Hi...
We just had our kitchen remodeled... Took everything down to studs and built back up. We got a GE stove and over-the-stove microwave/vent. We were a bit dismayed when we actually tried the vent - the thing sounds like a plane engine but it won't even draw the steam of a pot boiling *right underneath it*.
We had the GE repair guy out; he said "it's functioning as designed. That'll be $170 for the visit" even though we boiled a pot of water in front of him and showed that the damn thing doesn't suck in the literal sense, just the vernacular sense. We complained to Lowes, where we bought it and they've been great. They tried to at least get GE to drop the $170 visit charge, but GE told Lowes to f*ck off.
Our contractor asked around to a couple of people who had the same units, and they said "Yeah, the vent doesn't work for beans; I don't use it."
Lowes has said that they'll give us an extra $170 credit towards whatever we'd like to replace it with to make up for GE being jerks.
The question is are there any microwave/hood vents that actually work for spit, or do you have to trade off? If you have a microwave, are the vents just really ineffectual because the microwave is in the way? We're thinking maybe just getting a dedicated hood vent but then that makes you wonder where to put a microwave.
The Lowes guys just have the spec sheets for units; they didn't have a lot of first-hand experience. According to the spec sheets, anyway, most of the combo units claim the vent moves ~300 cubic feet per minute. At least with the one we've got, the fan out the top may be moving 300 cpm, but it doesn't translate to any draw on the bottom side at all.
We saw just a hood vent at Lowes that was spec'ed at 300 com and it did quite a bit better than what we've got. They also had a unit on the shelf that was rated at ~520 cpm but it wasn't hooked up for demonstration.
How about it? Anyone out there know of any good microwave/hood vent combos? As the Lowes guy said, you can't just call the manufacturers and expect them to tell the truth about their products...
Thanks Mark