If the fan is at the hood, then a silencer would help, possibly greatly help. I see no reason why the hood warranty would be affected other than the hood manufacturer covering its posterior against everything. The silencers from [US] Fantech have minimal restriction when matched to the duct diameter. Also, depending on the legal climate, the neighbor has a duty to not significantly pollute your environment. Reducing noise should be his higher priority than maintaining the hood warranty, particularly considering that the cost risk is limited to a blower. Perhaps more explanation about the 2-meter limitation would also help. Is this a neighborhood visual limitation? Height might move the apparent sound source to a better location, and in general the sound pressure level will drop in inverse relation to distance. However, given logarithmic hearing response, a significant distance might be needed for an apparent signficant reduction. It will take a heroic carbon filter to remove odor from a serious frying or grilling exercise. This is why outdoor ducting is usually embraced, to remove the odor (and grease particles too small to collect at the baffles) to the external environment. They have to be released high enough to not easily propagate to neighbors' houses. An upblast blower on a roof usually accomplishes this, and is the design most used by restaurants in the US. Often having a larger blade diameter than the duct size on which they are mounted, upblast blowers will generate less tip turbulence noise than a small diameter blower would for the same flow rate. kas

Hi Artemis, Sound like you have a set up very similar to ours. Here is what we have/had: The old stove (gone when we moved into our 1929 house) vented into the kitchen wall into a massive 12 inch diameter flue (metal flue, lined with ceramic). This flue went up the wall, through the attic, and out the roof (along with the furnace flue). When we moved in, the original stove was gone, and this flue was not hooked up to anything. The kitchen wall was repaired, and no opening to it remained. But we could easily see the flue from a crawl space on the opposite side of it. In the ceiling was a cheapo fan that vented up through the ceiling and out the roof. I would guess that yours does go out the roof, but whether or not you can reuse any of its "guts" depends on what hood you want. Ours is too narrow for a good quality hood. So, you need to get up in that attic, and count your flues! We needed to remove our massive flue (to make space for a future bathroom upstairs), and that was a very difficult and expensive proposition. I think we also removed the venting from the ceiling fan, which was not a big deal. We currently have a lovely 1955 O'Keefe and Merritt stove in our kitchen. We have no hood, and the house smells faintly of the homemade french fries I made last night. I can't wait to have a hood! We plan to put a high powered (vintage looking) hood over the stove, and vent out the roof. We don't plan on hooking up the stove pipe, because we need the wall space. If you are already hooked up to a stove pipe, and you are keeping your stove (which I would certainly encourage you to do b/c OKM's are awesome!), then you can leave that assembly alone. Just add a hood over the stove (unless the stove pipe is physically in the way). Without the stove pipe, you end up with a hole in the top of your stove from which quite a bit of heat (and odor) escapes. I'm used to it (though worried about the noxious odor--which a hood will take care of), but it does get hot! Here is my stove. The stove pipe hole is on the top left side. The old flue was in the wall behind the stove. I hope that helps a bit... Now get in that attic, and let us know what you find!

johnW1..I'm not an expert but in my two-story house the ductwork goes down from the vent in the microwave, behind the drywall behind the range and then travels through the crawl space under the house. It is not visible inside the house. You might be able to figure it out by removing the microwave.

This has been very interesting as I have the same predicament. It's not really encouraging me to rush into doing this. Fortunately I don't do much of any greasy cooking and I have a nearby external exhaust fan in my laundry room to suck out odors. The biggest concern is moisture wafting up on the cabinets but aside from sticky grime that I cleaned off from previous owners, the cabinets are in fine condition even after 15 years without external exhaust. What I have been pondering is if I could somehow connect into that laundry duct work through the attic as I don't really need an exhaust fan in the laundry room.