They installed burner "shields" under each burner. Once in awhile (unless I am now jinxing myself!) if I try to light a burner at the moment (or just after) the gas is whooshing into the just-lit-oven, burners might balk at lighting, or lighting completely, but if I wait a minute or, two, it's usually fine. Luckily this rarely happens. We kept our island trim. Others involved in the original issue appearance had either swapped out or ordered their ranges with higher trims, and still experienced the problem. Wolf techs insisted the problem was not related to the trim, but the guys from two different Wolf-affiliated svce companies have told us otherwise, so who knows? FYI with the white glass tiles/white grout and island trim. When roasting/cooking at high oven temps/etc., the tile and grout tend to discolor (from vented heat, grease,.....). I've had some success cleaning it off with Dawn Power Dissolver and/or HD Clean (from STT--ordered it when I purchased their sealer for the bathrooms) and using a blue scrub sponge. I love the walnut cabs I've been seeing over on the kitchen forum. I'm sure yours will look terrific! Our hood looks nice and works okay, but isn't the best we could have gotten as far as functionality (a concave hood canopy with a better capture area would do a better job I'm sure). We chose form (and less noise) over function in this case. The cab between the range and the fridge is 24", and then there is the piece that makes up the side wall of the fridge cabinet.

Have you ever watched steam or smoke rise? The farther up it rises the more it drifts off to the sides as well. If you have a vent flush to the ceiling, you will most likely miss most of the steam/grease/smoke as it's already drifted out of range of the vent...and you say you have high ceilings so it would be even worse than 8' ceilings. Yes, you could get a really powerful vent to suck everything straight up, but I suspect it would take pets and small children with it! :-) Vents are usually mounted approximately 30" above the cooking surface and even then it's advised that you get one 6" wider than the cooking surface in an effort to increase the "capture area" b/c of the sideways drift. I'm not a proponent of down drafts either, but as long as you don't fry, brown, do any cooking with oil, or use the charbroiler, you'll probably be all right...although you will probably be able to smell the next day what you had for dinner the night before... I really don't mean to be so negative, but I think you should really think about this. I second the idea that the range should really be against the wall...aside from the venting issue, it's a safety issue as well, especially if you have younger children (unless you have a large overhang in the back...24" or more, and decent space on the sides...again, 24" or more on each side). Most of my time is spent prepping...and that's when I like to be able to see/converse with others. When I'm at the cooktop, I need to pay attention to what I'm doing...and that's even more important if you have gas. You also do not usually spend much time at the cooktop...you put something on a burner & just periodically check it while you're continuing to prep, cleanup, set up, etc. If I had to choose, I would much rather have the sink in the island than the cooktop.

Do you use a griddle now? I would consider an overlay griddle instead of a built in. The one I have(Royal industries)is 15”x23” and is about 50% bigger than a 2 burner built in. I have a Wolf range. It can be bigger because it is made of heavy aluminum which has much better heat transfer properties than steel so heats more evenly. It comes in bare aluminum which seasons over time and nonstick. With a built in you have about half of the power, somewhere around 15K BTUs. You can set the griddle anywhere you want or you have the flexibility of using all six burners. I have picked up my griddle and put it in the oven. You can take it to the sink to clean. These are Royal Industry overlays. They are pretty inexpensive. http://royalindustriesinc.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4_22_48 Chef King makes a similar griddle out of steel. With the built in, you have a thermostat so you can repeatedly turn it in to a certain temperature and get that amount of heat. If you go this way, look how the different brands are built. Wolf uses an infrared burner to get a more even heat. The steel is twice as thick as BlueStar. BlueStar uses this burner on the RNB griddle. Thermador uses an aluminum griddle and an electric element.

So now we have the difficult decision of relocating the joke and trying to make the outside blower work, or, do we bite the bullet and just install what we should have installed in the first place (hood above rangetop). Yes, bite the bullet and get hood above rangetop. From your post, it sounds like you already know this is the answer. I wish you had not even bought the 48" rangetop with charbroiler, and just got the 36" rangetop with 6 burners instead. The hood would not need to be as massive. The charbroiler is not only super smokey, but it's a PITA to keep clean. For anyone else reading this thread, it would have been better/cheaper/easier to just use a cast iron pan on the occasions you want a char on your steak or similar, rather than a built-in charbroiler.