@User @Anne Mulholland Cleaning is the one thing that I really dislike about the oven. But to be far I would hate cleaning any oven :) The top cooktop is extremely easy to clean. Most of the time I just use soap and water. Maybe once a week I will use Cerama Bryte to really polish the top and make it look new again. The grill is easy for the most part. The heavy metal rack and tray\basin can be just washed normally in the sink alone with the aluminum housing it sits on. The steal tray\bason that the rack sits in get discolored and nothing I have tried will remove it. The aluminum housing can also be removed and cleaned. What I dislike about the grill is there is no way that I can see to clean the top were the element is. If anyone has figured that out let me know. The actual ovens are about the same as every other oven that I've had that does not have the self cleaning feature. In my case, I removed the oven racks and the easy slider racks and bottom panel that @A Bowditch referred to. These can all be cleaned in the sink. Even though the manual has instructions on how to remove the vertical side rails that he racks lock on to, I could not remove them. (Cleaning would have been a lot easier once removed). I also removed the back plate that the fan sits behind. Then I used a oven cleaner that was recommended to me by a friend and let it sit overnight. I did not use anything like easy-off as i read that this could damage some ovens and I didn't want to risk it. Some hard to remove spots required the help of a razor blade to help remove. All in all I wish this oven had a self cleaning option, but without being able to remove the side rails i don't know if i would trust using it anyway. Hope that helps.

@Heather Spencer I'm not a pro but I dove into the ventilation question a bunch when I was looking at what to do in my own kitchen. There are a ton of posts on it here, too. ventilation is pretty location dependent as far as what you can get away with, but what you should do is use a hood that's sufficient for the range you buy, and provide the makeup air system that's required for it. If you are anywhere that has cold seasons, or if you live in a tight house, you need to have makeup air. Passive systems work in temperate climates, but not so great in cold climates. The makeup air system is designed to prevent a backdraft situation with combustible appliances. In a cold climate with good insulation, houses don't leak, which means your hood vent will suck more air from your house than can be replaced by leaky doors and windows, causing a dangerous situation. The higher the CFM, the harder it is to replace the air without a system in place (gas dryers, gas water heaters, gas fireplaces, and even bath fans contribute to this calc). For a 48" range you need a serious range hood (Wolf recommends 1100 CFM for their 48" range if I remember correctly). Anything over 400 CFM typically requires makeup air. I ran through the calculations in the code in my state when I was trying to decide on a range and found out that it didn't take much to throw me into full makeup air system, so I decided to go with induction. If you choose a 48" range and pick a lower CFM range hood, you'll end up with smells and smoke, unless you just have the range because it's pretty and don't do more than boil water or make grilled cheese on it. So, in order to do it properly, it costs money. More in cold climates, where makeup air needs to be heated. Less in temperate climates. My builder estimated about $5-6k for the makeup air system (not including hood). I priced out what I would need from fantech, and it got me close to that number. So it is true that the ventilation + hood can be as much if not more than the range itself. ETA: this isn't specific to 48" ranges - Wolf recommends 500 CFM hoods for their 30" dual fuel range, so it's more about the power of your range than it is about the size of it. But generally the bigger your range, the more power it has.

We are planning to replace an existing 36" gas range in our kitchen with an induction range. Looked at our local appliance store last weekend and were dismayed at lack of choices compared to 30" ranges. They had Fisher & Paykel, Bertazzoni, and Wolf models on the floor. I really liked the F&P easy glide racks and the knob layout. In comparison, the Bertazzoni racks were clunky and the knobs were not as user friendly (burner location pictures were under the knobs so you had to bend over to see which knob went with which burner). It was not obvious what the extra $2-5k that the Wolf costs would get us. We haven't decided, so I'll be following this thread closely :)

@TXGuy Compared to everything else in the room. We have a 30" Thermador fridge and 18" Thermador freezer and never hear them. It's an open concept beach house and the two undercounter fridges are loud enough that it's a relief when they cycle off. They also don't have door open alarms which is sometimes a problem with the drawers. I have no idea how the columns are.