I've never had a hood larger than my range. Right now I have a 48" hood over a 48" Wolf gas rangetop (8 burners with 16K BTUS each). We do all sorts of cooking, including searing meat and lots of stir fry. I don't have any problems or complaints. I couldn't afford the jump to get one wider than 48". Because we use the panini grill, waffle irons, etc. next to the rangetop, I might have liked one that covers more area, but I wouldn't have gotten one larger just for the stove...And as a matter of fact, the hood we have does a decent job for that cooking we do off to the side. Like I do, you'll have upper cabinets that help funnel fumes, etc into the hood...It might be different if there was nothing around the hood to help with the capture.

Think of it as a shiny tile backsplash with poor vertical alignment. :) There are some pre-patterned stainless steels that can look fairly pretty. Just keep the angle of tilt-out (from vertical) shallow enough that a rising expanding plume that hits it is still reflected upward. Three inches of tilt over 32 inches (less if the range has its own backspash) is easily sufficiently shallow in angle. Even a less observable short metal piece close to the hood could be built and be 30 degrees or less from vertical. For example, a six-inch piece of metal tilted out 3 inches at the top would be at 30 degrees. Tour http://finishedkitchens.blogspot.com/p/kitchens-alphabetically.html for ideas. In any case, a serious gas range needs some consideration of what the wall behind it is made of, and I'd start with 5/8 firecode sheetrock (or stone or brick) covered by something fire resistant, such as metal or tile. Assume a raging grease fire in your planning, because that is what the range manufacturer did to comply with UL and to specify offset distances to combustibles, and what the hood manufacturer did to comply with the hood filters performing their fire blocking function. kas

I have a 36" RNB and BS vent hood and both I would categorize as perfectly fine and the customer service fine for the most part, but lacking in other areas. Honestly, I wonder if my stove and hood were from Bluestar's Land of Misfit Stoves. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to love the items, so it crushes me that they are not living up to my expectations, especially with all the money and time I put into them. The stove's burner bowls (the square part that surrounds the grate) arrived terribly discolored. They do not have an even finish on them, and it looks like one especially has great all over it. One burner would never start, and then when it did, it would create this huge "fireball." None of us would use that burner. They came it fix that. It still does it sometimes, but for the most part that has been remedied. Yay, Bluestar. What is sooooooo annoying, is that the burners click all the time when cooking. The sound you hear when your turn on the burner never goes away. A guy came ti fix it once, said everything was installed properly, jiggled things enough that it didn't do it for a day, but they both do it all the time. Every time I hear that noise, it makes me sad that I have the stove I do. The vent collects grease that drops onto my counter overnight all the time. It collects at the top right screw. I called BS and the CSR asked for a picture, which I texted to him. He said people were looking into it and he would get back to me, but that was three weeks ago. I also paid for a repairman to come out and show me what I was doing wrong, and he couldn't find anything. It is VERY level, and I clean everything. He said it was a design flaw and he took pictures to send the BS rep. Again, two weeks and nothing. The fallen grease is dangerously close to my floor. I also surreptitiously remove the grease that hangs on that screw, because my husband was against BS anything. We wanted me to go with a Wolf stove, so it kills me that I am having all these troubles. There are many things I do like about the stove, but they are masked by the troubles. I don't think they are a terrible company, and I am trying not to flame them here. I am not that type of person. Just when I was researching, I saw NOTHING but positives about BS ranges, so I thought I would put down my alternate experience.

The glowbar igniters are a really old and proven technology. You'll find it in lots of gas appliances (e.g. water heater, furnace, ovens, ...) as they are so safe. Whenever the thermostat calls for heat, it turns on the igniter. As a first approximation, a glowbar igniter is the same thing as an incandescent light bulb without the protective glass shell. It draws a couple of hundred watts and uses that to produce heat. Right next to the glowbar is a temperature activated gas valve. As long as no heat it produced (i.e. glowbar doesn't call for heat or glowbar is defective), no gas flows. This is very safe. But if the valve detects sufficient amounts of heat, it opens and gas flows over the glowbar and ignites. This is damn simple and there is very little that can fail catastrophically. So, it is inherently a safer design than using click igniters. Those are good for the stove top where a person can supervise the burners. But the oven has to work even when it cycles on/off without human intervention. The downside, of course, is that this glowbar behaves just like an incandescent bulb. Some bulbs live for decades, most live for a couple of years, and a small number dies within months. Same is true for glowbars. Nothing much you can do about it. Fortunately, they are cheap and standardized components. Every appliance manufacturer buys from the same factory. And yes, gas ovens always cycle on/off completely. There generally isn't a great way to modulate heat output. This is a noteworthy difference when compared to electric ovens, which frequently can keep constant temperatures much more easily. For many dishes, that doesn't actually matter. But there are some that do in fact cook much better in an electric oven. And I guess the reverse is true too.