I can note that a quasi-pro cooking device needs quasi-pro ventilation to work with it. I can further note that commercial kitchens have it easier, as they run the hoods on full power or not and the make-up air (MUA) can be easily tuned to the flow. Retro-adapting an MUA system to an existing residence can be a real project for reasons given in various MUA threads. So going big range in a residential kitchen has costs that would have been best recognized at the beginning (before visiting one's banker).

I can remind that of the three main drivers of hood selection, performance, affordability, and aesthetics, one can, at best, only maximize two. Generally one has to trade off these characteristics.

I might mention that at some point in my own kitchen renovation, as it spilled into the attic, living room, hall, bathroom, basement, and even roof soffit, I just gave up on dealing with the cost and decided to pay it off over a longer time.

Or I can repeat the same message I've input to many threads here that is essentially what M has described but with more detail. But I'll resist.

Since most of my comments over time are not directly related to the question of hood differences, let me take a stab at that topic.

I have the largest Wolf Pro Island hood. it is very rugged. I requires at least 900 actual CFM when wok cooking or searing. It looks nice. It takes a 10-inch duct. In the interest of lowering blower noise, I use a roof blower (made by Broan/NuTone but sold by, and maybe specified by, Wolf) rated at 1500 CFM (free air zero static pressure).

In the duct between kitchen ceiling and roof is mounted a Fantech silencer. This mostly eliminates the dominant noise of hoods, the blower fan's blade tip air turbulence, leaving baffle hiss that one can easily talk over. Being a rugged and rigid hood, one doesn't get rattles from the hood. (I do dampen my ducts). There is a bit of blower induced rumble that may be due to slight imbalance or insufficient rigidity i my roof.

The hood looks decent to me with its shape and optional rails. So it might be said that I took the path of high cost, high performance, and good aesthetics. However, much greater cost fancy hood designs can be obtained, or other directions taken for performance. See opaone's ongoing installation, for example.

So when evaluating a hood and comparing differences with other hoods, given that the hood has adequate entrance aperture overlap for capture, adequate capture volume, adequate baffle design for filtering and containment, adequate stiffness, low internal transition pressure losses, decent lighting, rigidity, and aesthetics, then it should be as good as another hood with the same characteristics.

Your view of what is aesthetically acceptable, however, takes priority over everyone else's view.

My recommendation is to read various hood and MUA threads on this forum, check out the first dozen pages of the Greenheck Guide for perspective, and then ask about parameters that you need to specify to your contractors or appliance distributors.

https://www.tagengineering.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/KVSApplDesign_catalog.pdf

And, there are various safety aspects of both MUA and wall details behind a powerful range. These are also addressed here in various threads, and we will be happy to help you save the economy. :)

Look at Vent-A-Hood for comparison's sake. Modernaire is the high end of the market. Is Wolf made by Wolf or just rebadged?

Whatever you do, don’t get a Wolf hood. They’re noisy as heck, and not very efficient. We did our research, and went to independent appliance stores listening to hoods, getting input from trained salespeople who really know their stuff.

In the end, we purchased a Vent A Hood, and have been extremely happy. It does a great job containing grease, odors, and other effluents...and is ever so quiet, even on high. It is vented to the outside through the attic, keeping the fan far from earshot. As another benefit, the way Vent A Hoods are constructed, the amount of makeup air needed, is reduced. If we’re using four or more burners at one time, we often crack a window.

@kaseki, who is the resident expert on venting, thinks that Vent A Hoods are difficult to clean. But, we haven’t found that to be the case.

in answer to your question...yes, you will have to spend $$$ on a quality hood. The better hoods, like Vent A Hood or Modernaire, are not sold in big box stores. They are sold in independent appliance stores, and are customized to order.

BTW, while purchasing a SZ fridge was a good decision, as they’re the best fridges on the market, with the best customer service in the industry...and I speak with nearly 40 years of experience with the company...I’m sorry you were pressured to buy a Wolf range. Wolf’s closed, circular burners...which is all they make in gas ranges nowadays, are very inefficient at heating the center of pots and pans. For that reason, we bought a Thermador rangetop, which has star burners, and have been very pleased. It cooks evenly, and has an awesome simmer.

Heres our Thermador rangetop and Vent A Hood:

Errr, darbuka, I have to take exception to some of your comments: First, on VaH cleaning, I may have referred to others comments on that, but not having owned one, I would not have commented on their cleaning difficulty from a first person point of view. VaH comments go back at least 10 years, so some research will likely reveal early complaints about that aspect. It may no longer be true.

I seriously doubt that efficiency is the word one wants to use with a hood unless very carefully defined. It is likely that VaH motors develop the same HP per watt as Broan/NuTone motors.

If efficiency is intended to mean CFM per watt, then it would depend on the relative pressure losses that the two different systems are exposed to. Low pressure losses, maybe the squirrel cage fan wins; higher pressure losses, maybe axial or radial fans win.

The statement about make-up air lacks physical reality. No air leaves the kitchen that isn't replaced. The inlet flow has to equal the outlet flow. If the VaH is satisfactory with only a cracked window, then it is not moving very much air, and perhaps that is all you needed for the particular cooking taking place. Any other hood moving the same amount of air would achieve the same result. Also, your house might be leaky. In any case, the house pressure should not be allowed to fall enough to back-draft any combustion appliances in use, so house leakage should not be one's preferred means of MUA.

How can a VaH with its blowers in the hood, also be "vented to the outside through the attic, keeping the fan far from earshot"? Without baffles, the VaH blowers are proximate to the cook and not blocked by anything.

A Wolf hood with a remote blower, or any other hood for that matter with remote blower, can't be described as "noisy as heck" if it is not generating the blower noise. All that will be left to make hood noise will be turbulence in the baffles. If noisy due to having an internal blower, perhaps a larger blower run at lower power will do. In any case, I can only report on physics or on my experience, and I don't have a Wolf hood with an internal blower to compare with.

Years ago, forum member clinresga measured the sound pressure level of his VaH in one house and his conventional hood in another house. The hoods being compared showed the VaH to be considerably noisier for comparable air flow ratings. It is likely that for competitive purposes, VaH have improved that aspect since then, so I would never claim that they are presently noisier, but I also wouldn't believe that they are quieter without data. I haven't seen any, and would consider such data suspect pending standardization of methods across hood manufacturers.

@kaseki...apologies if I misspoke. To my memory, I recall you saying Vent A Hoods were difficult to clean, but, eh, my memory ain’t what it used to be. ;)

In truth, I’m no expert on venting (except to my husband). I’m sure I did not use the correct description of the internals of the hood. My son, who is an expert on all things mechanical and electrical, would have no problem with this.

I can say, our hood IS quiet. Even on high, all you hear is a blowing sound. No rattling of baffles, or loud fan noise, like I’ve heard coming from Wolf, and other hoods. Even on high, we can speak in normal voices while having a conversation. The hood “noise” is in the background, like white noise. The Vent A Hood does a spectacular job of containing odors, grease and effluents. Unlike in the kitchen in my former home, the cabinets on either side of the hood, never get a greasy film. That tells me the hood I’d doing it’s job well.

God - you are all so tremendously Knowledgeable it is a bit overwhelming. I cannot thank you all enough. So I will consider only the high end brands that you all cite. None of you will approve of my set up because to make things worse I cannot do more than a 48” hood. There are cabinets on the side and that is the space we have apparently been allotted. Furthermore, the damn duct has to go straight up to a ~9’ Ceiling and then bend North and go across the house 9’ and then 9’ up through the flat roof. So the duct length from the range will be a total of 18‘ L plus whatever is exposed in the kitchen.

Now interestingly, my contractor Here in LA is a pretty serious high end dude and his last three houses have had 48” ranges. Just got off the phone with him and he had no idea what an MUA is. Hasn’t ever done one. (and yes he knew Ishould have had a 52” hood but that was error of kitchen designer I think. So don’t ding him for that!)

I was assuming I should have an internal motor and a noise reduction tube thing. And yes I plan To do baffles not mesh.

We do cook. I’m not Julia child but I have three kids and I cook three times a day often. So this isn’t a showpiece. It’s my kitchen.

anyhow. There you have it. You all are amazing.

Ah, you didn't mention that earlier. You're in California. Normally, California is stricter about everything, but make-up-air is one of the few things where California hasn't adopted nation-wide regulations. So, legally, you might not be required to install make-up-air. That probably explains why your contractor never heard of it. Practically, you very much want to. There is no point in spending thousands of dollars on a hood that then doesn't work, because it can't draw the required air. Or even worse, having to deal with backdrafting through your other gas-fired appliances which ends up bringing carbon-monoxide into the house. The good news though is that in California you are probably OK with an unheated make-up-air system. That makes things cheaper.

A 18' run for the duct is painful. We just went through this exercise a few days ago in this forum. We couldn't quite agree on just how much performance loss you'll end up seeing, but it is quite substantial. The manufacturer-recommended 10" duct diameter that normally would be OK isn't going to be anywhere close to what you need. Ask a good HVAC guy to do the calculations and already mentally prepare your general contractor that you'll need extra beefy ducts. (And preferably round rather than square; turbulence in square corners causes a lot of losses). That might require some planning to make space in the framing for the big duct.

Worst case, even if you can only run (for example) 14" duct up to the ceiling, and then 12" along the ceiling, that's better than having 12" for the entire 18' run

@kaseki will probably chime in whether this is the best trade-off, as you want to minimize pressure losses from a long duct run. But I think there also is a minimum air flow speed that you should maintain. Not sure how important the latter is.

Finally, don't buy VentAHood in your particular situation. Anecdotally, their fan design can't handle backpressure that well. Get an external roof-mounted fan, e.g. the 1400 CFM Abbaka blower. Do the math though, whether you can stay below ~0.8" WC static pressure. Otherwise, you'll need a bigger blower. Your HVAC guy should be able to do this calculation. The good news is that with a 18' run, things will be pretty quiet. You honestly might not even need that inline silencer, if there is no good place for it.

New to the topic so may be confused, but elsewhere id seen suggestions that the power needed for the hood was driven by what needed to be vented - the amount of steam, odor, or heat you were creating. Here it sounded like the suggestion was that for a given amount of space/air dictated by the width and depth of your range you need a specific amount of power. Is the latter wrong or is it somewhere in between and I’m just misunderstanding?

The amount that needs to be vented goes into the calculation in some form (the 90CFM/sqft rule). And you can make adjustments if you have induction whether having gas. But overall, basing your math on output power leads to an inaccurate approximation. You're going to get much more accurate results if you use the calculations from this and similar discussion on Houzz.

But all of these are always approximations. The actual fluid dynamics are difficult to model

s luke: First, if you want to use a silencer, then it goes between the hood and the blower, so an internal blower is out. Use one of many possible roof blowers that can flow the required rate with the pressure loss of the MUA, baffles, and ducts (including effective length increases with turns). Duct pressure loss and length equivalents for turns are on the Internet. (In-line duct blowers are also suitable.) Baffle pressure loss may still dominate if MUA is OK. Put the silencer in the attic if convenient. Note that the diameter is about 4 inches larger than the duct.

Joe: There are two separate hood functions to deal with: capture and containment. Capture requires that the hood entry aperture overlap the rising and expanding cooking plumes. This size should be determined for the largest pans that are likely to be used for greasy or odoriferous cooking.

Given a resulting hood aperture size, then the issue is containment -- keeping the plume effluent in the hood and ducting to the outside. Every hood is different, and the baffle filters vary, etc., and an exact amount of volumetric air flow (CFM) needed for a given condition has to be determined by experiment or a really complex computational fluid dynamics simulation. (Experiment is less expensive.) It turns out that for most residential cooking where the baffle space occupies most of the hood's aperture area, containment success can be achieved by an air velocity sufficient to entrain the effluent into the air going into the baffle slots. The baffle slot openings are roughly one-half the aperture area, so if the overall air flow is 90 ft/min, then the slot air flow will be 180 ft/min, or roughly the velocity of the fastest plume from a gas fired pan.

The link I provided to the Greenheck Guide will lead to a table (page 10, IIRC) with air flow velocities for commercial hoods vs. various cooking processes. The higher velocity cases probably won't apply in a residential setting. But if you want to put a charcoal grill in your kitchen, then they will.

The velocity times the hood entry aperture area yields the required volumetric flow rate. This is your goal for actual flow rate.

s luke: The duct size is an interesting trade between minimizing duct grease collection (due to impingement in temperate weather and condensation in colder weather) and minimizing pressure loss and noise due to turbulence. Generally, the velocity should be kept between 1000 ft/min and 2000 ft/min. Wrestling 14-inch duct and an 18-inch silencer into place is a lot more effort than 10-inch and 14-inch respectively components. So going larger than minimal is only required in cold climates and/or where no practical blower can handle the required flow rate at the predicted pressure loss. So recursively pick a duct size, calculate velocity, calculate duct pressure loss, check the blower or blowers under consideration for that pressure loss vs. flow rate (on the fan curve or some table).

In the process, account for the baffle pressure loss. This also varies with the flow rate and won't be published in general, but it should be safe to allocate 1 inch of water column to the baffles when used at the 90 CFM/sq. ft. hood aperture volumetric flow rate.

I am running about 20 feet of 10-inch duct with three turns (about 70 deg, 20 deg, and 45 deg) and a silencer and seem to be achieving more than 1000 CFM from a 1500 CFM blower measured under my Wolf hood (made by Independent ca. 2009).

Depending on what combustion appliances are in your house, and whether they have their own MUA or depend on household air, you may for safety reasons need to keep house pressure reduction to -0.03 inches, w.c. Under these conditions, the MUA won't impact the calculation, but will impact one's wallet. Cruder, less expensive passive MUA (even an open window with screen at these flow rates), used where combustion appliance safety is not applicable, could have a good part of a 1-inch pressure loss, and that needs to be accounted for in evaluating the blower. The blower pressure loss is that of the entire loop from outside to kitchen to outside.

Darbuka, I love your backsplash!!

s luke - yes, the topic is overwhelming and highly complicated and it is not uncommon (in my experience) for contractors and even HVAC people to have little knowledge and thus be dismissive about the need for MUA.

I was in your shoes and fortunately found all the great knowledge on this forum which helped me get a functional configuration that I would not have gotten otherwise.

I have a 1200 CFM 54" Zephyr Monsoon hood (~$1500) over a 48" Blue Star RNB with heated MUA (I'm in Chicago) and it works well, but also vents straight out the wall (unlike your scenario).

My contractor and his HVAC guy argued with me about the need for MUA (said my house was leaky enough) so I went to my long time HVAC guy and while he had done MUA installs in commercial settings, he had not done so in residential, but was up for the challenge and learning about it. For me MUA (made by Fantech) was around $5K including install. But a huge part of the cost is the fact that it needed to be heated, something you probably don't need.

My primary messages:

This a complicated topic but this forum has more collective knowledge on residential MUA than many (most?) individual contractors/HVAC people.

You can get a fine functioning hood for under $4k (I would check into Zephyr, though if you need over 1200 CFM, then I think you will be in the land of remote blowers only)

It gets overwhelming, stick with it, and this forum.

@sheepla...thanks! The tiles are celadon green, from Subway Ceramics.

https://heritagetile.com/default/catalogsearch/result/?q=+Celadon+green%27

Yeah, no make up air requirement here in LA. I think houses here are built less tight overall, because builders do not have to worry about keeping out freezing cold or summer humidity. We don't even have screens on our patio doors!

I bought a Modern-aire hood when I redid my kitchen 2 years ago. I was able to go to their factory and look at all their sample colors. You have to buy through a store or a design professional. Pricing on the hood varied quite a bit. My local independent appliance store, who ordered all my Miele/Wolf/SZ appliances, was willing to give me a big discount on the hood. It still wasn't a cheap hood, but I paid $2k less than a quote I got from another larger appliance store.