Rewiring Range Hood

18 years ago

Hi everyone,

I have a Broan range hood in the Q2 series. These came equipped with a "Heat Sentry" module which turns the fan on high when it detects excess heat. Well, the module is damaged now because the fan won't shut off. They want $170 for a new module. Can I rewire this to be just a plain hood without a heat detector? I like the hood itself, and just want to wire it like a standard (cheap) hood. Is this difficult to wire for a light, and maybe a 2-speed fan? Currently it has a 3 speed fan, and 3 light levels.

Featured Answer

ginosega

8 years ago

I had the same problem with my Broan QP430SS, and it turns out this is super simple to fix by re-locating the heat sensor inside the hood. You can do this with the hood installed:

Remove the two grease filter grates
Remove the six screws that attach the dark grey bottom pan, and set the screws and pan aside
The heat sensor is at the end of a black wire at the rear of the hood, connected to the hood immediately below the rear-middle screw that you removed in step 2. Its location here and the fact that it is touching the hood metal directly explains why it turns the fan on at unreasonably low temperatures. Use a small standard screwdriver to loosen the inset screw and remove the ring terminal and encased heat sensor.
I decided to relocate the sensor by tying its wire around another wire on the right side of the hood, leaving the ring terminal and sensor hanging in air inside the hood. It will still trip the fan if the temperature inside the hood gets too hot, but it is not touching the hood directly where it will turn the fan on at unnecessarily low (and acceptable) heat levels.
Re-install the bottom pan and grease filter grates

This is a great hood, but the over-sensitivity of the heat sensor made it extremely annoying - the fan would come on almost every time we cooked and it stayed on throughout dinner with no means of turning it off, making conversation almost impossible. With this simple fix the hood is now just exactly perfect :-)

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Comments (8)

dezwit
18 years ago
You should be able to bypass the heat detector.
Open it up and you will most likely find two leads attached to the module.
You will need to cut/disconnect them and then wirenut them together.
It would probably be a good idea to use a high temp wirenut.
pharkus
18 years ago
The module as the original poster describes sounds more like a normally-open sort of deal, in which case, the correct instructions would be to disconnect them and NOT wirenut them together.
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deejhome
10 years ago
Did you ever find an override to the heat centry?
ionized_gw
8 years ago
On the face of it, this feature sounds like a really dumb idea. I don’t want fans turning on high temperatures automatically. It’s a fire hazard. Perhaps I’m misinterpreting how this works . Is there a provision for shutting the fan off if there is a fire under the hood?
Ron Natalie
8 years ago
How would it be a fire hazard? It would lower the temperature, perhaps not of the burning stuff but at least of the room around it, and vent fumes away.

I can tell you with little exception, the first thing I did as a firefighter was ventilate the room.
ionized_gw
8 years ago
There seems to be an emphasis on shutting off sources of air for combustion in case of fire. I am not that conversant with the details as you certainly are Ron, but I am thinking of heat or alarm activated dampers in ventilation systems, and self-closing fire doors. I bet that what you really did first was put the fire out and then ventilate, if that is possible, and at least do those things concurrently.

To have a system, Broan range hood, automatically turn on with high temperature seems incongruous with that goal. That is all that I was saying. Does it not seem counterproductive? There may well be fusible links or other cut-off mechanisms to prevent this with the Broan and maybe the auto-on feature is responsive to a much lower temperature than would be considered to be in a danger zone. I hope so.

Bring on residential sprinklers!
Rick Boyce
6 years ago
Thanks Ginosega! Did your suggested fix, and you described it perfectly! So much better!