Are you sure it's legal where you live to put your range in front of the window? There are code issues in many places which preclude this.

It is legal here.
In fact I even went on an nkba tour of an award winning kitchen where they'd done exactly that - but there the scale of the kitchen was such that they'd really elevated the hood (as against the 36" recommended by vent-a-hood). Also - the ceiling height was a bit higher there - and so, they were able to pull it off.

When we were considering a Blue Star (we have since decided to go with induction), we were told that we had to be careful about what went behind the range itself (we were putting it against a solid wall). For example, we were told by Euro Stoves that we had to carry a non-combustible backsplash at least 6 inches below the cooktop surface. And what about the backguard? I have no idea what the kind of heat this generates will do to a window. And you don't say how low (or high) your window is. It sounds like you would have to go with the BS island trim, if you don't want to block the window with a backsplash. I see a lot of window washing in your future.

As for ventilation, unless you use a downdraft again, which will never do for you what a hood will, anything you use will block the window to some degree. The higher you put it (and who cares if DH is 6' since you're the avid cook, right?) the bigger the capture area you'll need, and therefore the larger the hood will need to be to do an adequate job, and the more, potentially, it will block your view.

What kind of stove did they have in the display house? It would have been nice if they had actually cooked while you were there, with the fan on, so you could see how practical this arrangement was for them.

I tried to find loves2cook4six's pics in the FKB, but no listing there. I've never seen a stove in front of a window.

Wish I could be of more help...

I would recommend an insert maybe Prestige or Independent. You don't say what size your range will be but lets say it will be a 36" Bluestar. i would think about a 40" x 22" would work just fine. The insert should be recessed up into your cabinetry by at least 4", your capture are is created by the lower edge of your cabinets, imagine and inverted sink big capture area small hole for the water to get away.

What ever goes into the box you create will be extracted out of the house. So you can set the lower edge of your cabinetry just above your window and bring it out as far as you want or make it as wide as you want whatever goes in the box goes out of the house.

The nkba award kitchen had a wolf 48" range.

I did think about the splashing. Honestly - I dont cook very 'splashily' :). Don't know how else to put it - but I now have an island cooktop and I hardly ever get messes behind or between the burners (which is why I am fine going with a 36" bluestar with open burners).

trevorlawson- I am going to have to have a window behind the range - and not cabinets. My first preference is to have a liner insert - but I cannot have it installed 36" from the top of the cooktop - which is why I really need some ideas. Maybe I am not quite understanding what you're saying?

I may not be clear what i am trying to say ....sorry.

the insert would go above your window, in a specially made cabinets / frame, that way your view will not be impeded and the hood will be above the range. I guess the best way to see what i am trying to say it to go to your local Chinese restaurant if you can see the kitchen the hoods are very high from the cooking surface but they compensate for the height by coming over there heads with the hood. Now i am not suggesting that you come that far out, but i think that may be one answer to your problem. if this is still not clear i can be reached via trevorlawson@eurostoves.com

I currently have a smooth top glass range. Every time I saute with olive oil (a frequent occurrence), after I'm done, no matter how careful I have been, whether the food being sauteed is at room temp. and/or dried as much as possible, in a perfectly good, appropriately-sized all-clad pan or any other I've tried, I have splatter on my cooktop and the control panel (in the rear of the cooking surface). If you are able to avoid this, I'd love to know how. This is one of the many things that pushed me to induction, which can be protected during cooking, or, at the least, stays cool so that it can be cleaned immediately and will never cook on. And I don't care for spatter guards, as I find it seems to have a steaming effect on my food, and I have to lift it in any case to stir, at which time the afore-mentioned spattering occurs anyway.

It was Trevor Lawson, at Euro Stoves, who talked to us a long time about ventilation needs when we were considering the Blue Star, so hopefully he can help you.

I hope you will keep us posted on your solutions, and, certainly post pics when it's done, since it's such an unusual configuration.

I believe what he is suggesting is that you get a large, oversized hood and mount it above the window. The fact that it is oversized will compensate for the fact that you are mounting it higher than normal.

Yes, a commercial sized hood set into the ceiling would certainly work, given enough cfm to keep the air velocity adequate over the underneath of the hood. Commercial hoods are typically set at 7 ft above the floor, a height that might match the top of the window.

In this case, the expense of the hood might not dominate the cost of the problem solution, because a significant make-up air system would be required. Cabinetry or panels around the hood could potentially reduce the visual impact of the hood size.

A very large residential hood might also work, so long as the size overlapped the stove by enough. At 7 ft, this would probably have to be by at least 6 inches on all sides except where the window constrained the expansion of the effluent. The largest Wolf wall hood might be big enough, although its front-to-back depth might be marginal. Set out from the window wall, a stainless panel at the rear extending to the window wall might provide some effective depth increase.

kas

If you use an insert or Liner make up does not come into the equation, my suggestion is to use a standard residential insert....... but create a larger than normal capture area with the cabinetry to compensate for the height it would be set at.

I was actually very interested in using the Vent-A-Hood BH240PSLD liner insert (a 900 CFM unit). This would definitely fit in the space I have - and I could get one which is 27inches deep and installed off from the wall to get good coverage for my 22K BTU burners at the front (by the way, my counter tops are 30 inches deep). I am also going with a Blue Star.

Now - the only catch is that I did not want to install it 30" from the top of the Blue Star - but more like 38" from the top of the stove.

Would this still be effective enough - how much of CFM would I lose - or should I go with larger than a 40" wide liner for my 36" range?

Thanks so much for all the input. I am getting valuable information here.

If it is OK I can post a link to the nkba award winner with exactly this kind of setting (but with a higher ceiling to work with than mine).

Couple of ideas - maybe crazy ones:

1) one of the glass hoods. Might not block as much of the view. But I am inclined to think that these are for people who don't cook. And they may not have sufficient capacity.

2) If you have money to burn, maybe you could have something built that moves up and down, so it is only down when you are using it.

You don't "lose" CFMs by raising the hood higher - the CFMs stay the same - the issue is that the higher you move the hood the greater the chance that things will escape the hood - which is why oversizing the hood and thus creating a larger capture area will compensate for putting the hood up higher.

weissman - point taken. Thanks. I should have phrased it better. All I meant was - should one then buy a wider hood (say - for a 36" range buy a 46" insert) - or see if the normal 40" insert can be made more effective (double fans/blowers - or different brand perhaps that has a higher CFM rating). How does that work?

While what weissman says is true, increasing the capture area also means that you will be grabbing a lot more air that didn't come from the range, and so will *need* more CFMs, to move that air plus the air you want to move. (If that makes any sense.)

(If you could put the hood right over/around the burner and pot on it, you would need very few CFMs. As you raise the hood higher, the air rising from the burner/pot spreads out and up. A hood broad enough to capture it also captures air coming in from other directions.)

Thanks. Is there a formula for this? How much wider, how many more CFMs - for each elevated?