Product review (5 stars): Quiet and Powerful
This is an excellent hood, with a powerful squirrel cage fan that works very efficiently to pull smoke, grease and odors out of our kitchen. I've only had one other fan that was better and it was a professional hood sitting over a 60" 8-burner range. But loud? Please! This one is over my 30" GE Profile Induction range and is much quieter, even on the highest setting.

It's been installed less than a month. So far, it's cleared away heat from my oven and a bunch of odors. Popcorn (several times), burned fried taquitos (don't ask), sausage and bacon odors were all removed in about 10 minutes.

For the amount of air it moves (900cfm), it's quiet. Even on the highest setting, it's easy to have a conversation in the kitchen. We were worried the lights wouldn't be bright enough, since they're only 2w (LED), but they light up my entire cooktop exceptionally well, also lighting the entire backlash and spilling out onto the countertop on either side. The light is bright white, almost blue, which was disconcerting at first, but I soon got accustomed to it. If you're used to warmer incandescent lights, as I was, it's a shock at first. The controls are as simple as can be.

Construction is excellent, the housing is made of one piece of heavy gauge brushed stainless steel. This results in nice rounded corners and no sharp edges anywhere, so there's no danger of cutting your head if you bump it. Speaking of that, we're tall (5'9" and 6'), so installed it at the max height of 30", for fear of hitting our heads. We needn't have worried. In fact, we could have dropped it down 2" and still had good clearance, with even better air capture. Unless you're exceptionally tall, 28" is plenty high enough. The stainless baffle filters are also very easy to remove and replace. Personally, I find them far more attractive than mesh filters.

My husband installed it easily in a couple of days. It ships with everything needed to get it to the ceiling, but if you're venting it outside, you'll need to buy additional vent tubing, a wall or roof vent, flashing, gunk to glue it all down, etc... We bought a kit from Home Depot ($30) that had almost everything we needed to vent it out our roof. We also widened the tube to 7" to allow for easier airflow. Because we have 10' ceilings, the included chimney is too short. Rather than purchase an extension ($128) from XtremeAir, We had a local machine shop fabricate a chimney to match the hood. The cost was $200 and left us with a 1-piece chimney, a much cleaner look than the extension provides. It's a perfect fit and the finish is dead on. If you go this route, leave the included chimney with your machine shop, this will make it easy for them to match the brushed grain of the metal.

Cleaning is easy so far. Before using it, I poured a few drops (literally, 3 or 4) of cooking oil onto a folded paper towel and wiped it all over, following the grain. I know it seems counterintuitive to put oil on, but it makes it look gorgeous and prevents rust. Once a week I stand on a stepstool and wipe it clean with a paper towel. Lint and dirt wipe right off. Takes about 2 minutes, including time spent getting the stool. I haven't coated the chimney yet, I need to haul out a tall ladder for that. In a few more weeks I'll clean the baffles.

Overall, it's a very well made fan with excellent airflow and quality features at a very reasonable price. Made in China, every unit is inspected, tested and repacked (very securely) at XtremeAir's California facility. We're well satisfied.

**** UPDATE ****
We've been using our hood now for about 8 months and still like it very much. It is noisy on high, but not as noisy as the big prosumer hood I had. We forgive it because it sucks grease and odors out so quickly. Also, my kitchen is wide open so we notice it more than most people will. We routinely fire up my wok on high heat, get it smoking hot, and cook away. The fan sucks the smoke right up. As soon as I turn off the wok, I can turn off the fan. I preheat my oven at 550 for an hour to cook a pizza. The fan (on low) cools the room very well. Most of the time, we turn it on for a few minutes on high, then bring it down to it's lowest setting, which is great for most cooking. You can find a quieter fan, but it'll cost 3 times as much. We still highly recommend it.