The real answer is "put the hood at a height that you feel comfortable with" it is more important that you enjoy cooking on the range than removing every last drop of smoke from the room.

The simple rule of thumb is lower is better, the higher you go the more smoke and grease will miss the hood. Having said that a wider and deeper hood than the normal 48" x 24" allows you to raise the hood.

Your other consideration is what your local code states for having a flammable material directly above the burners, I know in some states and cities they say 36" is the minimum for wood above the burners.

Bend forward. If you're like most people, your head moves down! ;) That's why you can have a deeper hood with tall people. It's very rare for someone who is attending something on a range to stand straight up and stir it. Most bend forward. Mock this up at home with cardboard hung from the ceiling and get used to it before designing your setup. And, remember that you can't always have it all! Pro style ranges are meant for pro style setups more than they are the pretty consumer grade style wood hood that have been fashionable in the past few years. Function triumphs over form if the two conflict around a fire breathing dragon or else the fire breathing dragon may win. It's like trying to eat all of the cake in the the bakery and still fitting into your size 6 jeans. Something may have to give.

You are correct about the 27 x 54 inside dimension. The taller the capture area, the higher you can have the hood. Those shallow hoods with the glass surfaces are pretty much usless as the capture area is too flat. With 1500 CFM and an 18 to 20 inch tall capture area 32" should not be a problem at all. Do listen to what Trevor says though, as he has a working kitchen where he has tried varius hoods and installment heights. Also pay attention to what he says about flammable materials above cooking surfaces. Better safe than sorry. I chose function over looks and chose a SS hood.

I can answer your question from experience as we have the exact same Culinarian cooktop configuration and opted for the 54x27 wooden hood with an insert from ModernAire.

Our counters are 37-1/4 inches high, in part because we're tall but also because this pushes the cooktop an inch closer to the bottom of the hood, given a fixed hood height.

Here are our finished measurements:
69-3/4 inches from floor to bottom of hood
32-1/2 inches from countertop to bottom of hood
31-3/4 inches from top of Culinarian stainless to bottom of hood (and the top of the iron grates are about 1 inch higher than the stainless, making the hood 30-3/4 above the top of the iron grates)

We planned to mount the hood higher but dropped it down when we realized it is not a danger. One drawback of mounting the hood to high (in addition to poorer performance) is that you see the undersides more easily and some complain about the hood lights shining in their eyes or in the eyes of people sitting at the island. Plus the perceived noise is higher if there's a straight shot from your ears to the underside of the hood.

We have never bumped into the hood and it would be almost impossible to do so because the rounded front of the Culinarian sticks out past the front edge of the countertop, making the cooks stand further out from the back wall.

The wood hood itself is 54W x 27D, so the opening is less (perhaps I should have made the opening this dimension). Just now I discovered the hood sticks out only 26-1/2 inches from the back wall. This is due to the backsplash installed after the cabinets, as usual.

A 24 inch deep hood would be a disaster with this cooking machine. I wish we had gone 27 inches deep on the inside of the hood, making the outside of the hood about 27-3/4 inches deep before backsplash. But I suggest you get rid of the shelf on the front of the hood unless you place it up higher. Even then it will block light from ceiling.

If you have a deeper cabinet made for the Culianrian (not sure if you're getting a cooktop or a range) make sure your cabinetmaker doesn't make the cabinet too deep or it will result in your cooktop being pushed away from the back wall too far, negating the extra depth you built
into your hood.

We have an Abbaka 1400CFM fan on the roof, and it sucks well, even with a couple of bends. We've had no problem with smoke from wok cooking but amazingly we haven't used the grill yet. We're still dealing with tons of punch list items so we haven't gotten around to wrapping the grill parts in foil prior to firing it up.

To fit the insert in the hood we had Modernaire ship the insert directly to out cabinetmaker so he could build the wood hood to match the insert.

During the design phase we made mockups from foam board. I suggest you do the same if you want to play with the dimensions.

Good luck with your project!

Billy

Great post, Billy. I too have ordered that range and am struggling with hood decisions. This is extremely helpful.

Thank you!