ZephyrAK2100BS 30" Power Typhoon Series Under Cabinet Hood with 850 CFM in Stainless Steel

The media could not be loaded.  I would have given it five stars except for the extreme difficulty in installing this product and, as in most of the other reviews, it arrived with some damage from being dropped. The dent was on the top back of the unit so I just installed it anyway.This is the finished product after installing the the Zephyr Typhoon which moves 850 ft.³ per minute of air.Normally, as soon as I started cooking anything with the overhead microwave as the fan, the house would fill with smoke and my wife would start yelling at me. The only way to clear the room was to turn on all ceiling fans in the house and open all the doors.The Zephyr Typhoon cleared all of the smoke very quickly even on the quiet lowest fan setting.I went through the various speeds on the range hood and at the medium or highest setting it actually did create two separate typhoons that were immediately blown out through the new larger ductwork that I installed for the vent. I strongly recommend at least 6 inch ducting all the way through.My wife was in the next room and couldn’t even tell what I was cooking because the smell was also sucked out.The range hood was horribly designed for the installer and took forever as I had to modify a few things but it certainly works as advertised and has completely taken all the frustration of a smoke-filled room out of my 2 to 3 times daily cooking experiences.This range hood would have been a million times better if it just came with two rails to mount first that you could slide the hood on to. Trying to hold up a 35 pound hood while leaning over the stove and attempting to put screws in blindly, at an angle from underneath using an 8 inch drill extension was, well, taxing to say the least.Once installed, it works as advertised at half the price of a lot of the same hoods with this much power.

I like the electronic touch controls rather than buttons or switches. This unit is amazingly powerful and fairly quiet at low speed. Even at it's lowest speed setting of "Q", it moves a lot of air. As far as installation, carefully read the instructions and diagrams to understand how to setup the unit before attempting to install and then triple-check all dimensions, openings, etc.I installed my own and it required a lot of work. First, there was a wall stud in the way of the vent passing through the wall. That required cutting a large opening to install lateral and cripple studs (think of framing a window). Then, that in-the-way stud had 120v service on it (Romex cable) going to an outlet under the counter for the stovetop to plug into. That required rerouting, cutting, and positioning a Handy-box inside the wall for safely adding new Romex to accommodate the longer run to that outlet under the counter. Finally, the stud on the left that the lateral studs attached to had 240v service on it going to the double-oven located 6ft away. That required notching the lateral studs and careful drilling and screwing. Supports on the side also had to be notched using a tablesaw. Whew, it was a lot of work but when everything went together it turned out great. If I had paid someone to do this to include cutting thru the outer brick wall, installing the exterior vent, removing and replacing the cabinet the hood mounted to, reinforcing that same cabinet to accommodate the weight of the hood, removing the backsplash marble tile, replacing all that tile and fulling installing it (required cutting, mortaring, grouting, and sealing), plus more, then I would have paid over $2k-$3k.That said, this unit is very nice and I have been using it almost daily for over a month now. It is well made and very high quality. You definitely get what you pay for. I would purchase this unit again. #

I was at first skeptical to buy this range hood due to the following reasons:1) This model looks different from other regular range hoods with baffle filters.2) The range hood depth may not be enough to capture all the smokes and smells.3) I was not sure how well the self-cleaning will work by just squirting a cleaning liquid into the fan as shown on Zephyr’s website4) I wasn’t sure if it’s too cumbersome to unscrew the grilles for cleaningI did tons of research and finally bit the bullet and purchased this range hood. I had a professional to install this hood along with the Broan 8” universal make up air damper kit. It’s been a month and I’m really very happy with this range hood. I cook a lot of Asian and Indian food and this hood is able remove all the cooking smell, smoke and grease. I no longer have to close the bedroom doors or open the patio doors when I cook.I tried the self-cleaning method and it works like a charm. Unscrewing the grill is a breeze and cleaning the grilles are very easy. I placed them in the dishwasher and there are no discolorations. I ran the hood in Q – Quiet mode and squirted 409 cleaning liquid around 35 times in each blower as per the recommendation. The detergent liquids were collected in the grease cups and they were brown in color. I did not feel any greasy / oily residue inside the blower fan (I tried this after switching off the hood).This range hood is not very loud in the highest settings. Make sure to use either 8” or 10” galvanized steel duct. If you use less than 8” duct size then the hood will sound like a jet and may not function properly. I used the 8" Zephyr wall cap outlet with screen and damper (AK00044). I'm not disappointed with this range hood.