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.

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.

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.

Excellent product, easy to install. Replaced 1970’s style hand operated damper with this unit. Works silently and opens and closes effortlessly even on lowest fan setting.

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

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 have a POS Broan BP87 damper and when it gets windy the thing smacks and bangs loudly, I mean loud. In fact so loud you can hear it upstairs "crack!!" and it makes people jump. This is a brand new home, with a Broan BP87 Hood and this damper is a complete POS. The flaps are flimsy, not even really hinged. It seals nicely however when it is closed and prevents any backdrafts.However, Broan, could you have spent like 3-5 cents to at least just put a simple cheap foam seal around the edges where the flaps make contact to prevent that metal on metal sound and another piece of foam in between so the flaps can't smack against eachother when they lift? I would easily have paid twice the $7.00 or whatever the Broan/Nutone BP87 sells for just to have a cheap 3 cent foam seal and another piece just to keep the flaps from smacking against eachother when they both lift vertically. Instead it sounds like gun shots are going off when it's windy!Well, I was looking for a better replacement with an actual hinge and a spring to add a little bit of resistance to help prevent the wind from lifting the flaps up so easily and causing them to smack around so then tried the Air King E-22A.Unfortunately the Air King E-22A is just a different kind of POS. It has hinge in the center, a spring and feels better constructed than the Broan BP87 but the SPRING IS SO WEAK I CAN GENTLY BLOW ON IT AND IT LIFTS UP!! This is not just a weak spring, it's a completely useless spring that allows this one to bang just like the Broan BP87. Not only that there is absolutely nothing to keep on flap from rolling over ontop of the other on the other side, which could easily happen while you don't even know it allowing lots of draft. Additionally the Air King E-22A's flaps don't seal where there are large gaps on the sides which defeats the purpose of a damper (to keep outside air, especially cold air out!).Again very dissappointed, two companies, one Broan/Nutone and now Air King, both these companies have been in the ventilation business for a long time, why make products when they are practically useless or completely flawed? These sell for so cheap I'd easily pay double just for a decent damper for my range hood. THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE and a concept this simple shouldn't be that difficult. Now I feel like I have to build my own because these two companies can't.I don't typically feel compelled to leave reviews just because I don't really like a product but this is something so simple it boggles my mind how two large companies in the industry could make them so flawed.Broan/Nutone and Air King Listen UP! Make a "decent" damper that does a pretty decent job sealing drafts and doesn't bang, smack, crackle and pop, pay an extra few cents to make them and PEOPLE WILL GLADLY PAY TWICE AS MUCH AS YOU ARE CURRENTLY SELLING THEM FOR!! You can also advertise that they don't bang around!I bought another BP87 to see if I can modify the stupid thing to not smack, crackle, pop loudly when it gets windy. My plan was to try and put a thin strip of foam around where the flaps make contact. SOMETHING BROAN COULD HAVE EASILY DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE FOR 3-5 CENTS AND JUST PASSED ON THE COST! I was able to cut the noise down by doing this but ended up having to bend the flaps to close properly and not jam, still seemed like it might jam, just to flimsy, not worth it.UPDATE: I did send Broan a copy of my review and a link to the other one star reviews. They claim it isn't a common issue that they know of and sincerely apologized and recommended that an outside damper also be used. I told them that I felt it may not have been a problem if it was vented through the roof with the increased distance that the wind would have to travel and agree with the end cap w/damper. Unfortunately our builder didn't and it's stucco'd in. Broan offered to reimburse me for the BP87 but I explained it wasn't really about the cost, it's more about this making our new home buying experience miserable and having to rip out our hood range in our new home to search high and low for a decent solution.UPDATED / SOLUTION, purchased Aldes 7" Backdraft Damper Model BDD7Only thing is I had to carefully pop out the hinge rod by pulling on the sides and slide off the springs on each side, leaving just one spring in the middle because the damper didn't open on my fan's low setting because my fan moved so little air on the low setting where all 3 springs were too much resistance for the flaps. It has a soft rubber seal that the flaps fall on so no more metal on metal noise, has a real hinge and a spring. Just inserted the foam seal end into the top of my 7" range hood, used foil tape to secure it so it doens't push down when I reinstall the range hood into the ducting. NO MORE snap, crackle popping when its windy!! It's also more energy efficient by not opening when windy like the Broan BP87!I just can't understand how it could be so difficult to find a good 7" Hood Range Damper which is the most common size but I'm glad I finally found it!! I really hope this helps some one out there in the same situation!!

Some time ago I had to have my roofing replaced. The contractor replaced the roof vent with one without a damper. Recently I had to replace the range hood and found this neat gadget. Just what the doctor ordered. Fit perfectly over the hood duct, and into the duct pipe. Unfortunately in my case, the duct piping was a bit too long and would have to be altered in order to install it, which would require quite a bit of extra work. ( no fault of the manufacturer or the part ). It will have to wait until a later date for installation. I do recommend it.

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.