A single scion may two or three more years to spur up and start to bear, and with some pear varieties it can take five or more years! After your scion reaches a reasonable length (maybe this coming spring if things go well) head it back to force growth along its length. Encourage lateral shoots off of it and manage these as pencils. The pencils will eventually become your fruit bearing wood and can be cut back as they become too old, making room for new pencils. Vigorous shoots that want to go up, down, or back into the tree should be removed at once, and the laterals will do well as competition is removed. But the scion can be allowed to fruit before it forms pencils- just not this coming year and probably not the next. Not likely that it would on a pear anyhow, but could happen.

I think layout is one of the primary deciding factors. We actually chose a Dacor 36'' cooktop with telescoping downdraft in our island with a Monogram 30'' oven in the island off to the side and an Advantium in the perimeter above the pantry pull-outs. It works for us. I liked the idea of having a gas cooktop and an electric convection oven and many of the duel-fuel ranges I looked at were very expensive. I also wanted a 36'' cooktop, but didn't really need a 36'' oven (just a 30''), so I saved some space but splitting it up. Additionally, I wanted to use a telescoping downdraft instead of an overhead hood and most manufacturer's only approve downdraft ventilation for cooktops and not ranges. We're very happy with all of the appliance choices we made. They work for us. Choosing what works for you involves identifying your needs and wants and picking what works best for you and your layout. Good luck! :)

After cooking on and adjusting my CC for the past four months or so I think I have come to the conclusion, as others have, that you will never get a CC with its current burner configuration to get low enough for most of us regardless of how you adjust the "Simmer" screw or igniters. I am not going to get hung up on the "Book" definition of "Simmer". Why would I make such a bold statement? The CC burner has 92 ports or holes � 36 in the outer ring (39%), 36 in the middle ring (39%) and 20 (22%) in the inner ring. Let�s ASSUME for the sake of the discussion that all of the ports are the same and the output is equally divided between the 92 ports at all settings. Now look at the picture below: As posted at the start of this thread this is how one of my burners is adjusted � no flame in the outer ring and no "Clicking". If you follow my calculations above this means this burner is operating at 61% of the burners total capacity and much lower than most of the burners shown on this thread. This week end I cooked two pot roasts at the same time on the CC. One was in a 6 � qt Lodge enameled, cast iron pot and the other in a 13" aluminum oval roaster. Both had a 3 to 4 pound roast, broth, veggies, etc. On "Simmer" this burner produced a temperature of 205F with more bubbles that I would call a low simmer and the other burner was 207F with bubbles. I believe the 92 or 56 ports (the inner and middle rings) will never be able to be adjusted to produce a low enough Btu output to satisfy the average cook. This is why myself and several others believe that CC will ultimately have to redesign the burner to something like a single 20 port ring (like the inner ring on the current burner) with the appropriate office and air shutter to achieve a true "Low Simmer". I would to see Mr. Kalsi and Capital produce a burner that had a range of something like 100 Btu to 23,000 Btu, but I don�t think it can be done and I know the current burner is no that adjustable. Side Note: Has any manufacturer ever published the Btu output of its burners at its lowest setting? If they have I surly have not been able to find it. All they publish is the MAXIMUM output and I have no idea what the lowest setting is when expressed as a percentage of the maximum.

Aesthetics aside, 30 inches from stove top (not from top of grills) to vent hood bottom is the minimum height typically advised for the bottom of the mounted vent hood. Vent hood height may be higher if your range/cooktop manufacturer stipulates so and you plan to avail yourself of the warranty. Wood mounted over stainless brings a new considerations into play: stainless is far less combustible than wood. Height matters. Two vent hood surfaces, one slightly higher, yet close to the lower vent hood, may result in a non-vented grease pocket on the wood vent undersurface, require nimble fingers to clean if even possible, and pose a fire hazard which is why the motor system is a main component of the kitchen ventilation system. One other thought is weight limit on your back wall mounting surface with two hoods, as that's a lot of weight on the back wall. It's good to ask and do your research first. Hope this helps.