Several points: 1) Higher cfm will not make up entirely for decreased capture area. I think of blower performance as what determines how quickly smoke etc. that has been captured by the hood can be evacuated. Inadequate cfm means the hood will not clear fast enough to "make room" for incoming smoke, thus leading to spillover. However, an overly small capture area means that some smoke will never enter the hood at all. Remember that smoke diffuses laterally as it rises, and that is compounded if there is any cross-current of room air. As a first approximation, smoke that drifts laterally beyond the edge of your hood is lost no matter how high the cfm rating is. Kind of like trying to go faster on an icy road by installing a bigger engine, when the limiting factor is the spinning tires. Re haus proud's comments: all of the major hood manufacturers other than VAH allow remote blower installation. In the case of the OP, though, it sounds like he/she is venting through a side wall. That eliminates possibility of using a blower mounted inside. Only remote option would be to mount an external fan on the side of the house, which on the first floor of a house would look pretty weird. "Air intake surface covering entire underside of hood"? Isn't that all of them, except for some of the "Euro-style" hoods that have a flat piece of glass extending beyond the edges of the hood? Otherwise, the entire underside of any hood is "capture area." However, that is not related to airflow noise. That is almost all generated at the actual point where the ducting connects to the hood. "Forcing" the air through the much narrower diameter duct causes acceleration and turbulence, thus the noise. And remember that the largest duct in any standard hood is 10'', so that's pretty much fixed independent of brand. weissman: my experience differs somewhat. I have a 42'' 600 cfm VAH over a 36'' Dacor cooktop. I clearly get spillover. May reflect how I cook: I love to sear (favorite salmon recipe involves preheating dry pan on max heat for 4 minutes then dumping in fish). I'm hoping the new hood with 1200 cfm remote blower will do better over the Lacanche, and if I could, I would choose a different hood with higher cfm over the Dacor as well. Agree totally that increasing the depth from standard 24'' to 27'', or at least mounting the hood out an extra 3'' or so will partially compensate for the narrow width. amysrq: re choice of hoods--all the companies you name are good choices. As always I'll throw in a plug for Modern-Aire (Modern-Aire) with whom I've had an excellent experience. I know others have liked Metallo Arts for really wild, over the top designs. Any of these companies would make a good hood for you. I think it's more of a design decision: find one you like the looks of and you should do fine.

Miele - DA531W - 2,049.00 Franke - FDF367WXS - $1,729.00 Thermador - HDDW36FS - $2,299.00 Futuro Futuro - W36PLAN (Plane) - $1,299.00 Bosch - DKE9665PUC - $1,689.48 It looks like finding a good range hood is harder then I thought! The hood is going to go over a basic 30-inch or 36-inch range, and will be ducted to the outside (thanks for all the posts on how important good ducting is... now I just need to finally decide which range to get!) I want something from a good, reliable, European brand, something that will work quietly and not give me any issues in the long run. Seeing all the posts with people having problems with Chinese hoods convinced me that it's worth spending a few bucks more & avoid the headaches. But at the same time, I don't want to waste money by paying "for just the name". So, what's your opinion on these brands? And on these hood models in particular?

We entertain a lot and cook every night. When we remodeled we replaced the 30" cooktop and double wall oven with a 30" dual fuel range and 30" 240V Advantium wall oven. You will have to learn sequencing with the Advatium for multiple dishes, especially if you are going to use the microwave. The oven needs to cool down some before using the MW. We got a great deal on a GE Monogram Pro DF range and all of them are working perfectly.

I would start with what you're accustomed to cooking on/with now: Have you been cooking on a 30 and always wished you had a larger cooking surface? Have you been using a 36 all these years and find you actually don't use one or two burners (or whatever the differential between 30 and 36 is)? If you've been using a 36, is it a good tradeoff to lose a burner for the sake of gaining countertop space and the spice rack? Good advice. I cook every day. Ambitious recipes, large quantities, lots of baking, the whole 9 yards, but it's quite rare that I say to myself, "I wish I had a larger cooking space and/or a second oven". It's just not something that I really need or want. However, I own more kitchen goods than a Williams Sonoma store, so that bit of extra storage space would be more than welcome. I wouldn't go with a spice pull-out though. You don't want to store spices by the heat of the stove, and those things are fairly expensive for the small storage they provide -- I vote for a slightly wider upper instead.