Modern Aire, for a very modest custom charge, will make an insert to any dimensions you want. You want 27'', or 30'', or 36'' deep, they'll make it.

Plus, their hoods kick the living $*&%&^* out of VAH hoods on about every level. (I know--I own one of each).

If you're having a custom hood made, you don't necessarily need an extra deep insert. Just ensure that the opening under your custom hood conforms to the insert dimensions. It won't make any difference if the insert is mounted out from the back wall by 3 or 4 inches as long as there is a filler to close any gap between the wall and the back of the insert. The filler can be made from the same material as your custom hood or from stainless steel, to match the insert.

I have an an ordinary Vent-A-Hood range hood that is mounted 3 inches out from the back wall because I have 15" deep upper cabinets on either side of the hood instead of the normal 12" deep upper cabinets. A local sheet metal shop constructed a 3" deep stainless steel filler to close the gap between the wall and the back of the range hood. The exhaust hood functions perfectly.

You can see the gap filler in this photo:

wa8b: sure, you can always bump a hood out. But.....Modern Aire can build a custom liner that completely fills the hood surround at virtually no extra cost versus the off the shelf Vent a Hood. By increasing capture area, there will be a modest but measurable improvement in ventilation performance. In your case, with cabinets on both sides, the dropoff in performance is indeed even less, as the main concern with the back filler would be lateral drift from the filler strip off the ends, which is prevented by your cabinets, but still, as a rough approximation, more capture area is better than less.

Plus, for roughly the same cost, Modern Aire will give you a state of the art, handcrafted hood with REAL baffles, not the crazy, noisy, hard to clean squirrel cage setup that VAH uses. And again, unlike most posters with a VAH, I can speak from experience based on the 42'' 600 cfm VAH we have at the lake.

clinresga

I know you are thrilled with your modern-aire and your reports drove me to call them and I got a great response with a very reasonable quote for their PS26 barrel style hood. However, I am restricted I am pretty sure to an in-hood blower. That being the case I am looking for real world comparisons of the noise of a 600 cfm internal blower vs the VAH. Modern-aire said their new blower is quieter than the one they were using a year or so ago but still I have no idea what to expect of the two systems. I expect my duct run will be up to the ceiling then a 90 degree turn and then about a 7 foot run straight out to an exterior wall. In such a case I don't know if an inline blower is sensible/doable and these blowers that do 1200 cfm might be overkill. I also am on a budget and if I have to live with a bit of noise from the blower then so be it because I don't want to end up with laminate countertops...

Any info greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Tina

I can't speak directly to the noise level of a MA hood with their new internal blower. I do find the 600 cfm VAH we have to be very loud by my standards, though others have certainly disagreed with me on this. My expectation, though unsubstantiated, is that the MA setup would likely be quieter. If nothing else, the VAH relies on not one, but two squirrel cage blowers to achieve 600 cfm, so that's two motors and two cage fans generating noise, versus one for the MA. Still, that's speculation and I'd prefer relying on someone who has the MA with internal.

Understand that price may preclude this, but you might be able to do an external blower. I think the length of duct you are using is enough to make it worthwhile. Is the horizontal run through an open space like an attic? That would allow an inline blower. If not, you could consider an external wall-mounted blower like the Abbaka, if it was not overly obtrusive visually on the outside of the house.

Here is a link that might be useful: Abbaka external blower

Thanks clinresga. I should have made it clear: I will have a 1 foot run from the top of the hood to the kitchen ceiling then a 90 degree turn and the duct will run in a boxed in soffit about 7 feet to the exterior wall of the kitchen. So the run will be just behind a soffit that we will build to hid the run. Does this sound like a good solution? I think It will be too difficult to go up through to the second floor etc. - this is a retrofit in an old house.

Thank you!

Hi there clinresga, I recently sent the following post on the 'Vent hood poll' thread----

'I do not agree with clinresga's many posts- I wasn't going to bother writing this but... I keep seeing the same posts from him/her. OK in my one home I had a 36" Viking, which btw was fabulous with a 36" 900cfm Viking SS hood- back then the hoods were vent-a-hoods with the Viking logo. I had this combo for 17 years and was very happy with both- I cook very often and very hard- Last year I remodeled my kitchen and decided to purchase a Dacor 46" cooktop and double wall ovens. Way different than the Viking, but I needed a change. I purchased a prestige 48" Hood with baffle filters. This rangetop and hood were installed in the same exact location as the previous ones and I can say that the VAH was no louder than the new hood- no fancy instruments measuring sound levels, etc, just our ears, and we're able to entertain, speak to one another and even listen to the tv. The filters go in the dishwasher and the VAH I always hand washed but was not a difficult task. This is comparing apples to apples, however when someone adds other blowers and extra fans, of course any system would be quieter and also would incur additional costs. (I will say that the Dacor cooktop has been a dream to keep clean, it has a bead blasted spill basin and it is soooo easy to keep clean, I use bon ami and it looks brand new-)
I do have a question-I have another home that I may be purchasing a BS- Wolf- or Lancanche 30" range with a custom wood hood and want to know which brand has the deepest 30" hood insert- I know VAH has a 30" insert that is 22 1/2" deep but I need it to be deeper because I do a lot of high heat woking. Thank for everyones input.'

Since then, your Anti-VAH posts have appeared in almost every thread I've visited. I have to say you are persistent. And your persistence has prompted me to visit and call MA to inquire about liner options- yes, they will customize a liner insert- and their price is very, very similar to VAH (btw VAH also customizes hoods & liners). At first I was annoyed by your posts, but it's rather nice to find one so passionate. I do think your frustration with (YOUR) VAH may be founded, however, your generalization as to all VAH's being inferior to MA is NOT--- as per my post above. Btw, I see you also have a Dacor cooktop, have you been happy with it? I really love mine. What about your Lacanche? very interested to know, they are beautiful, do you think a 30" would be ridiculous, since I don't have any extra space for wall ovens?

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lamermaid:
Great points, and a great ongoing conversation. I have been perhaps overly repetitive in my opinions about VAH hoods. Like others (keitel comes to mind, especially as his (her?) "My Ventahood drives me insane" thread has recently been resurrected), what makes me crazy are the large number of posters who automatically suggest VAH as the "best" option whenever a ventilation request is posted.

In particular, I am struck by how many folks who tout VAH's do so based on one of two things: 1) "the salesman at my appliance store says VAH is the best and that the [fill in the blank] hood is inferior because of..... (failing to mention that it's the only brand of hoods he sells) or 2) "I have one and I think it's great" (posted by someone who has never had a hood other than a VAH to compare to).

In contrast, you are someone with personal experience with more than one brand and style of hood. Thus, your opinion counts, in my mind, much more. And I do believe that much of the advantage that I perceive in my hood is not so much from the fact that it's an MA, but rather than we have a remote blower and silencer, which I think is a wonderful setup. The reason I've been such an MA fan is the amazing customer support. I also love dealing with a small, American company that still actually manufactures here in the States (when I called to check on the status of my hood, the woman who answered literally ran back into the shop, found my hood under construction, spoke with guy building it, and came back with a hard estimate on completion--try that with VAH or Broan!).

If I can buy a handcrafted, custom hood, which uses proven baffle technology, and which allows the use if desired of a remotely located blower, infinitely variable speed control, remote switching for lights and fan speed, etc, for the same price as a VAH--which if I'm not mistaken, requires the use of four separate squirrel cage blowers, each of which needs to be washed by hand, to achieve 1200 cfm, then I'm hard pressed to understand why the VAH would be a better choice. But.....as you've already pointed out, mine is an overly-obsessed opinion that everyone should take with multiple grains of salt.

Having said that, we still love our Dacor PGM36 cooktop. It was my first experience with a modern, high performance cooktop and I still have lots of fun cooking on it. It's a great looking piece, still love the blue LED indicators on the knobs, and the 15K burner is more than adequate for my frequent searing etc. For that "space" (36'' five burner drop-in cooktop) I still can't see anything that would outdo it.

The Lacanche is however at another level entirely. It's just a piece of art, classic, yet performs fabulously, with two 18K burners, two ovens, french top, etc etc. I do think it's a tougher question if you're limited to roughly 30'', and to only the one oven in the range, and I'd think hard about that choice--we also liked the Wolf and I'd be very happy, though not quite so passionate, if that was what we had gotten. Post questions to the longstanding LC thread.

I have found someone who has the small Lacanche. Yes, it is beautiful and am sure it would perform extremely well. Unfortunately, I most likely will not be going french, c'est la vie, since I do not have the space to go larger and I really think, for my style of cooking, the range will just be a tad too 'petite'.

Oh well...(sigh)... Now I have to decide on- AND get siked about my other choices- the 30" BS or Wolf AG. They do both have positives as well as negatives, so... it's not easy.