Questioning the way my hickory range hood has been finished
Beth Greenstein
3 years ago
We are Building a house and wanted a driftwood range hood and island to go with my white kitchen. When I saw the wood finish on the hood and island, I don’t like the way they were finished, particularly the striped staining. My design center is saying that’s what I picked and it’s the type of wood we chose, hickory. We were not advised that the wood would look striped and circus like. I really want them replaced or redone so there is no striping. Is this look acceptable? Would love feedback?
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Janelle
3 years agoBeth Greenstein
3 years agoRelated Discussions
Feels like a bucket of ice water has been dumped on my head
Comments (33)Hi, If you are working with an architect and the architect has built homes in the area, then he would know the building costs. If he has not done many houses in your area, then he could be way off on the building costs. I built in New York, and hired one of the worlds best architects, my brother. If you go to Hong Kong, and look at the Shopping Area there, he designed it all and surpervised its constrution. At the time he worked for Foster Associates, headed by Sir Norman Foster. He has also worked for James Stirling in the U.K. He designed for me a house, but in the end I could not afford to build it. It was 2 x over budget. Why because the techniques used were "non-standard" it was a modern home and most builders were frankly scared of the project. So a few came in cost-plus, or at very high numbers. I still think by brother did a great job, and we are none the worse for it. It was fun also and if you are in need of a good engineer, I worked with one in Connecticut and recommend him too. We had a good team, just had no idea of local costs. So after three years, and $US 50,000 I was back to square one. We hired a local architect with experience in home building in the area. We build a "standard" home with standard techniques. The house came in over budget, it always does. However the bids were much closer. To give you some idea one builder was 20% below, and another 100% above. The other six were about the middle. Our architect knew all the builders and their histories. e.g. one GC had been through a divorce, needed work, and he bid real low. Our architect said avoid him. Others build for Martha Stewart, they were expensive, but were at the highest quality. In the end we stuck to the middle of the pack. Note if a GC or builder really wants to rip you off, there are always ways he can hide it. You need to trust your builder, and he needs to trust you. We moved in about three years ago now and our GC and builder was very good. Sure we had problems, but in the end it worked out. My recomendation is to do the following: 1) Figure out which bits cost what. Rough is O.K. Doing this will probablly get you a better idea of where possible cost savings are. If one part is a major cost component, that is where you can get the most gains. 2) Simplify the design. A square house of two levels upstairs and downstairs gives you the most bang for the buck. Yech that looks bad. Not to worry this is just the ideal goal. Maybe you can change some of your design a bit to bring it more in line. Get rid of all the doormers, the indents here gables there. 3) Do you have site specific costs which are blowing your budget. E.g. rock. I needed to blast and move rock. That was expensive. Are you siteing your house in the correct place. Maybe moving where you place your house will save on your foundation. 4) If you have an architect ask what he thinks. You have to be brutal sometimes. See this wing here, cut it out removing 1,000 sq feet. Dump the basement have a crawl space. I think if you budget for about $US 250 per square foot, then you will be O.K. Obviously this will vary across the US. But if you are way off this quick check then I think you will have issues later. Way off means at a minimum $US 170 per sq foot. Much below that for a custom one off house, I think is not a good start. 5) In your plans make them detailed as possible. However ask your architect for a pricing schedule for tile, and finishes. E.G. Hard Wood floors, schedule for $US 10 installed per sq foot. Lighting fixtures schedule for $US 6,000. These are no more than guesses at what you will spend, but at least they are accounted for in your budget and will lower the surprises later. There are always budget surprises, that is the nature of the beast. Just fewer surprises. Again be brutally realistic on these numbers. The advantage of schedules is that it removes these unknowns from the builders estimates, hence the estimate is easier for the GC and more accurate, and hence more competative. 5b) Get prices for house options. E.G. unfinished bonus room, you can finish later. West wing section [$US 80,000]. Porch [$US 20,000]. That way if the bids come in high, you can lop off chunks of house, brutal I know. Or have unfinished sections that you can finish later when funds allow. But at least your patient is still alive. 6) Bid out your design to a few builders. In the end I had eight builders bidding. If you are still off on your budget then it is redesign and regroup time. Good luck. All the best, Mike....See MoreDo I Have to Rip out the Ceiling to Upgrade my Range Hood?
Comments (11)We installed a similar vent-a-hood (48" with 900 cfm triple blower fan), and you will definitely need to do some work on your ceiling. We installed in a 1 story house, and we were using the vent-a-hood liner, not the stand-alone housing. They built a decorative plenum above the range (cathedral ceiling) and recessed the hood liner up into the plenum. The ducting then connected straight up to a vent through the attic and to the roof. I believe that the unit you picked is actually two 600 cfm dual fans that each require an 8 inch duct. You can then use a duct combiner (about 17" tall) to bring them together into a single 12" duct. The centerline of each 8" duct is about 11" away from the centerline of the hood. Do you plan to build any type of decorative plenum/trim above the hood to get the hood to the correct height over the range? If so, that could give you some working room for ducting options. The option I am considering is whether you could use two 8" ducts, but jog one over so you could run them between two adjacent floor joists or one above the other (hidden by a plenum). It still requires removing quite a bit of ceiling, but will fit well with typical joist spacing. The other choice is to run each 8" duct a different direction along the joist, but you will probably run into a load bearing wall in one of the directions. The other option is to look at the floor above to see if you could route the 12" duct (or two 8" ducts) vertically. If you could grab space from a closet or the corner of a room, you could run the duct(s) straight up and out the roof. The code requirement for make-up air when a fan moves more than 450 cfm is a relatively new requirement. If your city follows code, you will have an added expense for an automatic make-up air vent that opens when you run the exhaust. However, I installed a 600 cfm fan during renovation of my current house in 2014 and the inspector never even mentioned make-up air, so YMMV. Removing and replacing sheetrock ceilings is messy, and looks bad when its out, but its really very straightforward construction work that does not require a licensed professional. I would not get very concerned about how much ceiling has to come out. Bruce...See MoreWhere to tap into my range hood wiring to drive my makeup air damper?
Comments (54)I don't have equipment to measure the pressure differences but I have done some qualitative tests to evaluate the velocity of air that comes through a known opening (small window) for H/M/L blower settings as well as the velocity of air exiting the blower exhaust. What I found is that the pressure difference between the kitchen/dinette/family room space is greatest on the LOW blower setting and less on HIGH and MED settings even though the volume of air exiting the house from the exhaust is H/M/L as you would expect. I attribute this to the lack of MUA on the LOW setting due to the closed MUA damper. The hood flow I am perfectly satisfied with although it bothers me that the low setting is lower than designed because of the lack of MUA. I believe replacing the airflow MUA switch with a simple current sensing switch will be a good solution. We live in the PNW with a fairly mild climate with low temperatures seldom below freezing and never below 0 degree F and our furnace does not seem to have any trouble keeping up with the colder MUA inflow so far (although we have not had many cold days yet). opaone: Our MUA damper is a Broan MD10TU with a motorized damper triggered by a remote flow sensor switch. Thanks for the input on interlocking the MUA with the blower - I had thought that would be a good idea for MUA performance but not considered the static buildup aspect. The 6" MUA damper originally installed with the furnace is interlocked with the blower so I guess I better research how that works. And thanks for the kitchen compliment....See MoreCan i put a smaller range hood insert into a larger range hood?
Comments (7)Hi there! While it isn't the most common, there have been times we have made a very long/large range hood and only need a certain size insert (for example 10' wide hood, only needing a 48" liner), so most often what we would do is install a stainless steel panel to allow everything to look smooth and coherent with the liner. Some people opt to add lighting to the "dead" panel space, and I would definitely recommend making sure you get the proper CFM for your space, but yes you can have an insert smaller than the range hood. Hope this helps!...See More
PROPPF.
3 years ago
Muriel Thompson
3 years agomainenell
3 years agodarbuka
3 years agopricklypearcactus
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agorrah
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
mszapiel
3 years agoJJ
3 years agoBeth Greenstein
3 years agoThe builder I am building with has a half ownership in a design center. They send you there to pick all of your selections. I went with many pictures of what I wanted my kitchen and cabinets to look like, color wise. I NEVER requested hickory wood. My designer pulled a stained wood door and told us this was a match to my pictures. There was never a discussion about type of wood or how it will have a stripey look. It didn’t even Dawn on us to ask what the hood will look like, I assumed that it would look like the pictures I brought. It wasn’t like I came in to the design center and said, I want hickory. I wanted a certain look. I will attach a pic.
mszapiel
3 years agomszapiel
3 years agomainenell
3 years agomszapiel
3 years agodan1888
3 years agoherbflavor
3 years ago- PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
3 years ago 
itsourcasa
3 years ago
PROBeth H. :
3 years ago
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