Well, so far, all I have is the 10" duct. I guess I'm relaxing on the actual venthood for now. I am leaning towards the 40" Independant brand though. The building inspectors around here make us leave out the spec book on the range you are putting in, so they can make sure we are doing the right thing. I will need to re-read the Capital R/T handbook, but, I am hoping I misread about the vent hood having to be 24" in width. Because the Independant VH I want is not 24" width. I have been so busy getting our house we are currently in, ready to put on the market, so haven't got to spend much time reading that part. I may have to take it up to the inspector to know for sure. They play "god" around here and you are at their mercy! LOL! I'm laughing, but that really isn't a joke!

Been there, done that...lint is such a HUGE annoyance to my life. We're in a 2nd floor condo where the dryer vent ducting goes to the roof through the attic over 20 feet and several elbows. My husband bought the condo years before we met, and the ducting was clogged after several years. At the time, he decided to disconnect the vent from the duct. The resulting moisture did some damage to the cabinetry (swelling of the particle board, even under layers of oil-based paint). Soon after we married, he decided we needed to fix the problem correctly. He went up into the attic and disassembled the ducting, brought it outside, and blew it out with his air compressor. I pushed some cleaning tool through it as well. We can't be doing this regularly! I mean preferably, never again! So, I had him put a filter -- a gallon paint strainer -- over the dryer vent where it connects to the machine. This clogs every month or so, we pull the machine out, disconnect the vent, clean the strainer, and put it back. This is still an annoying chore, but not the nightmare of dealing with the whole duct run. My husband had a cool idea, that what we need to do is sew a new, longer strainer that tapers to a skinny point, so that even when it clogs at the point, there can still be air flowing past the clogged strainer, and we should be able to go longer between cleanings. We got a new dryer last summer, and pulled the ducting out of the attic to clean it -- but it was already clean as a whistle. So, our secondary filter system has kept the duct run clean for 9 years. I found you can buy secondary lint traps with a door that opens to clean them out, but we don't have room to install the box in our laundry room, and I don't think it would work any better or be easier to clean than our homemade filter. When I redo the floor, I plan to put magic slider thingies under the dryer feet to make it easier to move in and out, plus I won't want to gouge my new floor. I have researched other solutions. People claim that solid metal vent will maintain better airflow than pleated, but I think it will still clog because we need 2 90-degree elbows to get it connected to the duct in the wall. And if it clogs, how do we pull out the machine with a non-stretching vent? If we could move the duct in the wall to match the dryer vent outlet, that would eliminate 2 elbows and would probably help... I also found you can install a secondary fan in the ducting near the exit, increasing the airspeed in long ducts so the lint won't clog. They cost $150-200, but if I never had to clean out the duct run or pull out the dryer to clean my makeshift secondary lint trap ever again, it would be well worth it. I also think that our ducting is leaky somewhere, because rooms on the other side of the wall (our master bath) get crusted with lint all the time. Finding and sealing those leaks would probably improve airspeed some, plus save me tons of work cleaning the lint all the time. I think the additional fan is the way to go. In 2 other areas where we replaced an ineffective low-cfm cheap fan with a high-cfm good one, like the hood over our cooktop, it made an amazing difference, night and day. Here is a link that might be useful: example of dryer duct fan

You need to let the granite shine and be the star. There's too much going on in all those backsplashes you posted. They would be beautiful with a plain finer grain granite but not with a beautiful stone that busy. It's like wearing a floral blouse, with a floral skirt in another print. I would do a plain glass or crackled longer subway in a rich cream, or light honey color. Maybe beveled for more interest. You can also do a small square, light stone mosaic with not too much contrast between the pieces, and a matching grout. A tumbled honey onyx small mosaic might work too with matching grout. You don't want to see too much of the grid pattern. The colors should be grayed down a bit as to not dull the granite as your bright cream tile does. I know that might be boring, but it works and looks pretty with the granite.

Sorry, opaone, but I fear your sentence: "With a short straight duct a strong 800 CFM blower will do 800 CFM and a 1200 CFM blower will do 1200 CFM." could lead to a misunderstanding. Blower ratings are made in free air, i.e., no hood or ducts or restrictive make-up air supply. Hoods, hood filters, ducts, or any pressure drop in the supply of air back to the kitchen (MUA) will reduce the volumetric flow rate (CFM). Hence, one should not expect a blower, hood, and hood filter combination, even with the most unrestrictive exhaust duct, to supply much over 2/3 of the the blower's rated CFM. Your use of "strong" would have to be interpreted as having a more squarish fan curve versus "weak" which would imply a more triangular fan curve between max flow and max pressure, but most blowers used for residential hood exhausts (and as far as I know most up-blast commercial blowers) have the same general quasi-quarter-round shape. To get a significant deviation from this shape may lead to a fan curve that is not monotonic counter-clockwise along the curve, which would cause 'hunting' during operation at higher pressure losses. It is also necessary to keep in mind that the fan curves we see are often full power only, and at lower power settings may behave a bit differently, which has to be accounted for in the design. To the OP, I suggest this order of determining characteristics. Determine hood canopy size -- the size of the fume entry aperture -- such that expanding rising plumes are captured within the limits set by the kitchen design and affordability. This was addressed in an earlier post in this thread, among others. Determine flow rate; strive for actual 90 CFM/square foot of hood entry aperture. If all of the needed parameters relating restriction pressure loss to flow rate are not available, multiply the product of aperture area and 90 CFM/sq. ft. by a factor of 1.5 as a rough guess to find rated CFM. This should assure containment of the major parts of the plumes that are captured. A means of supplying air to the kitchen to make up for that which goes up the hood is needed. This should have low pressure loss. The entire subject has been extensively treated on this forum and can be found by searching for "MUA." Lowest noise results from using a blower remote from the hood and inserting a silencer into the duct between blower and hood. Space may thwart adding a silencer in many architectures. Further or alternate noise reduction can result from using an oversized blower at less than full power. This all depends on too many variables to provide definitive answers. opaone is doing both silencer and oversize. He should end up with only baffle hiss, easily talked over. There are other aspects that have been addressed on this forum. A search and some review time will aid your familiarization with the topic. In summary, hood ventilation and MUA may be one of the most architecturally intrusive parts of a kitchen renovation, and require both planning and aesthetic, performance, and cost trade-offs to achieve a satisfactory result.