Any range hood will be an inprovement over the microwave with indoor vent. When you used the microwave vent, was it sufficient? The microwave was probably only about 300-400 cfm. If you got away with that then I would say 600 is plenty. Since space is a concern I think a 30" wide is also fine. You may want to look for one that is 24" deep. Capture area is important so if the hood is flat on the bottom it will not work as well as one that has a recessed area even if the cfm's are equivalent. You also should think about baffle filter. Baffle filter will give you better air flow and they are easier to clean.

Tom2013 -- The microwave was really not sufficient. We still set off the smoke detectors. The point about depth is really useful to know -- I had been looking at a few (Bosch, Broan) that were straight down, and then the flat bottoms -- I think I will adjust to the triangular shaped or rounded/triangle shaped ones I have on my list, since it may be difficult to eke out the space for a 36 inch hood. (We could do 33, but there are very few of them!)

This post was edited by tickybox on Mon, Feb 4, 13 at 13:07

Tom--

Just want to make sure I am correctly interpreting what you have to say about the recessed bottom being better. So, we should be looking for one that basically has a lip of some sort all the way around on the bottom with the flat panel recessed a bit rather than one that is flat all of the way across?

Needinfo1 - what Tom meant by recessed is a canopy hood. I.e. don't buy one of those flat hoods, even though they look cool. Also, the curved glass ones aren't so great. A canopy hood will capture best the rising smoke and grease.

To the OP, a 30" hood will be fine. The hoods that are 36" wide over a 30" hood are the ideal, but so many of us cannot afford to forego the upper cabinetry for the 36" width. You should get a hood that is not a skimpy depth of 20-22". Those won't cover the front burners. As Tom said, a 24" depth hood would be good.

Your question about 600 cfm vs. less cfm: it is better to have the 600 cfm, even if you don't use it that often, say, for searing steak, than to have an underpowered hood, and have to have it on its highest setting all the time. You'll have less noise if you can run your 600 cfm hood at medium or low, and still have the hood be effective, than if you are running your 400 cfm hood on high all the time because it is underpowered.

Make sure your exhaust duct is sized properly. Most hoods specify an 8" or 10" diameter duct. There are some hoods that allow a 6" diameter duct, but they're harder to find. The problem with pushing too much air through too small of a duct is that you will get increased noise and decreased efficiency though no fault of the hood. So check your exhaust duct size (if already installed), and match your hood to it, or if still in the construction stage, install the right-sized duct.

Another brand to consider is Kobe. I have one and like it. Quiet, easy to clean. Baffles, nice capture area. Allows different vent sizes - I think 6, 8 or 10". I got mine from ventingdirect.com. Good prices, good service. If you have a hood delivered to you, be sure to check it for dents or damage before signing for it.

I considered Proline hoods, too. They look good. Both Kobe and Proline I only saw on the internet - no distributors in my city.

One thing I forgot to mention is mounting height. The higher you mount the hood, the more CFM you will need. I like to lean over the stove so I mounted my hood 33" off of the counter height. As far as the capture area, you will see that many baffle style hoods have the baffles mounted at an angle which leaves a good capture area.

Ginny20: It's good to hear about the Kobe. I had actually been looking at the Kobe 9230, because it looks good, and has 760 CFM, but I didn't know what people thought of the company -- it's not one I have heard of before. Unfortunately, it looks like this hood only has a depth of 20 1/2", which is disappointing.

akchicago: It is surprisingly hard to find hoods with that depth! But this has helped me to narrow down my search quite a bit. We should be fine on the duct size -- currently, it is non-existent. We are giving up a window in order to move the oven to a safe spot and give it a hood, so we are starting from scratch, and should be able to get the construction right from the beginning.

akchicago: It may have to do with the other conditions I put in, but the options I end up with are very limited, and when I click through the the actual specs, they become more limited (for example, since the filter range originally starts out at 22-24.9, a lot of what looks good at first is really only 22")

If you plug in 1) Stainless Steel, 2) 30"-34." wide 3) chimney style, 4) 600-700 cfm and 5) 24"-24.9" -- you end up with only two choices, a Dacor and a Bluestar.

If you widen the filter to 22" to 24.9, you come up with a Best that I actually was already considering -- (The WT321302SB) -- which looks great, and has almost every other feature I am looking for -- except the 24 inch depth. Am I over thinking this?

I'd like to be able to say looks don't matter compared to function -- but I admit, I'd like this to look attractive as well as doing it's job.

*edit for spelling

This post was edited by tickybox on Tue, Feb 5, 13 at 10:52

akchicago: and it's occurred to me that perhaps I don't know enough to know what I don't know...

when you say go with a canopy hood, over a flat bottom -- does this statement rule out all chimney type hoods? AJ Madison has them as separate categories in their filters. I had been assuming that as long as it still had the triangular shape, rather than simply being sort of curvy, or one of the ones with a flat square bottom attached to the chimney tube, that it still counted as canopy for purposes of capture.

Am I running into the depth issue specifically because I have been looking at chimney type hoods?

I measured mine. It's 21" from the backsplash to the outer edge. (since my granite BS is 1.25", the whole unit must measure 22") The hobs on my induction cooktop end at 19" from the backslash, so my pots are generally under the hood. Although 24" depth would certainly be preferable, I don't think you have to go nuts to try to get it.

Before ordering anything from Proline, one would be well-advised to check out their history with the Better Business Bureau

Here is a link that might be useful: Proline Range Hoods BBB page

I purchased a 36" Island hood from Proline on June 15. The website said available for shipping in one/two days. I called the next week to get tracking information and was told that this model would not be shipped until the second week in July. The second week in July I emailed them for tracking info. No response. Two days later I called them. I was told the hood had shipped the day before and they would email the FedEx #. No email. I called again on Monday this week and was told that the hood had NOT been ship but would be shipped this Friday. I called again today and asked if the hood was actually in stock and was told that it was but that their warehouse required a lead time of five weeks for inspection. And they could not guarantee that it would, in fact, be shipped on Friday. I cancelled the order and have replaced it with a Cavaliere hood from DirectVent. Proline is doing their company a disservice by not giving this customer the correct information.