Product review (4 stars): Good value for money - but 600 cfm spec is meaningless & cheap construction in some areas
We prefer home cooked food to eating out, and for seven years, the only ventilation we had was a 2003 recirculating Kitchen Aid OTR microwave. To avoid our home smelling like a restaurant kitchen, we tried a lot of things - an AustinAir charcoal filtration device, a charcoal microwave fan filter, 3M charcoal furnace filters, a box fan placed in front of an open window, and finally, a window fan used as an exhaust. The charcoal filters were completely ineffective at removing odors; the box fan was somewhat effective, but required an open window with no seal around the fan; this made for some interesting cooking in winters with sub zero outside temperatures. The window fan was the most effective of all, but required a bit of set up to seal around it and hence was inconvenient to use. We finally bit the bullet and purchased this hood. Due to the complexity of the duct run, we had a professional contractor install it. A quick summary here - it works far better than anything else we've tried, details follow.

First, appearance. The stainless steel finish goes very well with our other stainless steel appliances. I did not see obvious cosmetic flaws. I use a stainless steel polish to clean it, and it has a nice appearance. The two LED lights provide good illumination over the range, much better than the microwave did. Know though, that replacements need to be ordered from Proline when they burn out. They don't appear to be standard fittings, and don't seem to be available from any other supplier.

Moving now to performance. The hood is rated at 600 cfm. In the absence of some basic additional information, this is a completely meaningless specification. They do not tell you under what back pressure a flow rate of 600 cfm is achieved. Broan, for example, specifies their hood capacity at a back pressure of 0.1" of water. This allows you for instance, to determine that if you use a 350 cfm rated hood and a 7" dia duct, you should have no more than a 25 foot straight duct length if you desire to get full capacity, which offers atleast some basis for comparison or design. More ideally, one would need a flow rate versus back pressure curve similar to what comes with sump pumps. I can only assume that the specified flow rate for Proline hoods is achieved under completely unconstrained conditions, and addition of ANY ducting will reduce the capacity, perhaps even significantly versus the specification. Some useful rules of thumb - flow resistance decreases with the fourth power of pipe radius and increases proportionately with length. Using a 4" diameter duct will result, for example, in five times the flow resistance of a 6" dia duct of the same length. Using an 8" duct will reduce the flow resistance by a factor of three over a 6" duct. So go with the largest diameter duct and as straight and short a run as possible. I used 6" because I had to cut through an exterior brick wall, and was concerned over making too large a hole.  I had about 20' of duct length with one 90 degree bend directly over the hood.

Proline supplied what looked like 3/8" length screws for mounting. I was skeptical that these tiny screws would support a 25 lb hood; nobody else seems to have commented on this, so perhaps it was a one time error by Proline. My installer replaced these with much better and stronger mounting bolts. Once installed, it worked well. It came with a standard three prong plug, so no special electrical work was needed. It does not extend over the two front burners of my Bosch range, but does a reasonably good job of capturing odors from those burners. I pan fried skate on my front burner, and could not smell it outside the kitchen. We use the center burner for high heat cooking which helps since it is directly below the two fans. Additionally, I blocked the intake vent in the kitchen leading to my furnace to prevent kitchen odors spreading to the rest of the house during cooking. This has worked very well even during heavy cooking. As others have mentioned, pressing the fan power button once when the fans are running starts an internal 3 minute timer after which the fan turns off. This allows you to exhaust any residual odors after light cooking. After more heavy cooking, I find that 3 minutes is insufficient, so I manually turn it off when I feel it has adequately exhausted the kitchen air. I actually checked using a count up timer that this is three minutes and not four (as some have said in answers to the questions about this product); obviously I only checked mine and cannot say if Proline has changed this setting between units or over time.

In terms of noise, in "Quiet" mode, it is about as noisy as our OTR microwave at full speed, on higher speeds, noisier. You can carry out a conversation with someone in the same room, but will have trouble hearing someone/something if there is a wall or door in between. Regardless of speed, I have trouble hearing the radio (which is at the opposite end of the kitchen) when I am close to the range. It does not bother us too much, but tolerance to noise is subjective. If you need something quiet, this is probably not the hood for you, but you'll end up paying a lot more for one that's significantly quieter. One thing that may help with the noise is using the largest diameter duct possible. This will reduce the air speed for the same cfm, which will reduce the noise a little; as an illustration, the average air speed in an 8" dia duct will be 56% that in a 6" dia duct for the same flow rate.

Construction wise, one thing I am concerned about is the quality of the springs in the grease filters that hold them in place in their slots. These look very flimsy and I am not convinced they will last. One of the filters has a slight bow to it, but it isn't terribly noticeable. Proline says these filters can be cleaned in a dishwasher. Personally, I am less convinced, and plan to hand wash them with dish soap (update- I actually put these in the dishwasher a few times and they seem to hold up fine.) They trap grease pretty well, so if you do any significant cooking, you will want to clean them every 2-3 weeks. From attempting to clean my OTR microwave filters, I know you do not want to let the grease oxidize at which point it becomes impossible to remove without using something like TSP. Also probably not a bad idea to have a couple of spares ordered for these and the lights - you do not know how long Proline will continue to provide support in the form of spare parts!

Overall, this is a hood that provides good value for money. It does not come with features like a digital clock or timer, but I have plenty of other appliances that provide this functionality. If you are looking for a hood with good exhaust capability at a price that won't break the bank, and can live with a little noise, this is not a bad choice. The 600 cfm number is meaningless and you should not use it to compare this versus competitive products.

Edit: I recently moved to a home that has a Venmar 350 cfm hood connected to a 6" duct with a short run. That hood, at its lowest setting, clearly outperforms this one even at its highest setting, as observed by how well it captures steam from a boiling pot. I put this personal observation down to make the point that there is a lot more to a hood than cfm rating. The overall design of the capture area, the installation, and the back pressure at which the cfm rating is measured all matter a great deal.

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