ok, first of all, what the heck is wrong with the appliance dealer that you're dealing with that they won't accommodate your exchange? that's terrible service. i'd return the damn thing and buy it elsewhere just on principle.

i recently installed a 24" deep hood and we are now dealing with the issue of having an adjacent upper between the hood and the wall, and yes, it's awkward to access. we attempted to deal with the problem by installing pull-outs in that cabinet, but it's even hard to see the pull-outs since they only pull out to about the depth of the hood.

on the other hand, i've been cooking up a storm on my bluestar and the capture i get from the 24" deep hood is excellent compared to what i've had in the past. much less smoke and smells in the house.

so, it really depends on how important ventilation is to you. how often do you cook with high heat, generate a lot of grease or strong cooking smells? there's no reason a griddle should require an extra-deep hood, it just depends on what you use it for. if you sear fish on your griddle at 500 degrees once or twice a week, i'd go for the 27"-er. if you just use it for pancakes on sunday morning, you're probably better off with the 24" deep hood.

(oh, one other thing we did to try and mitigate the awkwardness was to go for 15" deep uppers on either side of the hood, to try to de-emphasize the difference in depth.

Edlakin, there are lots of types of hoods so appliance dealers don't stock them usually. They are special ordered to fill your order so they generally aren't returnable (or have a hefty restocking charge).

Mech, fume removal from the front burners should be much improved by the extra depth - especially if the front edge of the hood has a flat area for controls before the capture area starts. For many hoods the capture area starts several inches behind the front of the hood and the rangetop burners come out so far. Do expect to do much cooking like stir frying?

You went to the trouble of having three inches beyond the sides of the range top, but covering the front of the burners makes more of a difference than that.

I'm not sure I understand the cabinet access problem. Do you mean that the range top is right next to the corner of the L? Even with a 24" hood, it seems like access to the corner cabinets would be awkward and the GC should have brought that up if he was involved before the cabinets were ordered so that it could be dealt with in the design.

The one problem with a 27" deep hood is that it may make it easier to bump your head depending on your height. But it is so nice to be able to run the fan at a lower quieter speed and still clear the air.

I can't exactly visualize the cabinet problem but as long as the doors open you'll be fine. (We had to put a spacer between my hood and a corner cabinet because the door opens on an angle). The deeper hood is much better for capturing smoke, fumes, etc. I'm convinced depth is more important than width. It's your kitchen - go for it.

Thanks for your input, everyone.

The upper cabinet doors open fine. But the upper cabinet at the corner directly beside the hood opens into the blind corner, so I think the deeper hood will probably make it even more difficult to make use of the shelf space in that corner. (Sorry, I know its hard to visualize and I apologize for not having a picture to post.)

Anyways, I think I've decided to keep the existing 27" hood. I'm not convinced that the 24" is going to look significantly different and we will have given up some level of functionality. Plus, we avoid the headache of dealing with an unwanted rangehood.

(edlakin -- I know that I might have been able to get the appliance dealer to take back the 27" hood but, unfortunately, they removed and took away the packing on delivery. So, if he took it back, it would have been difficult to convince the distributor to take it back and he would likely have had to put the brand new hood in the store's "clearance" area. His first comment to me was, "it HAD to be the rangehood...anything BUT the rangehood". I got a fantastic price on our suite of appliances and it certainly was not the retailer's fault that we were thinking about going to a different size. Actually, I don't fault anyone for not identifying the issue earlier, since we certainly did talk about rangehoods earlier -- I just chalk it up to one of those situations where, on paper, everything looked okay but you can only appreciate the real impact when you see the actual kitchen put together. I thought the retailer offered a very reasonable solution and, for me, the financial hit we would be asked to take -- which he estimated would be maybe $300 at the end of the day -- would be the price for making sure that our kitchen was the way we wanted it, if that's the route we wanted to go.)

My 27" deep hood is mounted 72" above the floor, so it doesn't interrupt the sight lines; my advice is to keep it high if possible and you will get used to it eventually!
Casey

I think I understand the access issue. Can you change the side the door opens from? I am assuming that the door hinges are on the right side of the L now, could you change it to the left side of the L. That way you are opening the door from the other side of the L rather than next to the stove? I would keep the 27" deep hood.

Good luck!