My DH installed our range hood too. Before we had an OVR micro so he had to install all the ducting and cut a hole in the roof for venting. He did everything.

It depends on where you live. In Minneapolis, the city is very particular about who installs the hoods - the ducting part. They need to have a certificate (or whatever, license, maybe) from the city in order to do it and pass inspection. Our contractor wold NOT do it because of that, although, of course he could have! It's a wierd thing, isn't it??

My builder installed the duct work and the range hood. The poor guy muscled around with the hood for quite a while. It was a VAH off the showroom floor with no instructions or manuals, and the diagram I downloaded from the website was from a different model (oops!) He said 90% of his clients throw in a recirculating OTR micro but installation was included regardless of what I chose, so he refused to charge me extra.

Our builder installed it, at no additional cost. The only appliance he didn't install was the dishwasher, which was done by the plumber.

My contractor did mine. I'm paying him by the hour, so it cost whatever it cost!

(Of course mine is now down, and has to be REinstalled, as part of my glitchen saga....)

I bought my VAH online & the local dealer wouldn't install anything he didn't sell so my cabinetmake/carpenter did the install. I'd already had a brick mason cut a hole in the brick (13" thick) vent wall but to complicate matters, the wall behind the range was plastered brick (no stud wall) with no easy way to attach the hood so a reinforcement piece of wood had to be cut & attached as a base. He used his cabinet lift (I have a 11' ceiling) & he said it was the biggest PITA install that he'd ever done - he'd never do another!

We had HVAC guys do the ducting and install the (remote) fan. I'm glad they did because the roof piece I had bought was not appropriate for my climate! It was also inspected by the city, and that makes me feel better about the quality of the job-I don't want a fire in my new kitchen. Haven't gotten the bill yet but the bid was $400-that involved some nasty attic space negotiations with a gigantic motor, but a pretty short distance to vent. The electrician will hook it up when he comes to do the finish work.

My contractor is drywalling the hood surround as I write this. This was incorporated into his bid and so I have no clue what that's costing me. I'm going with a VERY plain surround , though.

I wonder if an island install is more complicated?

Thanks all for the responses. The contractor (with DH "helping") are doing it this morning. The electricians just showed up. So far so good. We had more problems yesterday (another post)

We had an HVAC company install the venting and our cabinet installer installed the actual hood.
If your husband isn't comfortable doing it, call a few HVAC companies and maybe a few fireplace stores. Fireplace installers are used to installing venting.
Again, check with your city to see if there are any special requirements.

We decided to have an external mounting motor attached to our range hood, which we didn't have at all prior to our recent remodel. At first, I was getting the same numbers you were, which I wasn't going to pay. What ended up happening is I bought the Broan range hood with an external motor option, and purchased the external wall mount motor that Broan sells, along with a fantech silencer.

The range hood was mounted to the ceiling by my carpenter for $50. The ducting from the motor, through the silencer, to the hood was ran by my HVAC guy for $375 (about 10' - 20') of ducting was ran. The actual hookup to the rangehood was done by me, as it was fairly simple. The electrical was done by me as well, once the actual power was ran from the source to the motor back to the hood, which my HVAC guy did.

You can definitely get it done cheaper (we are in California, labor is usually a little more expensive), as this isn't rocket science, it is literally hooking up ducting to a hood and back to the motor, if you have an exterior mount motor. Its easier if you don't have an exterior mount motor. All in all, it works great, and is much quieter at 1200cfm than most units that come with the motor built in. You can post a wanted ad on craigslist, stating your specifics, and somebody can help you out for much less than $1200 in this economy. We bought a new Miele dishwasher with the money we saved on the rangehood installation bill.

arazavi, where did you mount the 'external mounting motor'? We considered mounting it in the ceiling, but we realized that if the motor breaks or needs to be serviced for some reason, then we'd have to open up the ceiling again. We live in a condo apartment, and this isn't a house. We prefer the external motor since it'll be quieter, but we have no idea where to install it..