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.

Hi Hamster, Hope you have better luck. I have received a replacement stove. I was told it was coming on a lift truck but it came on a semi. Good thing we have a forklift--we had to unload it ourselves. New stove is in and I have been using it for awhile. I am NOT totally happy with it. There are the small things: the burner grates are a bit too low so that a 14" pan has to tilt when it extends over the griddle, the griddle's temperature fluctuates too much (it cools down too much before coming on again), the rolling racks get stuck on the lower levels (like the oven is not square and they get jammed. I had to kick one to get it dislodged). There are the larger things: I used the self cleaning for the oven after rotisserie turkey, now the oven cooling fan does not come on (just hums), convection cooking does not yield even results (a rack on a lower position browns much faster).....I have to try the broiler again to see if it is working. Sadly, I would not purchase another one. I contacted them in October that I had the old one boxed and ready to return and no one has responded. I am going to contact them after the holiday to let them know about these latest problems.

Thanks, vvl, for updating your problems-experience. I have had my 36" 6-burner range for maybe 1.5 years now? Time flies... I bought this range as a risk, basically sight-unseen and comparatively untested. I cannot say how it would have compared with a different range, bluestar for example. I have found the range to be not as fantabulagorous as I had anticipated, but then my experience is minimal. I continue to have simmer problems. I was sent one of the new simmer burners which is as described elsewhere above, with just the inner of three concentric rings of gas-jets remaining (that is, the regular burner has three concentric circles of little holes-worth of gas jets, the simmer burner has only the inner-most ring of these gas-jets). This results in a considerably more compact circle where heat hits the pan - it is small. This makes for less-than-ideal conditions in a large pot, IMO. I have almost all cast-iron but still this does result in an interior hot-spot ring which I do not like much. Far far more useful, IMO, would have been to have manufactured a grate which was covered with a metal plate, a sort of embedded "simmer plate". This would also take care of a secondary problem that the opening provided by the grate pattern in the very center is not teeny enough. I have a small turkish-coffee pot that I can just barely fit onto this small interior-spot, but it is tippy; not safe. This is not a terminal complaint, but one of many annoyances. Because of the insufficiently-small interior grating space I find I use my homemade simmer plate (a pad woven from copper wires by dh) often. It is not as good as a real one would be. The clicking remains mind-bogglingly annoying. As Trevor once said: this is the most annoying sound known to man. I know now how to fix it, with time, patience and a screw driver. I have been given a sufficiently small-enough screw driver by the company for this purpose. But in all honesty, I know this makes me an impatient consumer, but I don't really feel like doing this; I have almost never got the time to. I am always trying to throw together dinner at 8:30 before everyone falls asleep in their plate and there are so many crises floating about. I have teenagers and what would be a fine obsession for a retired person, is a real problem for me: I haven't the clearness of time to maintain these stupid burners. It's really annoying. For me, YMMV. The burners drift out of whack within a couple weeks of fixing them. Really, really annoying. In fairness, sort of, the company has offered to come fix them for me when this happens (I happen to live sort of close to the factory), however, I find this a sort of an embarrassing offer. I should be like billy_g and jscout and Ty-whoever and the other machine-involved folks in terms of just dealing with this stuff. But I am finding in my old age that my former interest in engines and machines and mechanics has fallen by the wayside. I would rather the burners just worked properly. And I would rather the simmer function worked better. I have found that I have modified my cooking habits around the machine's weakness. I almost never make sauces anymore which is OK because we are all too heavy anyway. But it is sad that what I hoped would be an amazing capability is quite the opposite. Making soup stock, which I do all the time, is something of an ordeal because the pot has a tendency to boil dry. I find setting my homemade simmer burner atop the full ring burner on its lowest setting, presuming I can find a burner that won't click at me, is the best for simmering soup. Rendering fat still needs the simmer pad atop the simmer burner in a very small pan; if the pan is too large it gets too cool too far away from the narrow center. I'm adjusting, and again, for all I know this is as good as it gets and another stove would have had its own set of irritations. As I recall there was a tradeoff with cost here and I cannot say how that figures in, now or then even. It seemed a relatively good deal at the time. I'm not sure in retrospect that decision was wrong, but again, I am not unconditionally happy with the machine. I liked the advertised ability to have all burners available, all equally blast-like potentially. I don't really like the solution of providing a smaller burner. I want all burners to go from simmer to blast in all positions equally; that's my preference burner-organization-wise. And given that the simmer burner isn't even working very well for me I will probably swap it back out with the old burner one of these years. As well, there is an issue with the oven that has annoyed the heck out of me since day 1. I have learned to work around it but it's also annoying. Oddly enough, my racks (manual oven) buzz -- it's not the fan as was first thought. And weirdly, it is worse when there is weight on the racks, the more the worse. Go figure. If I pull the racks away from the back wall this will stop the buzzing; I have to remember to do this and sometimes, when something delicate is in the oven it's irritating to have to open the door to correct my oversight. But I have learned to position the racks just so to fix this problem; trouble is just on me to remember, and when running about as I always am, this is another small annoyance. Again, doesn't make me rue the purchase, just not ecstatic with it. I find myself using the electric oven whenever possible to avoid the noisiness of the racks. This is probably not cost- or energy-efficient! The stove has also become not completely horizontal but that's unlikely the stove's fault. A big sheet cake came out visibly not-flat recently. I suppose it's necessary to fiddle the feet to bring it back to plumb. That would be as much of an annoyance with any stove, so is not specific to the CC. I'm trying to be fair.... ;) Lots of more experienced chefs still like the range. I would defer to their broader knowledge of the situation. But from my narrow awareness I am not besotted with the appliance. I am disturbed to hear of others' difficulties too, disturbed on behalf of the company. Perhaps this is not fair of me either. They have tried to be responsive to me. I'm just not happy that there appear to be issues about which nothing much *can* be done, and more maintenance work is required than I anticipated. For a recent poster, there are many, many threads on this forum comparing closed and open burners. I have no problems with the open-burner-ness. I find the stove extremely easy to clean, which is good considering the tendency of simmer to be so hot as to send bloops everywhere ;) Get a fan that covers a large area. ;)

Duplicate post. WendyM67, I'm very sorry to hear about your problems with your stove and service departments. This side of the kitchen forum doesn't get much traffic--you might want to post on the GW appliance forum (link below), or on the on topic discussions side of kitchens. Here is a link that might be useful: appliance forum