So you have the housing, right? ModernAire has a large range of sizes and will do custom. Trade-Wind have been around for decades and make a well regarded product.

I disagree with the sizes listed above. I think you should stick to standard sizing

52" wide x 27" deep at least 1200 cfm.

And raise the insert 4"- 6" up inside the wooden structure. So the leading edge of the wood is the capture area and not the actual insert itself.

pillog - We do not yet have the housing. Our cabinet maker wants us to get the insert and will design around it. We will check ModernAire and Trade-Wind. Thanks.

Trevor - Are you saying stick to standard sizing due to cost of custom? BlueStar says that the 54 X 24 is a "recommended" size. The minimum size (according to BS) is 48 X 24.

Thank you for your advice!

Aha moment... I didn't even think about BS referring to the HOOD size. Now I am almost certain that is what they were doing and I was frantically trying to find an insert of that size. This board can truly open your eyes! I will now relax a bit (lol). Thanks for the tips.

Generally, you want the hood size to be at least three inches past the edges of the range on all sides (not wall side, of course). The design of the insert vs. the range can have a little influence as well. If there's a big margin in the liner, and the pots are to the edge of the stove, it might not be as effective. In the scheme of things, it's not a big deal, just another reason for that overage, besides the general truth that the stuff being sucked up rises in a conical pattern that spreads as it rises.

BTW, I think ModernAire makes the size you want as a standard item, though I haven't checked recently, and I don't remember about Trade-Wind, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do too. I was mentioning custom because some people want things that fit a certain space and have nothing to do with the standard counting by threes sizes.

What are your thoughts on Vent-a-Hood inserts? They have a model that is 52 x 22.5 at 1200 CFM.

What one wants is to have the hood aperture size overlap the rising and expanding effluent plume. Aperture in this case refers to the area at the bottom of the hood that can be expected to actually capture effluent. Generally this is the empty space within the interior sides, but in some cases might include some of the edge (with enough flow rate and/or steep enough angle).

So, given an area at the cooktop that represents the contour of the bases of all pans that might be employed on the burners/hobs, draw an imaginary line upward from the contour edge expanding out at, say, 10 degrees, to the height of the hood aperture. (This is equivalent to multiplying the hood height by 0.176 or thereabouts, to find the edge of the preferred minimum overhang of the aperture.) Very high hoods need additional overlap beyond this to resist cross drafts from helping the effluent escape.

If wood is exposed at the bottom of the insert enclosure, its distance from the cooking surface must comply with the range manufacturer's minimum allowable distance to combustible surfaces.

If Rustic-R-Us is intended (cabinet-wise and flame-wise), then maybe cabinets made of woods that smoulder instead of burn might be considered, such as ipe or redwood.

kas

We will be installing a Ventahood for our Bluestar range with our remodel soon. We discovered that the actual vent duct for the Ventahood is larger than the Bluestar and some other hoods we looked at (12" diameter vs. 10"). This may not matter to you, we had to do a little redesigning after our hood choice for that reason. But we did a lot of research and ended up on the Ventahood for the Bluestar. A Ventahood dealer should be able to provide the insert size options for your range size as their specs are pretty straightforward.