Well, a recirculating hood would be safe to use but it won't do a great job removing heat, smoke, odors, etc. Even on an interior wall, it may be possible to run a duct up to the roof or through the ceiling to an oustide wall - that would be the best thing to do. I've had the DCS 30" range for nearly 10 years now and am very pleased as are several other people on this forum.

Congrats. I see from the pic you posted that you have the similar dull stainless spill area by the burners. We've found this to be a dream to keep clean. Same deal as you. We use a damp sponge with just a little tad of dish soap to clean up grease etc. and then wipe it down with a soft towel to dry. Works a treat. Smell wise in the oven.....we ran the oven for probably two hours when we first got it. Ran it at about 350 for a while and then turned it up. We then ran the broiler for a while as it produced a smell as well as it burned things off. Took a couple of times maybe for the smell to totally go away (going off memory). Be sure to read the instruction manual thoroughly. Tells you how to use the convection and also not to cover the bottom with foil or anything. We love ours. We have the 36 AG 6 burner. Tonnes of real estate for pots. We can both stand side by side and cook on it which is nice. Some things we found with ours... Same as you, you will need to re learn how to set the temp on the burners. Our old range we had to crank everything on high, this one now we just look at where the flame pattern is on the pan bottom so it isn't going up the sides and leave it at that. For the most part, except for huge stock pots we have, we are cooking on med low to low. Simmer works great! Oven works well and has a large capacity. Takes a bit to preheat the 36, but we just turn it on when we are in the prep stage and it is ready by the time we are. Don't go off the ready lamp. I've found it takes a bit longer to get to full temp all around the cavity. We use a good quality oven thermom. I do find that with the oven convection on, if an item is placed too close to the fan on the rack that it will tend to brown faster there than in the front of the oven. We use (right or wrong) convection when we do pizza on a stone on the bottom rack. Half way through cooking I spin the pizza to get it even. No biggie and makes a great pizza. With the AG at times we've found when first preheating the oven that we can get some condensation on the back splash area (stainless also). Just have to remember to pop the vent hood on for the first few minutes to keep things circulating. At least that is the way it works for us. Cleaning the oven we use soft scrub or just a sponge with mild soapy water (hot) and a towel to wipe out. Works on most as we don't let things get too far gone. Cooked a ham that spattered everywhere. Trully horrific! Did what I could wiping etc. and finally used a cold oven cleaner. Just a few minutes I was able to wipe it out and the oven is clean as new again! Just be sure not to spray the temp probe in the top of the oven. At least that is where ours is. We love the fact that the range is industrial and simple construction. Whole thing is made for function and it works well. Happy cooking! Cheers

I went to the DCS web page and couldn't find the CFM rating for their OTR. The spec sheet page is blank and I couldn't find it in any of the manuals. You could call DCS customer support and ask them. Most OTRs have 300 to 450 CFMs which would not really be adequate for the DCS range. You should have a real hood with 600 CFMs. Not only would a real range hood have higher CFMs, but it would also have a much better capture area. An OTR is really a compromise when you can't put in a real range hood.

Been reading the board for ages, but first post. We did a lot a research on the board and elsewhere as we are just in the completion stages of our kitchen redo. We wanted a 36" all gas range. We were choosing between what was available here. Wolf, Jenn-air, Thermador, Electrolux and DCS for all gas. Loved the open burner Wolf, but this forum persuaded us to stay clear of the Wolf, Jenn-air and Thermador (do search at bottom of page on any, makes interesting reading for hours ;) ). So, we started looking at the DCS. At first we dismissed it as it had what seemed like lighter grates than the others, the burners looked a bit generic sitting there in a sealed one piece pan and the top was stainless instead of black. All our own taste (or lack there of!) issues. We I did a bit more research on them I could find little in the way of bad reports about them (maybe I just missed them, but I really try to research the best I can). So, went back and looked again, purchased and have been using for about a month now. Here are our findings and personnal taste conclusions. The stainless top has been a real boon for us. We've found we like it better as the range it replaced had the black porcelain type top under the burners. Not that we are not clean, but every little spec showed up on the black including dust and lint if you left it for a while unused. Was a bit of a pain really to keep clean as where the grates that had the same coating. The DCS all we've done is wipe with a moist sponge and dry it off to clean the grease spatters etc. The grates are not shiney, but rather a matte cast iron. Might be luck or the way they are designed, but we've found we tend to slop less on them. Probably luck. I've found also that in cleaning I really like the fact that I don't have to change into my workout gear to lift the grates for cleaning. They are substatial and designed for strength (we've had some really large pots/weight on them with no problem sliding around or anything), but not as heavy as on others we looked at that had full length ones. Knob wise they work nice and have good adjustment range with a large scale to get a good gradient of burner level control. I've not paid attention to push in and turn as we have been automatically doing that as that is how our previous range worked. I just went out and double checked for you and they are a push in and turn type knob. What else can I tell you about it.....the burners are sealed. Did not think I would like that, but as it happens, apart from look difference between sealed and the Wolf open type we were looking at I think I prefer the sealed now. Been easy to deal with when the pasta boiled over a bit. Don't know if it is an advantage or not, but the burners are quite a bit closer to the grates than others we looked at. With the size of the burners themselves we've found that, to stop the flame from going up the side of quite a few of our pans, we tend to end up with the flame adjusted in the medium low to low range. We have four burners that are the 17.5K and two at I think 12.5K. Just something to get used to as with our old range we had the burners up on high to med high for everything. The wideness of the caps bring the flame out more and even at that low level it puts out the heat so we've not had any issues with cooking anything. We've found that it just made us a rethink our old habit of settings from the old range and we don't notice any difference in cook time comparable to what we had. Cooks steaks, boils pots and recovers from dropping in cold items well. On the larger pans we have the medium to medium high on which is plenty!!! Have to get the wok out and play with that soon as the full on burner puts out! I've found it really nice that all the burners have a simmer setting. You have the high to low on all and then a bit further after low is simmer which is a seperate part of each burner. Has worked really well. Left quite a few sauces, onions etc. holding on simmer while I'm getting ready for them in another pot without burning them or drying them out. At least that is the way it has worked for me so far. Nice to not have to suffle stuff around to get to a simmer burner. Just turn it down and move on to the next. Each burner has the top part of the burner that is the main burner. Then below that is a different part that lights and runs when you put it on simmer. As with many ranges we looked at that had some sort of really low simmer feature, you can barely see the flame in the daytime or under bright light. That is why I'm glad that DCS put a little light in the marker for temp on each control knob. Can see at a glance if I left a burner on. At first not thrilled with the purple looking colour of this and the fact that it had the light feature at all compared to others we looked at, but now love it! Oven rollers for the racks work fine. Racks have a channel that slides on two wheels that are on each side of the oven. Not as nice as the roller slides that the Electrolux had that we looked at, but we've found that with pans etc. on them they slide out nice and work really well. Husband says the rollers are like how some cabinet drawers slide out. Also pointed out to me, which I can see now we've used them and have them, that easier to clean probably than roller tracks like the electrolux had, if stuff, in the rare event it would, would get down in them. So, overall a big thumbs up for the DCS from us so far. We are really heavy duty cooks so we've used the range daily since we've had it. Like it so far. Do need to read a bit more on the convection to make sure of rack position and that I'm doing things right. Cooked three half sheets of shortbread in the oven, had two pans on one rack and another below it. Looked to me like the area back by the fan was browning faster than the other areas. Will have to check if it is positioning, a design flaw or a temperature setting issue as I put it on at the regular temp I cook it at. Also, need to thermom the oven so I can see where it actually is cooking temp wise. Do this in all we've had, but just not got to it with the other kitchen stuff we've been doing. Manual says it is factory set and not adjustable if I remember correct, but just want to make sure where it is. Seems like every range we've ever had has needed some adjustment. Quite wordy for my first post ever. Guess I've been saving it up! At least, if you can get through my blatherings, I hope it helps with some info you needed and helps you make a decision. Can't provide any info on the Bluestar. Did not find a dealer here for them and only heard of them on this forum. Didn't want to deal with mail order. Our preference on that as read that some have had no issues. We wanted local so we could get for sure service if needed. Right or wrong, we also purchased an extended warranty on ours. Lot of cash for a range so wanted to make sure we were covered. Your choice on that. Cheers