I had a 600 cfm Modern-Aire hood venting straight out in my old kitchen. It was barely enough for an underpowered gas cooktop which might have been an old Dacor, though it was mounted a bit high because of an existing window. I now have a 1200 cfm M-A hood, also venting out the wall, and mostly use induction. It's quite a bit more power than I need (they didn't have anything in between), but does an admirable job, rarely on full, often on lowest. I don't think 250 cfm would be adequate for more than very basic things like a little boiling water, a low saute of a few vegetables, or eggs. For browning meats, boiling down stock, or frying, it doesn't seem adequate at all. Certainly not for pulling from the oven. I have Gaggenau ovens, and I love them, but I sure do smell what's cooking! Perhaps the filters trap grease or other particulates, but not smells! On the rare occasions I make a bad smell (i.e., something spills and burns), I do find that my big, overpowered hood, which is about 6-8 feet away, does help. On top power. As in major suckage. Doesn't completely do it, but it helps. They used to make special hoods for wall ovens, but they don't seem to any more. I looked. I have a place to put one if I ever find one. :)

Thanks guys. The Avalon is a '96. When we bought it used a few years ago (Toyota Certified of course), it had the original radio, speakers, and CD player. The CD player was not working very well, so we replaced it with an Alpine, but left the original speakers, as the vendor (the same one we are dealing with now....) said "your speakers are great and if I were you, I would keep them." We agreed, as the origial system sounded fantastic. Almost as good as my 7-speaker system in my new Lexus. I did listen to the Alpine speakers in the store prior to purchase, but they do sound very different in our car. Zero depth or bass, unless we turn it up to at least 2, which the vendor (and kid that installed it) recommended against. They said that that would eventually blow the speakers, since they are only 4" speakers. Of course I was clueless at the time about speaker sizes AND the sizes of speaker wells in autos. I just assumed and Alpine speaker is an Alpine speaker and trusted them to recommend the right ones, given my stated objective of replacing the blown speakers with something of equal quality. After I listend to the installed results and was disappointed, they explained the reason and indicated that to get the bass response we were looking for (geeze - we listen to jazz, folk/acoustic, classical, and a tiny bit of classic rock), they indicated a subwoofer mounted in the trunk would do the trick. Do you guys agree? Is it reasonable for me to ask them to actually hook one up and let me hear it before purchasing? This vendor has been good to deal with over the years and has always backed up their work and - at least up until now - given us good advice. I also happen to like the installer. Young kid, as they all are, but when I have questions, he takes me to his car and shows me what he is talking about - as we did when we bought the after market XM system. I don't really want to start over by going somewhere else, since we have spent so much $$ with them and this is a recent purchase. I believe that they owe it to us to help us achieve our originally stated objective and I think they will, if I get back there before too much more time passes - it has been about 3 weeks now, and I just want to do my homework here before going back to them for a resolution. Lynne

Thanks for your input, Renovator8. That fireplace has been through a few transitions. It was first an Isokern masonry like fireplace but to save some money we changed it to a b-vent on the plans. Once we placed the house on the lot, it became apparent that the b-vent pipe would be viewable from the street, and would have to be fairly high due to the slope of the roof. The initial hope was to hide the b/vent pipe from view behind the upstairs Isokern chimney, but the house is oriented in a way that it is viewable on approach, even though not seen in the front or back yard. We then changed to an direct vent. The whole reason for the direct vent was to not vent to the roof, so I would like to avoid that. We have a couple of options with the Montebello like running them behind a bookshelf in the dead space and then over a boxed bay bumpout, but the pipe is so big it may make it not feasible. I don't think we have enough rise available to run it over the master bedroom tray ceiling above, unfortunately, because that will vent out the side of a house above the a/c in a very inconspicuous place.

formulaross, thanks for the info. There have been so many details and decisions involved with this project (doubling the family room by adding a sunroom, new walls, new lighting, new floor, new connection to the kitchen, etc. etc. etc.), and I sometimes find myself blocked for days on end by some silly little detail. Luckily, we also finally found a finish carpenter who understands what needs to be done and is coming by next week to build a box around the fireplace that will then be tiled. Can't wait for that first evening fire :o) Susan