30" distance is ideal. Close enough for capture area, high enough so you can stir tall pots and not feel claustrophobic. If you MUST do 27", then you must. But not lower.

leel.....glad to get your feedback on the induction. Thanks! As for me, I certainly wouldn't mind having to buy a new pan or 2 for the new oven. :-) gsciencechick....thanks for the pots and pans suggestions and the confirmation about induction. I'm ready to be done with gas (although I love the way it cooks) because it's just so dirty to keep clean. muskokascp.....I HEAR you!!! Whatever happened to the days when we just went to the store and asked the opinion of the saleman or perhaps picked out a unit because of style or color? These days we almost have too much info, and it can become crippling, honestly. At some point I just need to make a decision. davidro1.....I love your 'final answer' comment. I WISH!!!! Although I certainly know a lot more than I knew before, I still have questions. But today at the appliance store helped clear up some things. (Meaning that they don't know anything either and I can basically do whatever I want). The inspector on our job (both HVAC and electrical) don't know anything about MUA and can't advise us what we should get. So I just told them I'd get something that wasn't too powerful, and they seemed fine with that. They told us to adhere to the recommendations in the manual that comes with the hood. I swear!!! It's not rocket science.....why is it that nobody knows about this technology?

OK, youall have succeeded in drawing me into another argument. Let's start with the purpose of the overhead vent. The vent is intended to capture and contain effluent contained in the rising and expanding cooking plumes. It has an overlap capture requirement that depends on height, and a flow rate containment requirement that derives from plume velocities and secondary factors. It is not for capture or blockage of grease splatter, as that could require enormous air velocities to achieve. Down-draft "venting" and pop-up side-draft "venting" cannot achieve the needed capture and containment provided by an overhead hood of proper specification for these reasons: Air flow velocity drops rapidly as a function of the smallest dimension of a slot air intake (see the 2003 ASHRAE HANDBOOK, HVAC Applications, Fig. 6). The air velocity in all cases is too low to significantly change hot cooking plume momenta except those plume portions close to the pop-up, so the overhead hood depends on the natural rise of the plumes. Deviation of the upward momentum to the side, or by 180 degrees to head downward, can only work if the plume has low momentum, as in steam from boiling water. Hot oil/grease/moisture plumes from wok cooking and searing will be poorly deviated sideways or in reverse. Fume hoods can have horizontal hood configurations, but the top and sides are blocked from allowing fumes to leak out. The turbulence issue is complicated. Up-rising plumes can be disturbed by side drafts, poor insertion of make-up air into the kitchen, and cook motion. Side-drafts will be pulling air across pan and pot clutter, so some added turbulence is possible, but I don't think it will be a significant addition except close to the pop-up due to the velocity fall-off introduced above. On the other hand, a pop-up can block splatter trajectories from the burner up the the angle between pan and the top of the pop-up and as far as the pop-up sides shadow the area beyond. For this function, no air flow is needed and much of the pop-up system hardware can be dispensed with. If a blank face is used (no vent holes/slots), cleaning may be greatly simplified. Underfloor ducting, blower, external cap can all be deleted. Some cabinet space for the elevation mechanism has to be sacrificed. While a pop-up splatter blocker is a good idea if the degree of blockage is deemed sufficient for the expense, the subject raises the question of why children are sitting in range of hot grease splatter. At a minimum they would need eye protection. There are requirements (that I don't have at hand) for desirable rises and/or runs of seating countertops connected to cooking surfaces. I recommend proper desks in quiet areas for studying. The student should be fully absorbed into the material to be studied without distraction (or at least as little distraction as a post pubertal youth can manage).

I totally get the 24"-27" placement being too low for comfort, although at 5'2", not much hits me in the face. :) My last hood was at 24" and what I found most annoying was trying to get spaghetti out of a pot. I don't have the cooktop here, but the depth of the hood is 19" (including 3 1/2" of front controls). The front of the cooktop sits at about 22", so if I understand what I'm reading here, if I'm going to cook anything smelly I need to do it on the back burners, otherwise, I'm probably okay.