Where to start? So many factors play into an effective hood. You are on the right track looking for at least 24" deep and 6" wider than range. You also need a deep under-hood capture area to contain the bursts effluent that don't keep pace with the blower. Lots of other threads in these forums go into the details. As to affordable you might look at Trade-Wind, a favorite low-cost brand here at Houzz. I found a Wolf hood that had been a floor model at a great discount. Check the ding and dent sections of appliance stores near you for brands like Thermador and Monogram. Take a pass on anything that has a completely flat undersurface. The deeper the cavity underneath the more effective your hood will be. If you don't want a pyramid shape then you mean something mounted between cabinets because the straight designs are usually meant to be mounted up next to cabinetry. A pyramid is more of a stand-alone shape.

Any hood that can be acquired without an internal blower can be part of an external or in-line blower based system. And in many cases, this system will be quieter. I think with Wolf, for example, the hoods are separately priced from the blowers. This may also be true of Broan/Best.

I recommend establishing a list of hood manufacturers and then studying their offerings, rather than searching on the terms in-line or remote, as those search terms will only find examples that happen to have that property prominently listed.

[robertgoulet: It seems like it has been a long time since I last recall seeing a post from you. If so, welcome back.]

thanks for the information... I think one of my biggest questions was just weather not I could stick in inline blower on any hood that did not come with a blower...because I was finding the a lot of the hood that come without blower specify that they only work with internal blowers are only work is remote blowers but I thought I'd be able to hook an inline up to any of them. I really like the look of the wolf hoods...and there is a shop near me that sells a lot of used wolf appliances including hoods that often include blowers for pretty good prices. I might give them a call and see if they can source of 42 in hood without a blower and then I can just pick up an inline blower somewhere else.

and as you mentioned about the inline being quieter... That's literally the only reason I would want an inline blower or a remote blower is to make it a little bit quieter in the kitchen.

if the blower is in the hood then it's going to take an immediate 90-degree turn to go through the top cabinets and then out the sidewall about 8 feet away from the hood...and I think from what I've been reading that the 90-degree turn in addition to having a blower right there in the middle of the kitchen is going to be really loud. so now I am exploring whether or not we might remodel the bathroom upstairs which would allow us to do a straight shot from the hood up through the attic for in line blower and then out the roof to vent

@robertgoulet The less expensive hoods usually have the blower pre-installed in the hood. Search for the filter "pro" or "pro-style" hood, and you'll find some of the higher-end hoods where every part is sold separately.

As for being quiet, the higher the CFM, the louder that blower will be. I live within city limits where my building code prevents me from using anything more than 400 CFM without also installing a make-up air system (MUA). Many cities have such a requirement, though the CFM limit can vary from 300 CFM up to 600 CFM. The 400 CFM limit is most common. I purchased a 300 CFM blower with my Wolf hood and plan to install it in the hood, but the fact of its being a lower CFM rating will make it somewhat quieter. A remote blower is your quietest option if you have the ability to do that. You can also get soundproofing material to wrap the ducting to make it quieter. Any type of material that is also used to line car hoods to help dampen the noise can also be used to wrap around the hood ducting. Many other factors play into noise, such as the angle and type of baffles, distance of blower from hood, etc.

There is one other quasi-requirement. If one wants the hood's blower control to work with the blower, they need to be compatible. Wolf hoods (of the era I bought mine in) use simple triac/diac motor controls that will run any induction motor within their current control (heat dissipation) limit. More sophisticated circuit controls are available for wall mount motor controls and may or may not be embedded in more modern hoods. The complexity here is establishing that there is compatibility, or replacing the existing control with one suited to the motor, or installing the motor control on a nearby wall instead.

I don't think Wolf itself sells in-line blowers, but Fantech does.

If you have architectural control via remodeling, then I strongly suggest finding space for a silencer to be installed in the duct path between hood and blower. Typically, a roof cap/blower combination (Wolf/Broan) can be mounted displaced from the kitchen ceiling vertical duct such that there is room in the attic for the silencer.

I think thats basically the scenario I am trying to price out...a straight shot, or close to straight shot from the rangetop up through a new chase we would build in the second floor, through the attic and out the roof. Only concern being its a 2 story colonial with a fairly steep pitched roof, so going up on the roof is not as easy as say....going into the attic. That being said, if it is an affordable option, we could certainly use a remote blower on roof and inline silencer (whatever that is) in attic. We have no neighbors so outside noise when the blower is on is not an issue.

@robertgoulet We had the same dilemma, an upstairs obstacle to going to the roof. We will be ducting with a 90 degree turn out the side wall to a length of about 6 feet. You won't have your blower on high speed all the time, and some blowers are definitely quieter than others at the base level. If you're worried about noise, you can install the silencer or the duct noise insulation padding or probably the best and most effective option is to go with a remote blower as mentioned above. Stay away from Vent-A-Hood which has a real repuation for noise if you look deep into commenting. The VAH company itself says they have the quietest systems, but many reviewers claim their systems are very noisy. BlueStar has a reputation for noise due to baffles that are set to tightly together. Wolf is pretty good. It's something about the tightness of the baffles with BlueStar that isn't a factor with Wolf that makes the airflow less noisy with Wolf. It's really the airflow itself that creates most of your noise, not your blower. If you're about to install a high-CFM blower (above 600 CFM) with no make-up air system, watch out as you could have other problems including a real lack of effective venting due to suction created in even a moderately "leaky" house.