Hi Jillypie. Most would consider me a "grill snob" because everything I own is a Weber. Buying the best Char-broil that $129 will buy doesn't cut it in my book. I cannot say anything negative about getting a $4000 grill seeing as I recently got a Wolf DF range for the indoor cooking. Sorry I am not much help though this may be the only response you get.

I am in the process of building it in. The biggest problems I've run into are: 1) The skirting around the bottom to hide the casters are 1" wide all the way around, 6" high. I have to jog the steel studs to accomodate this. This also will make the unit face flush except for the bottom where it will stick out 1". 2) The deck height is 34". Typically, countertops are at 36". The problem with that is that my stainless fridge I'm building in is wanting a 34" under counter height, so I have to bend over the plate studs above the fridge to get it in, and try to find some other support for the hardibacker and tile to rest on. 3) Rotis bracket is 1" lower than deck height. For this, I am going to form my countertop with a jog where this is needed, slide the unit in, and then use a right angle ratchet or something afterwards to screw it in. 4) Handle and shelf. I can't use these for obvious reasons. Maybe I'll put them up on e-bay or just keep them in the garage. 5) Return air in the back. This is not square to the rest of the unit, but I figure you won't be able to see it on my built-in becase I have a 6" backsplash on it. If you are building an island, you have to jog the back to accomodate this. Other than these things, it should work fine. I'll post pictures once I'm done.

When buying our range, I grilled on the Viking and the Wolf (ribeyes) and preferred the Wolf. Make sure they have you use the blankoff plate to see how it works, and try grilling your steaks (assuming you're a rare or mrare type) without the blankoff plate. I've found the owner's manual on the Wolf to be a little timid on using the grill, and the rep at the Wolf test kitchen while well intended did not know that much (must admit, the Viking staff were outstanding). Finally, there's a cleaning trick that I got from this site to invert a throw-away aluminum baking pan that just fits on the grilling grid to burn off any residue for about 10 minutes.

Some sources offered to me the possibility that the Viking trim kit would fit the essentially identical Jenn Air units but I didn't pursue it nor can I confirm it. Electrolux Icon CD shows an optional collar and louver kit in their specs but I haven't seen it displayed. If your main goal is to minimize protrusion, then any refrigerator could be made to appear more flush with either a recessed space behind to allow it to push back further, and/or extended side panels to camoflauge the exposed sides.Trimming out the top gap to fit tighter helps but air flow clearance should still be maintained per spec. Gasket and door still need to be exposed for doorswing clearance. I preferred the look of the Viking so I went with it. I'm hopeful that since it is really the ubiquitous Amana/Whirlpool/Jenn Air CD with a different skin and handle that I had a good chance of reliability and its ratings are of course similar to it's sibling units. It has performed very well.