Thanks for the comments everyone. To answer Weissman's question, since I can get the Prestige hood for only around $50 more than the BlueStar hood, I'd rather get the BS since it will match the range. Also, I've personally seen the BS hood, and would be sad to order the Prestige only to see that it wasn't exactly the same as what I was envisioning. I'm sure the Prestige is pretty darn close, but for $50 I'd rather just get the exact match. However, I'm really set on an inline/remote blower, and the worst-case scenario would be to get the BS hood only to find it doesn't have the right fittings for an inline blower with a 10" duct. Still looking for someone who has hooked up a remote/inline blower to the BS hood....

heartsurgeon and cpovey, Thanks for the info. In March, after reading hours (days?) of hood information on GardenWeb, I had decided to get a VAH 42", 600 cfm (VAH doesn't make anything higher than 600 cfm for a 42" hood and 48" was too big). I had made a cardboard hood of that size and mounted above the cooktop (no cooking allowed!) to get an idea of sightlines. 32" was best for viewing across the greatroom for me, but the cook in the house was fine with 30". The VAH rep insisted to never go above 30", so we were set to go with VAH at 30". But, since there was a delay in the BlueStar cooktop we wanted, we waited. The housing market got worse and a large appliance place folded and liquidated their inventory, and I got a deal on a Viking that I couldn't pass up. The hood didn't come with a blower, so that's why I have been asking the blower questions. Since higher CFM blowers were available on the Viking, I thought I could push the hood up to 32" with higher CFM and be OK. I figured the internal motor probably has twice the noise...the air noise through the baffles and then the air noise through the squirrel cage blower. So heartsurgeon, it wouldn't surprise me that it's noisy when on high at 600 cfm. Do you even hear the motor...or is it all air? The external probably does look like the best option, as I agree with cpovey that an in-line motor would be a hassle to maintain. Looking at the specs, I think the external would fit on the roof. Cpovey, I don't know if I could install the external upside down either...is there a damper that would be upside down? I had been only considering venting out of the bottom if I used the in-line. If I use external, it would go on the roof. Now today when I picked up my hood, I scrounged around the warehouse and found that they had a 600 cfm internal blower left for that hood, which I able to pick up for a good deal as well...so I couldn't pass that up either. So I"ll start with a 600 cfm internal, mounting the hood at 30". If it end's up too noisy, it's not that much of a loss and it would allow us to find out if we need more than 600 cfm. If we don't, but want to use an external for noise reasons, we will still come out ahead cost-wise. I think I'll still use 10" duct work in case I do want to go up in CFM if we go to an external...it's not that long of a run, so it shouldn't cost that much more. Also, I would think that a 10" elbow above the hood would make less noise than a 7" elbow. I plugged the 600 cfm fan in (not inside the hood) to an outlet to see how noisy it was. It does make some noise, but it seemed less noisy when I added some wind resistance, so I won't be able to tell much until it's fully installed. It sure could blow some air when unrestricted though! This got me a little concerned that if the vent exits on the top of the roof...it will be only about 8 feet away from the deck table, pointing right at it. Will this cause an unappealing breeze to the outside dinner guests? Maybe the baffles cause enough resistance that it really doesn't blow out that fast in the real application? I am still interested to hear if someone has put an external fan this close to an outdoor sitting area and what the noise level is like. I'm guessing that it may just be a white noise-type situation outside?

Try posting in the Appliance forum. GL

Are you doing a flat roof? If not you will have some attic space. I'd rather have the shortest path to out with the blower closest to where needed. With a short path and blower close you won't need full speed most likely and thus if you get a blower with low sones rating it won't be that noisy.