You were clearly sold a bill of goods by somebody. If you have already ordered your cabinets, you can either go with a 48" hood which probably won't look too bad or you could get a smaller hood and put in some filler between your cabinets and hood. Alternatively, if you have the option, you could upgrade to a 48" rangetop.

weissman i was told that i needed 6" extra on both sides also for my 48" range. is this false? i still haven't gotten one yet but i don't think it's gonna hurt anything.
thanks,
john

There is a person that participates often in hood threads who has pointed out that the vapor column rising from a skillet spreads as it rises. The outward angle of spread is said to be about 7 degrees. Simple geometry will show that for a 30" high hood the spread is about 3.6", so an extra 3" on either side will catch most of this column even though is spreads.

However, the thing to watch is the depth. 24" deep hoods do not usually have a capture depth of 24". The front 3 to 6 inches of most hooks is taken up by lights and switches, leaving the front burners where most high temperature cooking takes place woefully under covered even ignoring the extra spread of the rising vapor column. Side to side however is generally ok as most hoods lose only about one half to one inch on each side due to sheet metal trim.

If you are ultra conservative, you could say that side to side my 36" range requires 7" total extra hood width to account for vapor column spread on each side, meaning I need 43" of open capture width and since I might lose 2" of width due to edge trim on the sides a 42" hood is effectively 40" wide and not quite adequate. On the other hand a 48" hood gives 46" of effective capture width and will cover the rangetop just fine. Personally I think the depth issue is far more critical than a couple of inches on the edges.

johnnytugs1 - it won't hurt anything to have an extra wide hood (except your wallet :-). I think capecodcook explained it all fairly well. From personal experience I have a 30" hood over a 30" range but the hood is flanked by cabinets and I don't find any grease on those cabinets - on the other hand my hood is only 19" deep from front to back and I do get grease on the front of the hood. I would definitely give more priority to getting a deeper hood rather than a wider one.

Rdas, ask on the kitchen forum if you haven't--there may be some good ideas to be had there to deal with extra cabinet weirdness if you go with the smaller hood.

I'd be most concerned about aesthetics. If you can make it look good then I say go for it. That 7 degrees might be a good figure for an open pot with no external factors, but put a lid on a bubbling pot and now you're looking at more like 40 degrees.

Of course the air being drawn into the hood is an obvious factor, too, so I'm really not sure how valuable that 7 degree quote is to start with.

To be clear, I'm just basing this on seemingly common sense (read: talking out my ass.) But again, I wouldn't be too stressed as long as it looks good since you're erring on the side of overkill. If you were putting a 42" hood over a 30" range it might look a little ridiculous. With 36/48 the percentage of overhang decreases.

weissman thanks for the reply, i guess an extra 6" won't hurt anyone. i gotta check the depth again.
thanks,
john

Depth is way more important than width IMO. when i see people cooking in our school it seems to me that you miss more smoke and grease from the front of the hood than the sides.

Depending on what the measurement is from the back wall to the front of the grates on the range your hood should cover that distance.

As stated above try to pick a hood that has the lights in the middle of the hood preferably or at worst the rear of the hood, this will give you more capture area to the front of the range where it really counts.