Can you help me (and perhaps others) add some steps to the 'hood size guidelines' to think through hood size for the Capital Culinarian 36" rangetop, or one of the other 'monster' home rangetops (e.g., Bluestar, Viking, Wolf,...) The usual rule of thumb I've seen is: 100 CFM / 1,000 BTU rangetop Width same as rangetop, preferably 6" wider (e.g., (36", 42" better) Depth same as rangetop, preferably 3" deeper (e.g., 24", 27" better) The problem is that it is extremely unlikely we'll run the Capital at its full 138K BTU (or any of its monster brethren). Does the following make sense, or can those knowledgeable improve on it? At top actual use, we'll be using: 1 Burner wok = 23K BTU 1 Burner soup/ water boil = 23K BTU, but limited need for venting, call it 10K 4 Burners Realistic Max Average = 10K BTU (e.g., 1* 15K averages w/ 1 simmer) Total Effective = 73K BTU, and thus need 730 CFM Hood Suppose we do the 'best practice' of turning the hood on a couple minutes prior to any 'high-vent need cooking' such as wok cooking. If the range top is against a back wall, would we then be comfortable with the 730 CFM fan in a 36x24" hood? If the range top is in an island, would we then be comfortable with the 730 CFM fan in a 42x 27" hood, as long as we limit any activities that would cause strong drafts in the kitchen during wok cooking (e.g., opening the door from kitchen to patio.) In our case, we're looking at 6 burners, no grill or other top. We look forward to your help.

I know I am a little late joining this conversation, but I found this thread, looking up a comparison between Viking and Capitol. These are my two finalists, but things have changed a lot with these 2 companies in the past 2 years, since the last comments were made. First of all, Viking, who was purchased by Middleby Corporation (approx. 3 years ago), has made significant changes to the entire product line at Viking. I am in the commercial kitchen equipment business, and Middleby Corp owns the finest cooking equipment companies in the commercial cooking business (Jade Range, Southbend Range, Wells Mfg., Lang Mfg., Pitco, Blodgett, Market Forge, TurboChef, Star Mfg., Magic Kitchen, Anets, Toastmaster, Nu Vu, Doyon, and more). I went to the big home show this past spring in Las Vegas, and spoke directly with the CEO of Middleby and asked him what he has done with the Viking line since he bought the company. He hired engineers to revamp everything in the line, and was very proud of his new 7 series ranges with their new burner design and chrome plated griddles. He let me know that he inherited a lot of service issues that he has addressed, both on the manufacturing side, and on the customer service side. I can tell you that working with their commercial division companies, they are very committed to customer satisfaction, and expedited service. Some of Middleby's commercial divisions are making components and ovens for their newer product additions (such as TurboChef ovens in their wall ovens). I can't tell you how these changes have impacted the lastest product offerings, but I can't imagine that the changes have made them worse. I did have a Viking 48" gas range in a house I sold back in 2008, circa 2004, and there were a lot of features I did not like. Burners were not good in simmer mode, gas oven was not self cleaning, and was very difficult to get clean. Charbroiler smoked out the house, whenever I tried to use it. But it added a lot of value to the house when I sold it. Now let's look at Capitol. The guy who owns Capitol, owned DCS, which used to be one of the "players" in the commercial range market. Their ranges were very attractive, performed well, but were not heavy duty enough for high volume restaurants (Wolf and US Range were the big players on the West Coast, where DCS and now Capitol are located.) As many companies have gone light weight, easy to clean, low maintenance, Capitol appears to be sticking with some of the old commercial designs, which pay off from a performance standpoint, but may intimidate some, from a maintenance standpoint. I am truly impressed with the open burners on the Capitol Connoisseurian and Culinarian ranges. I can tell you that not only the burner design, but the top grate design adds significantly to the performance of the burners. Their is a bowl/ring that is part of the cast iron grates that directs the heat back up onto the pans that is deflected down off the the bottom of the pan, containing the area. The open style grates, that are light weight and easy to clean, have no added qualities to the performance. I am impressed with the thermostatic griddle (which is also standard on the Viking). The old manual flame griddles got too hot and made them useless for breakfast items, and left the griddle only for meat and searing. The addition of a self cleaning oven on the all gas model is probably the biggest "plus" feature of the range comparing it to Viking. With Viking you have to go to Dual Fuel, which raises to price by a couple thousand dollars. To me, the downside of both of these ranges is that they don't have a real good computer control for the ovens, like you see in a regular domestic range. I would love some feedback from anyone who has bought these two products in the past 6 months or so, with the latest improvements, and the bugs worked out.

The foot/inch thing is a quirk of GW titles. You can use two single quotes and it'll work. I'm 5'8", 5'10" in comfy shoes. My standard depth (24"?) M-A hood is installed at the standard 30" from the counter and it's fine. I have a pot rail, and tend to lean forward at times, and mine is over cooktop rather than range, so probably the same relative depth. You do see the baffles if you're looking up, of course, but they aren't ugly. You don't see them from standing, unless you're right underneath. No uglies, no bonking. It'll be fine as you've spec'd it. The thing you should check, though, is how you feel about the height of the knobs. That depends not so much on the height of your head, but your shoulders and length of your arms. Some people put in remote switches, which I think would be better than lowering the hood more than an inch.

Thank you for your replies. I just got off the phone with Capital service. Superior Equipment Solutions now owns the brand. The oven has now started having the overheating issue again. A few days ago I was making chicken wings and set the oven to 425. It continued heating to over 550 based on two oven thermometers I keep in the oven. The service guy at SES suggested that the thermostat was bad. I reminded him that I had three thermostat replacements under warranty and none of them fixed the problem. I then suggested that perhaps a valve was getting stuck open when at higher temperatures. He thought about it, agreed that it was unlikely that all four thermostats were bad and suggested the igniter, which was discussed earlier in this thread. He also stated that he has not had this issue reported to him, so we were just discussing theories. That is a good news/bad news for me. The good news is that this doesn’t appear to be a design issue. The bad news is he doesn’t have an answer. He told me the igniters are more prone to going out before the thermostat and he hasn’t heard of a valve having issues. The support tech also suggested measuring the circuit at different points to determine what the the components are doing. I asked if there was a parts manual/diagram and the tech said that none existed at Capital when it was acquired. All he has is a partial list of parts. So my next step will be to acquire a igniter and see if that fixes the issue.