Recently purchased a new under cabinet range hood that has a power cord and plug to make the electrical connection. My previous hood was hardwired so there is no outlet in the cabinet. The instruction manual for the new hood states the plug of the power cord can be cut off and wired directly to source wiring. I don't have any problems with installing an outlet in the cabinet but I do want to investigate the hardwired option. Some questions arose from this search: 1. Does cutting off the plug affect UL rating and does it matter? I've seen it mentioned a couple of times that cutting off the plug affects the rating. 2. I've also seen it mentioned that the power cord can't/shouldn't be used to hardwire. Not sure I understand that one as the cord will always be plugged in. 3. Can the inside of the hood be considered a junction box/safe place to splice feed and fan wires? There is no designated area inside the hood to do wiring. In fact, once the baffles are removed, the inside of the unit is completely visible. This was the case with my previous fan (no covered in area) but there was a metal cover that got screwed in across the bottom of fan before the filters went on. 4. Related to the wiring, if a splice can be made in the unit, can I ground the unit with a pig tail from the ground splice to the unit at one of the screws used to attach the unit to the cabinet/wall? My previous unit had a specific, physically attached steel bracket with two screws for the ground wires (one from feed one from fan). Would the pigtail achieve the same result? 5. The power cord was installed at the factory and it is coming out the back. I would prefer it to come out the top but the cord has one of those black cord stress relief bushings and I don't see any way of releasing it. Does any one know how to deal with those things? Thanks

Hello. I have a central DuoVac Vacuum cleaner in the basement. While going through seasonal dirt hopper maintenance, I noticed that the PVC piping linking the silencer to the unit has changed shape, the elbow is not longer round section (rather flattened) and the piping going inside the unit once made the silencer hold vertically, it has now changed geometry so the silencer is now diagonal. Any idea what the issue can be here? Is this something I can fix? Is this plastic fusion happening? Important fact, the "dirt" piping going into the unit is just fine, no deformities observed there. Thanks for your help. [attach]109775[/attach]