6" wider is definitely good. We kept our old 36" range hood when we went from a 30 to a 36" range. It works, but not as well as it used to. I recommend a little overlap if you can manage it in your space. Careful inspection during stir-frys or pizza bakes reveals that some of the smoke is sneaking around the edges now.

Our island style hood didn't have a whole lot of options for fine tuning the height above the range. The lowest margin of the cowling is about 27" above the range. This works out fine for us (we're 5'2" and 6'2") The front of the hood cowling is set back about 4 inches from the front of the range itself and nobody hits their head on it while cooking. About the only thing there is I would want to be sure that the actual burner surfaces were underneath the hood so the smoke can take the least resistance path and be swiftly escorted out of your kitchen.

Other factors are noice and ease of cleaning. Look for filter elements that go right into the dishwasher. The more of the underside of the vent that you can clean by just sticking the filters in the dishwasher, the better. I also recommend that you go listen to any vent before buying it. Some of them, including mine on high speed, sound like a B-52 on takeoff roll. When I go shop again, my hope is to actually hear the vent before I install it in my home.

Best of luck with your search!

CookingKaren - I am in the same predicament. I plan to purchase the Wolf 36" rangetop (no oven). My kitchen designer said that a 42" wide hood would perform better, but a 36" wide hood would suffice since a 42" would make the cabinets to the side of the hood too small. I guess its cosmetics vs. performance. I stir fry often and am a little worried about this. I was told by a few salesmen that 900 cfms would be fine.

My rangetop's cooking surface is 24 1/4 deep. I was thinking about getting the Wolf Pro 27" deep wall hood to make sure the hood can capture the smoke from the front burners. Depending on he depth of your range, I think a 17" deep hood might not be deep enough. I am learning all this info too so maybe I'm wrong. I hope someone out there can help us!

Good luck,
motherof3

I thought that was what my earlier post was. I'll try again though...you have to have a hood that is strong enough to capture the HOGS....heat, odors,grease,steam. You have to have a hood that is deep enough to cover the burners and wide enough to cover the burners. You do not have to have it wider than the burners or down low if you have enough cfms to compensate for the difference in height from cooktop and width of cooktop. You need to also consider the length of the duct run. Also consider the size of your duct work in diameter...I have 10". As I said you need to read a lot of info on this topic. If you are having a gas cooktop and planning on using high heat and stirfrying then you want plenty of high cfms and very quiet performance so that you will be willing to use the equipment. A major complaint of many folks is that the hood is 1) loud 2) inefficient - they get grease and smoke etc outside of the capture area YOU SHOULD HAVE NONE outside the hood...absolutely no HOGS should escape if you have a good product. 3) hard to clean...you want baffles not mesh...baffles are extremely efficient in capturing the grease and last forever and are very easy to clean..mesh is none of those...also the baffles are quieter. I hope this answers your questions and gets you to read LOTS of info and ask lots more questions. It really does make a difference in the quality of life in your home...furnishings will last longer and paint on the walls and you will have better air quality. All wonderful reasons to buy a very good system.c

following is a list of Wolf recommendations for venting the 36" dual fuel.

-900 CFM as minimum. This is easy to calculate. 1 CFM per 100 BTU. With 6 burners the dual fuel has 84,200 BTU. 84,200/1 = 842 BTU minimum.

-27" deep if unit has a griddle or grill. Otherwise, 22 or 24" would be fine. Now, avoiding bruises on your head is important so compensate accordingly. Just remember, deeper = better.

+3 on either side. Very important if:
-----Unit has griddle or charbroiler
-----Hood is raised above recommended height.
-----Minimum CFM is not being met, i.e., less than 842 BTU.

30 inches above cooking surface. If raising to 36, increase CFM, width anddepth of hood. Add 100 CFM per 3 inches.

These are recommendations. If you adjust one, it does affect the others.
Also, the larger the CFM, the quieter the operation. 10 inch duct will also work best for this to help keep noise down. With a hoods specifications, anything you physically increase, whether it is the CFM, width, or depth, you will get better performance.

IMHO, the reason you are getting conflicting information from salespeople is because some, either inexperienced or not very good, think that you will bock at the higher prices for more CFM, width, and depth. Therefore, they offer you options that cost less hoping you will think it is such a good deal you will write the check right then. They would rather have a bunch of small sales to people irregardless of complaints, than bigger ones that pay off with referrals down the road

On the good advice of Trevor at Eurostoves I ended up in the overkill camp (my contractor thought I was crazy) and so far I am VERY glad I did. I have a 30" Bluestar range and I got the 36" wide 1200 CFM Bluestar/Prestige hood (love that hood BTW). 36" was a no brainer 'cos I have no upper cabinets either side of the range and I think it looks nice too. So far I have not done any major stir frying or greasy cooking but I find that I still use the hood at about 1/3 to 1/2 throttle for general cooking so that I have reserve power for intensive stuff. The high CFMS were VERY useful when I had oil burning on the bottom of my oven... not pretty. As far as noise, I was restricted to an 8" duct (OK I know it should have been 10") and so while I was hoping it would be quieter than it is I really cannot complain. I would love to hear what it would be like in my setup with the larger duct... maybe in the next life :). As far as I can tell the only disadvantage of the high CFMS in my case is that for the times when it runs on low (like when just the oven or 1 burner is on) it is probably a bit too much and perhaps the smaller fan would be fine and quieter. However, I am soon adjusting. Oh yes, that brings up another point I learnt along the way: a continuousely variable speed control rather just a 3-speed control is a VERY nice thing to have. That way you have a lot of flexibility in how much of the power/noise you use in a particular situation.

I echo the poster above who said you need the adequate ventilation to be able to actually indulge in your cooking equipment: I really think the thing I love best about my new kitchen is having great ventilation. It really spoils you - after a couple of months I am already starting to wonder how I ever managed without.

Best of luck!

Thanks to all for your thoughts and guidance. Aprince-- thanks for your succinct interpretation. I came down in the camp you prescribed-- going with the 42" because I am raising the height to 33" to avoid concussions and forehead gouges (LOL) and definitely kicking it up to 900-1200 CFMs so that I can run it on low most of the time (the noise factor is certainly to be considered.)

Also saves me from worrying about the molding on the bottom of the cabinets, which MUST be 18" off the range top in our town-- this would have necessitated either an inspection sans molding or raising the cabs up an inch...both doable, but a wider hood will solve it all.

Thanks again.