Notwithstanding that either of these may be better than no extraction (I assume this means external venting), in general one wants a hood with a large aperture that overlaps the cooking zone. The first example seems to have a narrow gap as an aperture with central lighting, the second is more difficult to figure out from the images at the link. I do not think the first example could capture a high percentage of the effluent from any serious cooking effort. Review of many of the ventilation messages on this site may provide some insights. Review of references noted in my My Clippings will provide more in-depth information. It is generally true that aesthetics, affordability, and effectiveness (capture and containment) cannot be achieved at the same time, so you have to decide on what compromises you want to make in each of these categories. kas

Consumer Reports does a great job of reviewing cars. Their advice is spot on. But, kitchens? Not so much. Heck, in their annual kitchen review, soapstone wasn’t included in countertop reviews until 6 years ago, and even at that, it was filled with misinformation. Miele wasn't on their radar, either, and, they were way behind in including SubZero fridges, too. wdcruise is a Whirlpool fanboy. He has a tendency to call high end appliances, “fancy pants.” He’ll tell you a basic Whirlpool fridge is as good as SubZero...which is hilarious. I‘m not saying you need to get the top of the line in each “high end” appliance brand, but I can assure you that any Bosch dishwasher will out perform your Maytag (which you said you hate), and other, less expensive brands. We have the 800 series, and love it. However, there have been posters here who have the lowest Bosch, the 100, say it does a great job. It’s just noisier, and doesn’t have as many cycles. Miele is the other top brand to consider. There are two appliances I would not cheap out on, and that’s the vent hood, and the fridge. Wdcruise is suggesting you consider Home Depot for a hood. You will not find a quality venting system there. I’m not the first person on this site to say that. Go to an independent appliance store...not a big box store...to get your hood. There are several high end quality hood makers. Vent A Hood and Modernaire, are two. Many people like their Wolf hoods. When we were doing our research, we found the Wolf too noisy. We got a Vent A Hood, and are very satisfied. It does a great job containing odors, grease, and any steam or smoke, and is pretty darn quiet, even on high. As for fridges, I have 40 years of experience with SubZero. Our first, a 36” over/under, was still going strong at 36 years old, when we sold our home. In our new (to us) home, we installed a SZ 42” French door, paneled. Great machine. It fits a ton of food, and keeps food fresh for long periods. Almost 4 years now, and not a lick of trouble...unlike the stories I’ve read about LG, Samsung, and others. Also, as has been suggested by several posters, if you stay away from through the door water and ice, you’ll reduce the chances of needing repairs. That goes for any brand. Oh, and btw, SZ has the best costumer service in the industry. I would suggest you find an independent appliance dealer for all your appliances. Their salespeople are much better educated about the various brands, than those at HD, Lowe’s, and the like. If you purchase all your appliances from them, they’re likely to bump you up to a higher model dishwasher, at no cost. That’s what happened to us, anyway. Also, many independent stores have their own repairmen, who are certified to service Miele, Bosch, Thermador, SZ, Wolf, etc. Should we have a problem with any of our appliances, we just have to call our independent store, Appliance World (Huntington, Long Island, NY), and they’ll take care of everything. Well worth the piece of mind.

I am so very happy to hear someone else hates carpet inlays as much as I do! We want to downsize, so are house shopping now. Our current house had wall to wall carpet in all areas except the kitchen, family room and all bathrooms has nice travertine tiles. We replaced the wall to wall carpet in livingroom/hallway with laminate and found great luxury vinyl that matches the laminate for the bedrooms. It looks ok because it was wall to wall, not inlay we replaced. I would have preferred tile, but too prohibitive. Now as we are looking it seems all the houses have these carpet inlays. We live in Palm Springs area and it seems people here love carpet in bedrooms and carpet inlays surrounded by beautiful tile in their great room. I absolutely detest carpeting of any kind and I have allergies. We have found several houses we like but I said no because I can not think what to replace those carpet inlays with. I am DOWNSIZING and replacing that inlay with tile will be extremely expensive, not to mention it may be difficult to match the surround tile. I've seen pics where others replaced inlays with laminate. UGLY! suggestions greatly appreciated! Ginger

Broan/NuTone/Best make a large range of ventilation equipments and generally you get what you pay for as far as I can tell. However, why a "high end" appliance dealer wouldn't include some other brands is unclear. At a minimum, I would expect a Wolf dealer to have examples of Wolf hoods. (My hood is a Wolf, made by Independent before Wolf moved production in-house.) Decide how high you want the hood for good site lines and reaching to the back burners, and missing one's head, while keeping in mind that the front burners will be emitting plumes that expand as they rise, so height corresponds to increases in needed overlap -- side to side and front to back. 10 degrees from vertical measured from the flame diameters when pans are on the burners can be used for plume expansion estimation. Sketch it out. Given a height and hence width and depth, calculate the square footage of the entry aperture of the hood. For wall hoods the light bar in the front may qualify as partial or whole entry aperture area. Multiply area by 90 CFM/sq. ft. Multiply by 1.5 if you don't know all the pressure losses. Find a blower that has that result as a rated value. Decide on in-hood, in attic (in line), or on roof. Farther away is generally quieter. If there is room for a silencer (Fantech) between blower and hood then the result will be quieter still. There is a lot of dissension about ease of hood cleaning by type. I can say that my Wolf hood baffle assemblies easily remove and can be cleaned in a dishwasher. (I have ten of these, so it takes two loads.) One still wants to reach up inside and wipe the surfaces. I use Simple Green, but likely there are myriad possible choices. I have never owned a VaH, and was initially repulsed (2007) by the Magic Lung® claims. Others like them. If you have guests sitting where they can see into the hood, a baffle system may be aesthetically superior. Duct should be sized so that full power actual flow rate achieves a velocity in the duct between 1000 and 2000 ft/min for best balance between grease condensation and grease impingement. You can go lower (larger duct) if you pre-heat the duct in cold weather. On CFM focus. Standard (if that actually ever applies) residential hoods are designed to fit into residential kitchens. Commercial hoods are designed to fit into commercial kitchens. At a minimum, the typical difference is two feet of ceiling height. When the commercial hood can be built so that there is tremendous volume below its baffles, there are conditions where the specific flow rate (CFM/sq. ft.) can be reduced below the value I suggested above. This is due to "baffle averaging" resulting from the reservoir volume vs. plume steady state and transient volumetric rates. At the other extreme, residential hoods with little volume below the baffles will allow plume escape (capture failure) if the plumes are not immediately entrained into the baffle flow. And, of course, plumes not initially captured are not contained and removed except as a matter of long term kitchen (and whole house) air replacement. So CFM focus varies. Another difference is that commercial hoods are typically operated at a fixed CFM and the MUA is balanced for this case, whereas residential hoods, along with bathroom fans, etc., operate at variable CFM, and this makes the MUA control more complex.