Broan QS130SS Allure Range Hood, Stainless Steel, 30-inch

I like this fan. I replaced an "over the range" microwave with this fan. It fits the space perfectly and since it is a lot more shallow than a microwave I now have more room to cook on my stovetop - especially with the rear burners. I like the bright lights on this new fan too. I went for a mid-range price Broan because my kitchen set up (open concept room) requires a non-ducted fan (unless I wanted to hire a contractor for a major overhaul which I didn't). Logically, there is no way a non-ducted fan will ever give the same level of performance as a ducted to the outside fan, so it didn't seem to me worth it to pay more money for a more elaborate fan. Also, I noticed in reviews that the more expensive Broan fans have an automatic feature where if the fan senses too much heat it will turn itself on and run until the heat drops to a certain level - you can't turn it off manually when it goes into an override mode and reviewers said they hated that feature - I would hate it too. This model of Broan fan does NOT have that automatic on feature so that was a big plus for me. This model also has a completely smooth underside (other than the mesh filters) and I think it will be reasonably easy to clean. It has "rocker" style switches for the fan and the lights and I like that type of switch better than a soft touch button, I think they are more durable. Installation was fairly easy, my son-in-law helped me because it is awkward to hold something above your head while trying to fasten it. I purchased a cord (on Amazon, Broan HCK44 power cord kit) to modify the fan from direct wiring into a plug wiring and was therefore able to just plug it into the electrical outlet that had been used for the microwave. This was quite easy to do, the cord came with good instructions, just follow them carefully. I also purchased the charcoal filters that are used for non-ducted use of this fan (Amazon, Broan BPSF30 non-ducted filter set) and those were also easy to install. I also purchased the lightbulbs (Amazon, Sylvania #14700 50 watt PAR20 Halogen, set of two) and installed those in the fan after it was mounted. I'm telling you all of this so that if you want to install this fan non-ducted and not hard wired you will know you have to purchase these things separately (fan, power cord kit, charcoal filters and lightbulbs). It would be annoying to not have everything you need while doing the installation. As far as function I am happy with it. The fan has two speeds which is fine by me, high and low. The low is very quiet the high is louder but not unbearably loud. The lights also have low and high. In my opinion the low lighting would be a little too bright to function as a nightlight and halogen bulbs get hot so I wouldn't use the low setting as an overnight nightlight. The reason I'm not giving this product five stars is that the first one I bought arrived very poorly packaged, basically thrown in a huge box with a few handfuls of packing peanuts. The peanuts had even gotten inside of the fan blade part of the unit and I had to pick them out. I thought it was poorly packaged but unharmed and it wasn't until my son in law and I got the fan fully installed that we noticed a big "ding" right on the front top of the fan. It was such a bad dent I had to return the fan to Amazon which meant taking it down, packing it up and running to UPS with a big box. Amazon did pay for the return shipping and sent me a new fan (same model) without an additional charge. The replacement fan was very securely packaged in stiff foam. But it was a hassle, I had to wait for my son in law to have a free evening to help me again, plus the packaging and trip to UPS. If you receive your fan and it is poorly packaged, take it out and examine it very carefully before you install.

The Broan QS130SS is a pretty nice upgrade from what we had before, which was a NuTone hood that was so old I couldn't even find a replacement filter for it. While I'm not sure this range hood is actually worth $150+ for some thin metal and a couple of basic electronic features (fan and lights) -- I'm sure the markup for the retailers is great -- it is a pretty slick looking hood that otherwise seems to be of pretty good quality so far.Installation notes:- We needed to go with the ductless mode for this hood, which should have made it that much more easier to install, except in our case it was quite a challenge. It should be easy to install because once you have some screws in place (a total of 4), you can just line them up with the keyhole slots on the top of the hood. Unfortunately, the screw positions from our old hood did not align with this new model, so we basically had to start from scratch and without a whole lot of usable under-cabinet space. While preparing the hood for ductless mode was very easy, it was quite a pain to line up 4 new screw positions on the underside of the cabinet. Please be sure to wear gloves, because there are some sharp metal edges on the inside of this hood that will slice ya, as it did me, if you're not careful. Aside from the mounting part, everything else, including the wiring, was pretty straightforward.Note to Broan: please include a mounting template.- There is one gotcha with this hood in that the directions call for adding an electrical clamp to the wiring hole. Yet for whatever reason, Broan doesn't include this small part which only costs about .50 cents at the hardware store. This was annoying to find out when I was ready to get this thing installed only to learn I needed to run out to the local hardware store. Technically, you could skip the electrical clamp, as our old hood (installed by someone else years before we moved in) didn't have one, but then your wiring would be sitting over the edge of a sharp, thin metal hole, and I don't know if that's a code violation, but definitely not something I'd want to worry about.Light bulb notes:The manufacturer clearly states they only support the PAR20 type halogens or incandescent bulbs and for good reason -- this unit simply does not play nice with LED bulbs. Sure, proper sized LED bulbs will turn on with this hood, but more likely than not, they will not dim as you'd hope they would. Instead, the LED bulbs might just stay the same level of brightness but flicker badly on the low brightness setting. If you're OK with LEDs only on the bright setting, then I'd say go for them, but otherwise go with what Broan recommends/supports.Filter notes:If you're going for ductless, remember to get the charcoal filters. Also note that the charcoal filters do not work by themselves -- you have to clip them on to the all-metal filters that are included with the range hood, or they won't fit. I didn't realize this at first and didn't read the directions (because why would I! Should be so simple...) and thought I had the wrong sized filters. Before giving up I finally read the instructions and got everything nicely into place.