Disclaimer: I'm not a plumber or gas fitter and would not DIY a gas line. You could disconnect everything to the right of the stud, rotate the elbow so it points down, then add pipe to get the valve to the right height. The fittings and pre-cut pipe are available at stores. Now that the line is visible, you should be able to get a better estimate on having a pro do the work.

We have a 42" wide & 24" deep hood mounted 30" above our 36" cooktop. We're a tall family...ranging from 5'10" to 6'6" and still growing! So far, the only time anyone has hit their head on the hood is when my DH stuck his head up into it to check out the "squirrel cages" and didn't bring his head down far enough when he exited...he hit the back of his head! I don't think you should worry too much about head-hitting. Mounting your hood within the manufacturer's recommendations is more important. As to 1200 cfm, it sounds like you won't need makeup air b/c of the "California Cooler" ventilation. What some people don't understand is that the higher cfms have many pros: If needed, you have the higher power to remove anything from the kitchen (including smoke from burnt toast! yes, experience!) You will be able to run your hood on a lower speed more often and the fan will be quieter running on low or medium than on high. With lower cfm hoods, you may have to run your hood on high a lot more and the fan is generally louder than a higher-cfm's fan running at a lower speed w/equivalent cfms. The more bends you have to make in a duct run, the lower the actual cfms are. So, if you start out w/low cfms, any bends (or excessive distance) will lower the actual cfms even more.

I haven't cleaned the insides often (had the range swapped out because of the burner issues, so haven't had one long enough to get the inside too dirty). Yes, it is a PITA to do (the downside of no self-clean, but the alternative would be having the range pump out tremendous amounts of heat for many hours). I always had to clean my oven door manually on my old self-clean range anyway, and had to wipe out the ashes left behind after self-clean, so it''s not as though I had a free ride before! For the top, once you get the hang of it, cleaning goes pretty quickly (I don't clean the actual burner rings themselves BTW, don't see a need unless there's been a messy spillover--they're burners after all--not suppposed to look pristine and unused!). For spot cleaning or jsut wiping down the burner pans, I have found that Perfect Kitchen spray (from BB&B) was a good recommendation from the people at the SZ/Wolf showroom. Depending on the am't of mess, I'll spray the burner pans or spray a paper towel and wipe. For baked on crud or more extensive cleaning, spray with Dawn Power Dissolver spray gel, let sit (how long depends on how burnt on the mess or how much time you want to wait), and then "scrub" in the sink with a blue scrub sponge (ours usually has some Palmolive dish soap on it already), rinse, and dry. I use a dish towel to dry the pans. If I notice any smudges or finger prints after popping the pans back onto the range, I might give a quick buff with a dry microfiber cloth. The grates get a quick scrub in the sink with a soapy blue scrub sponge if I'm going to be cleaning the drip pans as well, not if I'm just spraying and wiping them. I do those first, then lay them upside down on a sheet of paper towel on the counter. They're pretty much dry by the time I've replaced the burner pans. I'll just blot up any remaining water/wet spots with a towel/microfiber/or paper towel and we're good to go!

Seeing that nobody has responded, I'll give it a shot even though I do not have one of the SC models. Looks to me that NXR's new"SC" line is just a rebranding of its lowest tier "Entree" line of stoves (with standard flat-capped sealed burners) which has been marketed through big-box stores like Home Depot. The new designation seems to be a line aimed at sales through vendors like eBay, NewEgg, BHG, and etc. As between an NXR Entree/SC and a Viking, it is pretty much a Hobson's choice. For most of the last decade here, Viking has had a truly bad reputation and, judging from the recent posts here about Viking equipment, service and support, it has not improved much since being absorbed into the Middleby group about six years ago. Here's the thing about NXRs (and the related brands like Thor Appliances and Kucht) having "a lot of problems." The thing is that these stoves are all built on mature, even old-fashioned technology. Rather like buying a knock-off of an old Willys jeep which uses off-the-shelf parts. Not a bad idea if you have a use for the 4wd, off road functions and have the time, skills and interest in DIY maintenance such as cleaning carburetor jets, re-tuning for altitude, etc. That's what you do with old tech. Getting an old tech vehicle would be a bad idea when what you really want is a Camry-like, comfortable daily driver for commuting, highway trips and errands. When you want that, why get a vehicle for ranch work for which you need the time, DIY skills and interest to do the required maintenance? I've had my NXR DRGB model for going on seven years now.. It has the dual stacked burners. The present model equivalent in NXR's current product lines would be the "Pro" line which is sold by the likes of Costco and Dvorson's. That said, I've had only a few niggling little bits of work over the years i've had it. I replaced an oven ignitor, found and fixed a loose connection in the wire to one of the oven lights, replaced worn-out silicon rubber stand-offs on the bottoms of the stove-top grates, adjusted the burner flames when our utility company varies the quality of the gas delivered (as it does), and occasionally cleaned out burners that get gunked up as a result of that and food spills. The biggest expense was $30 for replacing the oven's glow-bar ignitor when it started to weaken. Old style glowbars can and do wear out. I regard it as normal maintenance, like replacing spark plugs of my old truck. The part cost $30 at the local appliance parts warehouse (would have been a few dollars less on Amazon). Took me 15 minutes to replace the glow bar. I followed another NXR owner's writeup -- see the old thread titled "[If Susan fixed her nxr oven ignitor u can 2![(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/if-susan-fixed-her-nxr-oven-ignitor-u-can-2-dsvw-vd~2288437)" For somebody without the time, skiil and interest for such DIY self-service, this could have been a frustrating and expensive experience. First they would have to had to find somebody willing to work on a little-known brand. They would have to pay for a diagnostic visit. The servicer would then order an OEM part (which would cost five or six times what the otherwise identical generic Frigidaire part costs), and then charge for another trip to install it. You see how that would lead to angry postings about the stoves?