I received it Thursday night. I bought the Broan E6042T SS. It is beautiful. No logos on it. Also doesn't have any paperwork with it for some reason. Will need to download user manuals and installation manuals I guess. It is not installed yet. It is just waiting patiently with the other appliances. First picture is the part where it would vent straight up. Two small rectangles that unscrew. The same for rear venting. Broan E6042T SS Accessories Mandatory Yes Accessories Optional Yes Accommodates Ceiling Height 8' ADA Compliant No Blower Air Mover Type Centrifugal Blower Blower Included Yes Boost Mode No CFM (Airflow) 1200 Color/Finish Stainless Steel Control Feature Filter Reminder No Damper Included Yes Delay Shut Off No Digital Clock No Dishwasher Safe Filters Yes Duct Connector Size 4-1/2" x 18" ENERGY STAR� qualified No Filter Included Yes Filter Type Stainless Steel Baffle Flue Accommodates ceilings up to xx ft N/A Heat Sentry Yes HVI Certified Yes Light Bulb Quantity 3 Light Bulbs Included No Lighting Function Two-level Lighting Type Halogen Max Sones/100 CFM 1.2 Minimum Height Above Cook Top 24" Mounting System Wall Mounting Type Wall Nightlight No Non-Stick Coated No Product Depth (inches) 24" Product Height (inches) 18" Product Width (inches) 42" Rated Amps 9.0 Remote Control No Sones Certified Horizontal High 13.5 Sones Certified Horizontal Low 1.5 Sones Certified Vertical 7" Round High N/A Sones Certified Vertical 7" Round Low N/A Sones Certified Vertical High 14.0 Sones Certified Vertical Low 1.5 Switch Control Settings Variable Switch Style Rotary Dial Timer No UL Status Yes Voltage 120

It is hard to know where to start here. The flow rate (cfm) is determined by the uprising velocity of the cooking plume effluent and the aperture area of the hood, and not to first order by the BTUs. I would start at 90 times the area in square feet. Baffles will not separate grease from the air at really slow air speeds, so if one intends to go as low as possible, then a mesh that is routinely cleaned is probably better. However, mesh hoods typically have undersized apertures, so capture is degraded at the hood periphery. In other words, the hood is smaller than listed. Baffles will at any speed provide fire blocking, their other purpose. All fans have fan curves, including those made from magic lungs. The fan curve plots flow rate versus pressure drop across the fan, which results from duct friction, duct transition flow disruptions, mesh or baffle restriction, lack of MUA, etc. Typical fan curves are slightly convex, with cfm on the abscissa and pressure on the ordinate. When the pressure drop reaches some maximum, such as an inch or two of water column, the flow reaches zero. At zero pressure drop, the flow is (should be) the rated flow. The pressure drop is never zero in situ. VAH may be counting fan and hood, which can also be the rating used by some others at some times. It depends on whether the rating is for the hood with fan or for the fan only. The VAH rated flow certainly does not include the losses from the ducting and duct transition to the cap at the outside. Unfortunately, unless susceptible to a calibrated measurement, code enforcers will look at the fan rating and not actual flow for enforcing MUA rules. Ideally, they would test for negative house pressure vs. what combustion appliances present are not allowed to exceed without risking back-drafting. The relative loudness and ugliness of outside fans has to be compared to the relative social ugliness of loud inside fans. YMMV. I would not, however, duct to my neighbor's door. Some other path should be adopted. kas

You might have systemic communication and control issues (wiring, control, etc.) or you might have motor issues (bearings, rotors, etc.).. or both. Has that been determined? A regular electrician with a multimeter could probably tell that. Either may be fixable, but will require patience and unususal expertise to do so. The motor, in particular may need to be removed and sent to a specialized shop. Do you have any idea if the system, in perfect working order, would satisfy your powerful but quiet requirements? Do you like the exterior styling of the vent hood? These are all questions to answer before tracking down repairs. Or they may demand that you track down repairs as nothing else will do. Your call. L.

@nvestysly - there is some inadequate advice here (edited to note that some earlier posts here have been deleted). First, regarding hood exhaust noise, you will need the correctly-sized duct that goes from the hood to the outside. Good hoods will require either an 8" or 10" diameter duct. You could have the quietest hood made in the universe, but if the duct is too small, the hood will be noisy due to the amount of cfms being pushed through too small of an aperture. Another factor in hood noise is the number of bends the duct has before it reaches the outside - each bend adds to hood noise. Second, a few people on this forum regularly knee-jerk recommend the Vent-A-Hood. I doubt they have owned one. While the Vent-A-Hood brand hoods work well at exhausting effluent, their squirrel cage design makes them significantly more difficult to clean than a baffle-filter hood. You will have to remove and clean individually the Vent-A-Hood blower shield, then the blower housing which is as wide as some sinks and has very sharp edges, and then the blower wheel which requires a special hex wrench to remove. After cleaning these items, you will have to put them back on. Third, as you already know from your mention in your OP, a hood is going to be noisy because it is a motor mounted at head height. Think of bathroom exhaust fans, which are typically 85-100 cfms, and how noisy they are--meanwhile a kitchen exhaust fan is several times that amount of cfms. What you are looking for is either (1) an "external blower" or (2) a "remote inline blower". An external blower in some ways is the quietest - it is mounted on the roof of your home. However, the noise is simply moved to outside, and your next-door neighbors or perhaps your own family sitting on your patio, will hear that noise. They're also pretty ugly sitting on your roof depending on where on the roof it would be located. Alternatively an inline blower is mounted in the duct. Noise is reduced by distance from the kitchen, and can be further reduced by adding a "duct silencer" to the inline blower. If you decide the above choices are too difficult or expensive, I recommend you look for a hood that has baffle filters (not mesh), and ensure the duct diameter is correct with as few bends as possible. Brands to look at would be Wolf and Best/Broan, or go way up in price to the Modernaire brand. Look, a hood without external or inline blower is going to be noisy, shrug, so is your oven fan and your disposal. I would be more concerned whether the hood works well to exhaust effluent. You must make sure your hood has proper capture area - it needs to be 6" wider than the cooktop, it should be 24" front-to-back, and be canopy-shaped. This post hasn't even touched on make-up air ("MUA"), which you should read up on.