Monogram - 48 inches - Externally Vented - Wall Range Hood - Stainless Steel

The Monogram range hood looks great. It's far quieter than expected for a hood of its size and power. I don't feel the need to raise my voice to talk when the fan is set to Low, Medium, or High. It does get a bit loud in Boost mode, which is effectively Super-High. That mode isn't needed unless you really want to quickly clear the room of excess smoke/fumes. Although the range does a good and quiet job of exhausting smoke and odor, there are negatives: 1) The built-in light is far too dim. On the brightest setting, the light is barely brighter than a couple of candles. Seriously. I called the service line to see if I just got a bad bulb. They said it's dim by design. Hmmm. This is a very large (48") range hood, so it blocks the light from the light fixtures in our ceiling. A big hood like this really needs good lighting built-in. Oh, and I asked the service tech what it would cost to replace the bulb, just in case I wanted to try that. The cost is $182 FOR A LIGHT BULB! And that doesn't include the cost of labor to replace the bulb (the hood must be partially disassembled to access the bulb). 2) The installation instructions may have been written by a child. Some of the parts required were not listed in the "Supplies and Materials to Have on Hand" section of the manual. As a result, when my contractor arrived to install, we were missing parts. Furthermore, the instructions for venting the hood out the back were incomplete. 3) When venting the hood out the back (instead of the top), there is a large hole (approximately 10"x10" remaining in the top of the hood. This is not an aesthetic issue for me, because the top of the hood is not visible. It is a huge functional issue, because the fans will pull air from wherever it's available, including that hole in the top of the hood. This hole significantly reduces the ability of the fans to pull air from beneath the hood. I fixed this by using aluminum tape to affix a 12"x12" piece of sheet metal over the hole. That's a small amount of effort, but it's outrageous that this is necessary on a brand new range hood that costs over $3,000. 3) The hood was scratched before I received it. It's easy to see why: It is poorly packaged. There was very little padding and only partial static cling protection on the stainless exterior of the hood.