Broan BP87 Vertical Discharge Damper, 7-Inch

When you buy a new range hood odds are it won’t come with a new damper. You probably have an old damper in your duct work that you could reuse, but it’s likely just as greasy and nasty as the old hood your replacing. I bought a new hood with a seven inch exhaust. My duct work is five inches. I bought a reducer to make it work. I bought this damper and it fit right into the reducer and the reducer to the hood exhaust and duct work with no issues. There is another version of this damper that comes with a piece of foam on it to eliminate the clattering noise when you turn on your hood fan. The noise is caused by the damper flaps banging on each other when the fan is on high. This damper is BP87. The one with the foam is BP87Q. I lucked out. I ordered the BP87 but got the BP87Q. It has one piece of soft foam in the center near the bottom of one flap with the intent of keeping the flaps from hitting each other. Testing showed it wasn’t enough. The fan created enough pressure to defeat this single bit of foam. I cut the foam piece in half and glued that extra piece to the other flap so the two foam pieces meet when the flaps raise up. This successfully stopped the metal flaps from noisily banging off each other. The BP87Q also has a small piece of plastic film on top of the base where the flap meets it when it closes. This is supposed to reduce the noise when they flop closed when you turn off the fan. (The BP87 may have this thin piece of plastic, I don’t know as the pictures don’t show it and it’s not what I have.) There is still some noise with this plastic film in place. Maybe the clap sound would be louder without this piece of plastic, but I’m not going to remove the plastic to find out. I tested the damper before connecting the duct work and it made a little noise when the fan is on high, but it was very minor. This noise came from where the flaps connected to the base like hinges. Nothing I could do about that and it was minor so I ignored it. This has to be loose to allow the flaps to open and close. Try to crimp it tighter and the flaps would likely get stuck making the damper useless. It didn’t matter. After connecting the duct I turned the fan up to high and all I heard was the fan. I tried it multiple times listening very carefully. The only noise I hear is a couple of muffled claps as the damper closes when I turn the fan off. Other than that, my damper is noise free. As far as hearing the damper clap around a bit on windy days. I haven’t had a windy day since my install, but my old one clattered. The dampers in my last two houses clattered. It never bothered me. I just use it as a gauge as to how much wind is out there. If I do get clattering I’ll update my review. Otherwise, I’m happy with this guy. One minor modification to reduce the noise during normal use and it’s good enough. Update: About a week later and have a storm blowing through. Yes, the damper is flipping around a bit. Not much. Not annoying. It's as expected. The damper is very light weight which is necessary so it opens up when the fan turns on. I suspect the only way to stop this minor flapping when it is windy is to add a second damper at the top of the vent on the roof. Not worth the trouble and expense to me as I feel the noise is so minor. I don't consider this minor flapping a negative. It's just a spaced out kind of muffled flap with a tinny sound the same as when you turn your fan off. Flap.....................................................................................Flap......................Flap...................................................................... Not Flap, Flap, Flap Flap.

Had to trim the edge, made a good fit, works good so far

I think this damper would work fine with metal duct. It was a good fit for my bath fan. However, I was trying to connect flex duct, and the ribs kept it from opening. So, I didn't end up using it. I might get a short section of metal duct to splice in and try again.

I felt heat coming down thru our stoves extraction hood, it's not broan brand, but this damper fit just right anyway, no more heat coming down, I was thinking maybe this would rattle while the exhaust fan was running, but nope, no noise at all, and it opens up on low setting too, this was just what we needed, installed in about 5 minutes in our case with no tools at all, the damper sits on the ring of the hood, the flexible hose slipped onto the damper pretty snug, and case closed,

I installed this damper when I replaced my range hood recently. The vent did not have a damper earlier and I used to get a strong draft. I have to say this one has worked pretty good. Unlike many of the reviews, I did not find it to be flimsy or noisy. Yes, the flappers are made of thin metal plates. They have to be if they are to open at the low fan speed. But the rim is pretty solid, and unlike the dampers that come with may of the range hoods, this one covered the opening completely so their is no air leak when closed. Having read the reviews about clanking noise, I initially glues pieces of foam around the edge. But since the hinge is flush with the rim, those foam pieces kept the flaps from closing completely and hence air leaked through. I ended up removing the foam. When the fan is turned off the flaps come to rest slowly and there is no banging. The butterfly flappers are also designed such that they do not touch each other when open, even at high fan speed. The only things that remains to be seen is whether they will continue to open as smoothly when they get heavier with grease deposits over time.

Works well, not noisy even on windy days. Quieter than my old one anyway.

Noise free. Great. Fit exactly Excellent

I found it to be a challenge to find a suitable for my new Broan Sahalle range hood. This gravity style damper appears to work well even with the fan on low. I admit I am not a sheet metal guy, but I do have technical training. To me it was awkward to attach the damper to the 7” Broan adapter flange - which was hard to get btw. It did not fit snugly and had to be taped in place. What I really did not understand was that the damper did not really fit into a 7” pipe. I had to make a 4” high piece of 7” duct to allow for the flaps to operate before they got into the 7” to 6” adapter. I had to leave the bottom of the 4” piece I made open at the bottom to make it fit. I don’t know why it had to be this hard to change out my range hood.

Easy to install. Loud when it's windy outside. Consider spending extra on the "quiet" version for double the price.

As advertised. Hard to get excited about a damper.