Bluestar offers cooktop and rangetop(with knobs on front instead of on top). Capital Culinarian only rangetop for now. Bluestar RNB and Capital Culinarian rangetops are about the same amount of money. Yes, knobs on cooktops can get hot or splash with oil. Sometimes they can get in the way of large pots/pans but you can remove knobs temporarily. In the Bluestar you don't get the drip tray with the cooktop. But cooktops are cheaper and some people like their counterop edge in front of the cooktop insead of the steel of the rangetop.

I guess the griddle on the rangetop for Bluestar is rated 15K BTU, and it's about the same size in area as two burners, so it would make sense, now that I think about it, that the two 8.5K burners underneath a double burner griddle would work just fine. guadalupe, Do you have a drop-in cooktop? If so, how do you like it? If the area of heat is the same as the 15K Nova, they must have removed some of the holes (flames) to drop it to 8.5K? Looking at the pictures on their website, I think the 15K Nova has 64 holes...so the 8.5K has around 36?

heartsurgeon and cpovey, Thanks for the info. In March, after reading hours (days?) of hood information on GardenWeb, I had decided to get a VAH 42", 600 cfm (VAH doesn't make anything higher than 600 cfm for a 42" hood and 48" was too big). I had made a cardboard hood of that size and mounted above the cooktop (no cooking allowed!) to get an idea of sightlines. 32" was best for viewing across the greatroom for me, but the cook in the house was fine with 30". The VAH rep insisted to never go above 30", so we were set to go with VAH at 30". But, since there was a delay in the BlueStar cooktop we wanted, we waited. The housing market got worse and a large appliance place folded and liquidated their inventory, and I got a deal on a Viking that I couldn't pass up. The hood didn't come with a blower, so that's why I have been asking the blower questions. Since higher CFM blowers were available on the Viking, I thought I could push the hood up to 32" with higher CFM and be OK. I figured the internal motor probably has twice the noise...the air noise through the baffles and then the air noise through the squirrel cage blower. So heartsurgeon, it wouldn't surprise me that it's noisy when on high at 600 cfm. Do you even hear the motor...or is it all air? The external probably does look like the best option, as I agree with cpovey that an in-line motor would be a hassle to maintain. Looking at the specs, I think the external would fit on the roof. Cpovey, I don't know if I could install the external upside down either...is there a damper that would be upside down? I had been only considering venting out of the bottom if I used the in-line. If I use external, it would go on the roof. Now today when I picked up my hood, I scrounged around the warehouse and found that they had a 600 cfm internal blower left for that hood, which I able to pick up for a good deal as well...so I couldn't pass that up either. So I"ll start with a 600 cfm internal, mounting the hood at 30". If it end's up too noisy, it's not that much of a loss and it would allow us to find out if we need more than 600 cfm. If we don't, but want to use an external for noise reasons, we will still come out ahead cost-wise. I think I'll still use 10" duct work in case I do want to go up in CFM if we go to an external...it's not that long of a run, so it shouldn't cost that much more. Also, I would think that a 10" elbow above the hood would make less noise than a 7" elbow. I plugged the 600 cfm fan in (not inside the hood) to an outlet to see how noisy it was. It does make some noise, but it seemed less noisy when I added some wind resistance, so I won't be able to tell much until it's fully installed. It sure could blow some air when unrestricted though! This got me a little concerned that if the vent exits on the top of the roof...it will be only about 8 feet away from the deck table, pointing right at it. Will this cause an unappealing breeze to the outside dinner guests? Maybe the baffles cause enough resistance that it really doesn't blow out that fast in the real application? I am still interested to hear if someone has put an external fan this close to an outdoor sitting area and what the noise level is like. I'm guessing that it may just be a white noise-type situation outside?

Hi, I guess I could have posted this in any of several threads about cleaning stainless steel, but since I do have the BS 36" drop-in, I thought I'd post it here. In retrospect, I might have preferred the rangetop, as castironcook2 purchased, but it was $1K more expensive and would have involved more extensive carpentry to get it into our nonstandard countertop. But I'm very happy with the new BS (just a couple of months old at this point). I am running into the cleanup issues, and I'm paying attention to your recommendations (here and in other threads). Simple detergent and water is not working for the splatters any more, so I will be looking for something stronger. There is an old SS hood above the cooktop (from the 1950s?) that was so grungy nothing would clean it. Then I recalled that I have easily cleaned my metal bicycle parts with kerosene, and since this old hood was due for replacement soon anyway, why not try it on the hood? It worked fantastically. Years of grime disappeared in seconds, and now it has a nice matte shine to it. I would feel safe using it on the cooktop too, but I'd like to try something a bit less heavy-duty first. So your suggestions are welcome.