Product review (5 stars): A safe buy...
Ventahood is a old and sturdy brand. What is has going for it is that it's been around forever, and probably will be...That's important for parts and warranty issues - which are only of concern if something happens... and something always happens.  I've had many houses, and many hoods, and frankly, I never gave them much thought since they usually come with the house. However, when it came time to retrofit our newest home with a hood I had to get into taking a hard look at the things. A hood should do something. Most just get installed and turned on to take a lick at removing smoke from the kitchen. And, most don't work very well at all. Any hood that puts the air back in the room with you is just dumb - open a window, open the door... Ventahood makes an expensive ARS model now, that filters the air, but it's kind of pricey - and puts the now hot air back in the kitchen with you. But, they do work on the smoke and smells - at a relatively stiff price for the filters... We went for an exhaust-pipe-to-the-outside hood to get the "dirty and hot" air out of the kitchen/out of the house. Now, here's the thing... We actually installed two vent exhaust pipes during our retrofit - one pipe for the range top exhaust and another for the entire room. Hey, we bake, the OVEN puts out smoke too! Anyhow, Ventahood missed their ship date several times and left us with wondering what it would be like to move the room exhaust blower over to the range exhaust pipe. (Both are 8" pipes.) No big surprise, a fan is a fan and the steam and smoke went away very quickly. I put up a temporary "shell" over the range and it worked about as well as the $1,000.00 vent hood did later. Ventahood makes some sense in their basic design - a deeper hood catches rising air, smoke and steam - which tends to go up - and removes what collects in the hood. Flat surfaced hoods would need to, I tend to agree, have to do a bit more to "attract" the smoke and keep it moving. More "attraction" means more noise due to higher fan and air speeds - and it is the moving air speed that makes the noise, not the fan motors. We piddled with that "catch basin" idea a bit and made temporary shells that tended to prove a collector works better than a flat surface. (Can you catch anything with a flat hand?) So, we finally get the Ventahood - in white - and we're very pleased with the brightness of the white over the stainless steel look, etc. - especially on the inside of the hood which reflects more light to the work surface. We try the fans out and are very happy that the low speed is not all that loud, and that the unit "collects" smoke and steam very easily and gets the stuff out of the house. Cooking bacon has never been less of a chore... Our house smells better, our clothes smell better, and we'll wind up with our paint and furniture staying "new" longer. I'd probably give this unit, and those like it 4.5 stars if I could - nothing is perfect. But, maybe since we'll never have to worry much about parts we can't get, etc., 5 stars (.5 for the brand name) isn't too much to ask. "Buy the best you can afford" is usually good advice. On the other hand, keep in mind that ten minutes after you install your new hood you'll start forgetting it's there... A hood, after all, is just a hood. A hood that does what a hood should do, on the other hand, is something to appreciate - even if only when you actually need it and it works. We haven't had this long enough to have to clean it, but I'm over six feet and it doesn't seem like much of a chore. Actually, since it's just the collection pan most the time, and not "filters" it seems easier than it could be on other units. Nothing is perfect, but I tend to favor things with fewer moving parts. This thing only has a couple and it seems like a forgiving design in terms of not cleaning it all the time. We'll probably buy another one from Ventahood the next time around - there are lots of "knock off" units that are cheaper, but there are cheaper cars too.