Can you clarify? The 30" Nutone model you cited is an undercabinet hood. So, are you saying you have a 30" undercabinet hood over a 48" range, so that there are cabinets on either side of the 30" hood? Not to mention the 30" wood enclosure over the 48" range? How did you get a building inspector to OK that? That is a serious fire hazard. I mean scary-serious. You cannot have combustible material like cabinetry over a range, nor a hood surround over a range that is narrower than the range. Forget whether it's "reasonable to keep the 30" hood for now". The cfms you are so concerned with are completely secondary to the fire hazard that you have described. You need to rip out the surrounding upper cabinetry over the range, and the 30" wood surround. Install a 48" hood over your 48" range. When you bought the Capital range, didn't anyone mention exhaust requirements to you? Here is a link that might be useful: Nutone NSP130SS

I can answer your question from experience as we have the exact same Culinarian cooktop configuration and opted for the 54x27 wooden hood with an insert from ModernAire. Our counters are 37-1/4 inches high, in part because we're tall but also because this pushes the cooktop an inch closer to the bottom of the hood, given a fixed hood height. Here are our finished measurements: 69-3/4 inches from floor to bottom of hood 32-1/2 inches from countertop to bottom of hood 31-3/4 inches from top of Culinarian stainless to bottom of hood (and the top of the iron grates are about 1 inch higher than the stainless, making the hood 30-3/4 above the top of the iron grates) We planned to mount the hood higher but dropped it down when we realized it is not a danger. One drawback of mounting the hood to high (in addition to poorer performance) is that you see the undersides more easily and some complain about the hood lights shining in their eyes or in the eyes of people sitting at the island. Plus the perceived noise is higher if there's a straight shot from your ears to the underside of the hood. We have never bumped into the hood and it would be almost impossible to do so because the rounded front of the Culinarian sticks out past the front edge of the countertop, making the cooks stand further out from the back wall. The wood hood itself is 54W x 27D, so the opening is less (perhaps I should have made the opening this dimension). Just now I discovered the hood sticks out only 26-1/2 inches from the back wall. This is due to the backsplash installed after the cabinets, as usual. A 24 inch deep hood would be a disaster with this cooking machine. I wish we had gone 27 inches deep on the inside of the hood, making the outside of the hood about 27-3/4 inches deep before backsplash. But I suggest you get rid of the shelf on the front of the hood unless you place it up higher. Even then it will block light from ceiling. If you have a deeper cabinet made for the Culianrian (not sure if you're getting a cooktop or a range) make sure your cabinetmaker doesn't make the cabinet too deep or it will result in your cooktop being pushed away from the back wall too far, negating the extra depth you built into your hood. We have an Abbaka 1400CFM fan on the roof, and it sucks well, even with a couple of bends. We've had no problem with smoke from wok cooking but amazingly we haven't used the grill yet. We're still dealing with tons of punch list items so we haven't gotten around to wrapping the grill parts in foil prior to firing it up. To fit the insert in the hood we had Modernaire ship the insert directly to out cabinetmaker so he could build the wood hood to match the insert. During the design phase we made mockups from foam board. I suggest you do the same if you want to play with the dimensions. Good luck with your project! Billy

Hey Shaotung Mommy, It's a great idea to the get the big blower -- I have a 1400 CFM blower mounted on my roof and it works great. With the blower on it will not heat up your kitchen. Remember to make sure the construction crew avoid sharp turns or too many turns in the blower ductwork. I think I used 10" round duct. If you have upper cabinets make sure they are set back 3" from the sides of the cooktop, so you will have 36 + 3 + 3 = 42" between your upper cabinets, and your range hood should be 42" wide to catch smoke billowing up from the woks. Also make sure the range hood has adequate depth to catch the smoke and heat from the front burners (woks on the front burner probably will extend past the front edge of the cooktop). Most stock range hoods are too shallow for these powerful cooktops. The hood height above the floor and cooktop... I used a piece of foamboard to determine how high I wanted mine. Obviously you want it as close to the cooktop as possible but it needs to be high enough to keep you from banging your head. I've had only one person bump their head on the hood. It didn't draw blood but they didn't do it a second time! The last issue is the make-up air. With a 1400 CFM blower the air has to come from somewhere or it won't be very effective. I was not able to come up with a good make-up air solution so I need to open windows when I turn on the vent fan/blower. It is cold in the winter here near DC, but it will depend on where you are located. I hope you have a window or two in your kitchen, or a doorway to another room where you can open windows. Enjoy! Billy

Hi Bee, I'll toss my hat in, even though I have a 48 inch CC rangetop. The rangetop has 6 burners and a grill. See the photo below - click on it for a larger photo. Please tell me what brand you have. -- I had a custom Modernaire hood insert made for a wood hood. I went custom because I wanted a flat (and not tall) front edge of the hood to reduce the apparent mass of a big hood. (Also it is a landing perch for Alfred E Neuman until everything is completed.) The cfm's? -- I have a 1400 CFM Abbaka blower mounted on the roof. It is beautifully made, powerful, and quiet. I'm using a 10 inch round duct with 3 elbows, which is pushing it. -- The best price I found on the Abbaka fan was at www.dvorsons.com Is it oversized? If not, do you wish it were? -- The hood is oversized at 54 inches wide and 27 inches deep. Frankly I wish the hood were deeper, and here's why. Because of the shallow capture area under the hood, smoke plumes reach the front edge of the hood. Also, the front edge of the hood is occupied by halogen lights and controls, so the real suction area extends 21 1/2 inches from the tiled back wall. But, we've never noticed any spillover of the smoke out of the hood. -- See more comments below about dimensions. Do you wish it was quieter? -- Yes, but it is pretty quiet. The noise is from the air flow through the baffles and there's not much to do about that. Actually, a lower hood will sound quieter than a higher hood, if there is a direct line between your ears and the baffles with a high hood, and a indirect line between your ears and the baffles in a low hood. -- No one has ever commented that it sounds loud. The Abbaka fan is the quietest I could find. Abbaka publishes its sound level and Broan refuses to do so. I even called Broan's technical support people and they refused to give me a noise level for their fans. Do you wish it was more powerful? -- No. I wish the hood extended deeper than 27 inches. Maybe I wish I had more capture area (height of open space under hood) but it would mean losing the low profile of the front edge of the hood. Other comments about dimensions: -- After tiling the backsplash the 27 inch deep hood became a 26-1/2 inch deep hood. -- The rangetop cabinet is deeper than the adjacent cabinet, and we pulled the rangetop out slightly from the back wall so the back of the stainless back ledge is 3/4 inch out from the finished backsplash. We like having the extra space behind big pots and big flames on the back burners. We should have made the hood deeper to the extent we pulled the rangetop forward. -- The CC installation drawings are terrible. You should call them to clear up some of the ambiguities in their dimensional installation drawing. -- The front lip of the wood hood is 7 inches high. The bottom of the hood is 70 inches from the floor. My wife and I are both 5-11 and we don't come close to hitting our heads. Remember, the front knobs stick way out so they keep you from rubbing your body against the front of the beautiful and curvaceous rangetop. -- Our countertop is 37-1/2 inches from the floor and the bottom of the hood is 32-1/2 inches above the counter. -- The hood is 31-3/4 inches above the rangetop stainless and 31 inches above the cast iron grates. I hope this helps! By the way, we went with a Liebherr refrigerator in part based on your kitchen and we love it! Good luck with your new kitchen! Billy [URL=http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy12/BillyG_photos/?action=view&current=IMG_1818.jpg][IMG]http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy12/BillyG_photos/th_IMG_1818.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Here is a link that might be useful: Abbaka Blower - 1400 CFM