That is a good point about the fan controls. it bothers me that a bit of sheet metal and an electric motor and squirrel fan can cost upwards of $1000 - these units are very basic - , most of the components could probably be had from RadioShack for less than $100. However, I'm DIY most of the kitchen...I really hoped the fan/vent hood would be something that could be reasonably purchased. - Kitchen renos are starting to feel like weddings - normally priced items that become associated with one or the other suddenly become very expensive! :-) Capian

Mine is from builder. It is one of Thermolec air heaters ( http://www.thermolec.com/en/productView.aspx?type=product&id=77) plus a separate current triggered flapper. The heater tries to heat the air to 15 C (PWM), activated by the air flow. It is a passive one and connects to the air return of the furnace via a 10 inch duct. It is not as sophisticated and highly performed as Kas's.

Vent-a-Hood systems have an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is no baffles and hence no baffle pressure loss. The disadvantage is that the squirrel-cage blowers have a fan curve that loses flow rate with pressure loss faster than the radial and axial blowers used by others. Hence, use of VaH hoods is best done with short, straight ducting and low pressure loss make-up air approaches. For any serious hot cooking, you should plan to have 90 CFM per square foot of hood entry aperture, which you have not yet specified. With ideal ducting, the result would be met by a VaH blower just slightly more powerful than the result value. However, with more typical ducting and MUA pressure losses, the blower rating will need to be a larger factor over the requirement, possibly higher than the 1.5X I suggest for baffled hoods. Low noise can be achieved using a remote blower (external or in-line) with a silencer between blower and hood. All fans moving a lot of air per second when located next to the cook will be noisy. I don't own any magic VaH hoods, so I can't compare and/or contrast their noise levels.

Unfortunately, @jlarsen321 did not return with a description of the system selected, or its observed performance in the context of the cooking to be performed. If one imagines near-perfect capture and containment from a commercial system, and then attempts to squish this mechanical system into the space available in most residential kitchens, including duct placement limitations, MUA system limitations, etc., one eventually finds that the path of commercial system approximation leads to one of two endings. In the first one spends a lot of funds on the higher air flow hi-end residential system that is almost as good as the commercial system, but it fits and is more aesthetic. In the second one spends lesser funds on a system that may be good enough for one's cooking style, or at least better than no system. A story from the past: Once upon a time (1984) a good friend of mine, a coworker and part-time professor, brought his Chinese student to our house to cook Chinese food on our then coil electric cooktop. This cooktop was part of a cooking center with low ventilation flow rate, but perhaps a tad better than the standard ventilation put into kitchens of the time. When it was all over, we were full of great food and the kitchen surfaces were full of oil, requiring a major cleaning job the next day. That began my quest for better ventilation, initially limited to boosting the flow rate in the duct path. Actual competent ventilation was not achieved until the end of my kitchen renovation starting in 2008. So it is not trading off performance against cost that is bad, it is not knowing what the result will be versus one's goals that is bad. My hope is that review of the many kitchen ventilation threads here will lead the wannabe renovator to a considered solution, if not an out-of-reach ultimate solution.