Had to make a couple of minor customizations so that I could use this hood. First, since the cabinet above the stove didn't provide enough clearance for the hood, I had my contractor build another "fake" cabinet. Then, we had to use semi-rigid vs. rigid vent material because there is a gas line directly above my stove and we didn't have enough space to turn rigid duct work.
Only issue I have (and I believe others have had the same issue) is that at the low settings (1 and 2 bars), there is a constant humming sound. Hood was leveled as per directions, but still the sound won't go away. Kind of annoying, but livable.
Very good product!
If you cook with a lot of heat and oil (typical Chinese style for example), you will love this product way better than the weak ones or the ones that don't have real ventilation.
This is a carefully designed product: simple and solid surfaces. The control panel is simple and well organized, this range hood even reminds me of Apple products. It's delightful to touch and use. The handyman who was installing it praised its efficiency.
It's very powerful in terms of getting rid of smoke and food odor. When it's running w/ full strength, we can't even smell the food 2 meters away or in any room above kitchen area. It's reasonably quiet. I haven't tried the auto clean feature but it looks like a well thought through feature as well.
The seller was very responsive to my questions before and after the order. The seller is knowledgeable about installation and cares deeply about his/her customers.
We used this to replace a Thermador that appears to have been installed by monkeys with a reciprocating saw. The only good part of the previous install was the 8" external vent. Because of the awkward location of the previous vent, on the right side, a few inches above the shelf, and right through a stud, I had to use semi flexible duct to turn 90 degrees almost straight off the adapter and slightly forward, and then continue turning more than 90 degrees to meet the external vent. Hard 90s were too long to fit in the space. Even with the odd ducting this still works very well. The total run is around two feet, which probably helps with the bad turns necessitated by the previous install. The old Thermador was so noisy and unbalanced that you could hear and feel it in most of the house, this hood is maybe a tenth as loud and we feel no vibration.
One thing they could have done to male life easier, mark the screw holes on the template. It's hard to do yourself, so I didn't, but I should have. If I did it again I would tape the template to the top, then mark the screw locations from the inside. The screws also don't get hold of a lot of the hood, so I will be refitting one at a time using washers to extend the bearing surface. For the rear screws you either need a very long screwdriver, or better still a really long bit on a power screwdriver. I have ordered a foot long bit to reach up past the fan to the rear mounts. You might also look at using self drilling screws if you need to add more support. I replaced the remains of the shelf above with 3/4" plywood, so four screws is enough for me.
This great looking unit performs as it should -- well. It keeps the cooking smells and clouds of fragrant steam to a minimum. Self cleaning capability is quite nice and the (for lack of a better description for it) "oil drip pan" under the fans (and located directly above your stove's burners) is easy to remove (with its magnetic catches) and is easy to wipe down every few months to get rid of the oil crude that inevitably gets all over a range hood (I just use clorox wipes and the stuff wipes off...if you don't let it set for a couple years and harden into a sticky mat). It's a little bit on the noisy end of the spectrum, but...I feel it's acceptable (I actually like it), but others may not like the background sound of turbines while they're cooking a meal.
Installation, for the most part, was pretty straight forward, including routing and hooking up the exhaust ducting. However, there was one irritating item I wrestled with and that was screwing the thing into the bottom of the cabinet. It's not an easy, straight shot with a screw gun and an extension deep through the guts of the machine and it took me a while to figure out a means of keeping the screws from getting knocked off the tip of my screw gun while trying to work my way to the screw holes. Basically I abandoned a couple of the more difficult mounting holes and drilled new ones in secure, but easier to access locations. Not the first time I've had to deal with something like this. I truly believe (and I am sure many installation pros and DIY'ers believe this too) that design engineers should be forced to install things that they design -- with regularly available hand tools -- before releasing products for production/sale.
Just saying....
We received this item sooner than expected. It is easier to have two people to hold and screw it in place. The buttons require only a soft touch for the power/fan to start working. No cooking odors with the fan on anywhere in the house. (If you forget to turn the fan on while you were frying onions/fish, and garlic for 30 minutes, there would be an odor accumulating in the hall/living room. But once the fan starts working, the odor fades away.) So far we are very happy with it. It is powerful, loud, but not annoying. The sound is pleasant. Has a few settings for lights with a bright option. What sold us on this product is a 2 year company warranty. Looking forward to auto clean.
Feature Product
- POWERFUL 950 CFM WITH DUAL MOTORS: Prepare all of your favorite meals without worrying about unwanted smells, messy splatters or dangerous fumes.
- INNOVATIVE STEAM AUTO CLEAN: Chef's steam clean function turns water into steam to dissolve cold grease. Once dissolved, water is sprayed to get your range hood completely clean. Improve hygiene while increasing the life of your motor.
- BUTTONLESS SLEEK DESIGN: Touch control panel with easy-to-read display screen and digital clock allows you to keep track of your cooking time.
- EASY TO CLEAN FILTERS: Chef's 30in range hood is designed with easy-to-remove stainless steel baffle filters. Just place in the dishwasher to clean!
- BRIGHT LED ILLUMINATION: Chef's PS38 features two bright LED lamps with a perfect intensity setting to illuminate your culinary needs.
Description
Created with Tatsumaki’s most innovated technology, this range hood is equipped with the steam clean capability along with its sleek hood design. The steam clean function has proven to be the an effective way to clean the hood interior by spraying steam onto the fan blades and interior housing followed by a water rinse.
This thing sucks, like really sucks all the air out that I can't feel any heat from my 18000 BTU burner cooking food in front of me. It's surreal to watch food turn from raw to cooked in front of you without feeling the heat.
I was deciding between all three under cabinet range hood models offered by chef kitch when I read somewhere from the manufacture claiming that this hood was designed to maximize the ability to trap smoke and it makes a lot of sense to me as the smoke rises to the top will spread out naturally and the square shaped filter slits will then suck them into the fan. Because this unit has wider filter slits compared to a more common baffle filters, airflow will be higher on those slits and the suction force will be more concentrated on the edge of the filter where most smoke will be.
Anyhow, I'm not an aerodynamic engineer but my experience so far with stir frying Chinese food under this hood has been flawless. I have yet to use the auto cleaning function but the videos on this page is very straight forward with explaining how it works.
Excellent range hood, very weighty, huge CFM, which I need because we cook many types of Asian food. When your bed sheets smell like Pad Thai, it's time to bump up to a better model of vent. This does the job-and as a bonus it cleans itself. Very pleased. This hood is the bomb! Best purchase I have ever made.
I've owned this for several months now and can say that this was a great purchase. I no longer have to worry about any smells upstairs after cooking. I've tried using my wok as well and the kitchen is free of smoke. I'm thoroughly impressed. It is not loud on high for the amount of air it moves. It is pretty heavy, but I was able to install it myself using a cabinet jack. You just have to buy 2 boards, one to set the cabinet jack on top of the stove and the other for the hood to sit on. I have not experienced any problems with the LCD that others have reported.
After a careful research, I finally decided to get the Chef Range Hood 30" PS38 to replace my old hood. It arrived after a reasonable waiting time, without any damage. Installation is not much different from my old hood but with one exception, the power cord of this hood comes out very close the corner of the hood top, so I had to cut off some side wall of the cabinet to let cord through. The hood looks nice, the control panel is easy to use, and it has six speed setting allowing more picky choice of sucking power and noise tolerance as well. I have used the hood once after installation, it appeared to meet my expectation: effective in removing smell, and relatively quiet for the power. The steam cleaning function of this hood is supposed to be a big advantage compared to most other hoods which are not equipped with this. While I have not had chance to see how effective it does the cleaning job, I did test how it works, it appeared to work very well and expected to be helpful in cleaning the internal parts, which is a very difficult to do in my previous hood. All in all, so far so good, I like it.
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