That cooktop has four 15k btu burners and one 18k btu grill burner for a total of 78k btu.

The oven has a bake btu rating of 30k btu

The broiler is 18k btu.

Not anywhere near 935k btu.

I would look around this forum about Viking products and their reliability record.

I would walk away.

BTW How much are they asking for the range?

Agreed. Walk away. It's not worth the aggravation with the company having such an uncertain future and the poor past track record.

And for any future purchases, if you want a grill, that needs extra CFM to take all of the greasy smoke away. That extra CFM needs to be replaced somehow, thus will require makeup air. That alone can cost as much as the range and hood put together if you are somewhere in the north that needs heated makeup air and the inspector is aggressive about enforcing it. But, if you're in the north, I understand why you might want a grill for your range as well. Yes, you want to go wider and deeper on a hood over a pro style range, especially one with a grill.

I thought the info page said that there are 3 15k btu burners, one 18k, and the grill is 30k... late at night...

I have 2 friends who absolutely love their Viking products (one has a gas range, one a cooktop). They cook in about the same way I do, so I thought that once the configuration I had originally chosen (with a Wolf rangetop and double oven) was too expensive and I had found this floor model ($5,000), I would choose the Viking. I will try to search the Boards for these past posts on Viking, but I am at home recovering from surgery and cannot get out to use the library's wireless...

For more than you might want to know about range hoods, tour this forum's posts for the last few years. Use Goggle with "site:ths.gargenweb.com" in the search along with hood, baffles, mesh, MUA, etc. Also read the papers linked to at My Clippings. These actions will require some commitment of time.

Briefly, the rising thermal plume from the pots and pans carrying the cooking effluent of water vapor and grease and odor expands as it rises. The hood has to overlap this expanding mix. How large the hood aperture has to be to overlap this expanding effluent is a matter of how perfectly one wants to capture it, how high the hood is over the stove, what one is cooking, at what temperature, and whether there are cross drafts. A 3-inch overlap is not unreasonable for the standard mounting height of 30 inches.

The blower size has to keep the velocity of the air sufficient at the baffles or mesh for effluent "captured" by the hood aperture to become "contained" effluent, and thus exhausted. It is determined by the aperture size and other parameters, and cannot be skimped on by arguing that only one burner at a time is used. We don't get the option of changing the aperture size to only account for one burner. Another factor in blower size is how gagged it will be by the system design and make-up air (MUA) restrictions. You only get 1200 cfm by hanging that fan in free air. Otherwise, it will flow less.

My conservative view is that for common setups at the high speed fan setting, the fan may only flow 2/3 of the rated zero static pressure fan cfm. Second, my view is that the velocity of the air entering the hood aperture should roughly be 90 ft/min. In this case, the rated fan cfm has to equal 90 times the area of the hood aperture in square feet times 1.5 for pressure loss. Other rules may be evaluated for their results, but I would start with Greenheck's paper (see my clippings) to investigate that subject.

My libertarian view is that you should do whatever you want.

My progressive view is that you should only cook outside using solar power until Soylent Green is available.

MUA may be expensive if you want to air condition it, or heat it, or filter it, or some combination of those actions. For a simple MUA duct with motor-controlled damper, no filtering, the cost is probably only hundreds of dollars, counting labor for duct installation. Often, it is more time consuming to figure out "where in the world can I put that duct and introduce the air into the house or kitchen?" than doing the install. However, more complex systems can certainly drain the pocketbook. Examples of more complex MUA systems can be found at Greenheck.com.

kas

Wow. Do you happen to be an engineer? I only ask this because I needed to ask DH to help me understand a few parts. ;)

I really appreciate the time and effort that you took in writing this. True, it is probably more than I need to know at this point, but it was very interesting and will help with my decision. Thanks, also, for info about searches. I have a free couple of hours, and will delve into that now.

I admit that I are an engineer.

kas

Kas, indeed you are. :) And thanks again!

I'm not an engineer, but I like my Kobe hood (and it is 36" wide over my 30" cooktop) They're not cheap, but they're not terribly pricey, either. They work with various sizes of vents and they're quiet. Lots of styles. Check them out. One site for them is ventingdirect.com, but you may find even better prices elsewhere. I bought mine sight unseen, just off the picture on the web, and I'm very satisfied.

Thanks, Ginny. I had gotten as far as looking at Zephyr hoods last night, and will add Kobe to those to consider today.

My home is under construction and we've gone with a 36" 6-burner Bluestar rangetop. The hood is a 36" Zephyr Tempest 2 with 1200 (or was it 1100?) cfm. I think this will make for a great combination. They have yet to install the items as the rangetop has been placed but not permanently installed and the hood is still laying on the floor. I'm excited to see what the finished product will look like. We also had to install a MUA (not conditioned) and it cost an extra $950 (parts and labor for our new construction home).

In the end, you will make the right decision but trying to get there as you are seeing, may take some effort!

I went with the same size as my range and wish I had gone wider - as our resident engineer says - the plum expands as it rises...

I also was trying to avoid the MUA issue but I think I was more scared of the concept than the reality...

We would have to condition our MUA as we are in the north...

We have a 30 in Kobe with 640 CFM on high over our 30 in induction range. It's only been functional for a couple of weeks, but we LOVE it! It did replace a 23 yr old OTR MW, so I'm sure a box fan with a hole in the wall would have been an improvement too, lol! But that thing is great at keeping the kitchen clear and surprisingly quiet. On low you can barely hear it over the cooking sounds.

I found in my searching that the Kobe hoods were some of the quietest available, especially on the low setting. We usually use low for general simmering, boiling, or after cooking and then medium for active sautéing or similar. The grill pan gets high, and it certainly makes a huge difference.

If you decide what features you want or don't want and what general max CFM range you want I'm sure you will get some good recommendations.