I'd have to disagree. Hood shape, while not the most important factor, does affect hood performance. The Euro-style hoods clearly sacrifice some performance for style. The major issue is the lack of "sides" on the hood. A typical hood liner for example will have 6'' to 12'' sides. The resulting cavity will function as a temporary smoke trap. Thus, if searing with high heat, there will be an initial plume of smoke and fumes generated. They will travel upward, as heat rises. Particularly towards the edges of a flat Euro hood, some of the smoke will travel outwards and spill over the edges, no matter how hard your blower is pulling. Add any degree of cross ventilation and the problem is magnified. A deeper hood can temporarily trap much of the smoke until the blower air current can draw it into the ductwork. As a rule, a higher hood will outperform a flat hood with the same cfm and ducting. The notion that a wider hood will not outperform a narrower one ("The size of the filter/cover isn't really the issue") is also incorrect. By that logic, we could just mount a naked 10'' piece of duct over our ranges and it would work just as well as a 48'' hood. It is always true that optimal hood size should extend at least 3 to 6'' beyond the sides of the range. Remember that smoke does not rise in a perfect vertical path. There is some diffusion in all directions, and some of it inevitably will travel outwards away from the range. A hood that is no larger than the range has no chance to capture that smoke. Remember that capturing "escaping errant greasy vapors" is exactly what a hood is supposed to do. And, it is cfm that count. Duct size is important, but only in that it determines the true cfm generated at the inlet to the hood ducting. 8'' ducting with a 1400 cfm blower will outperform 10'' ducting with a 250 cfm blower, though of course the correct configuration is 1400 cfm through 10'' duct.

Clipshot - then only options presented from the builder are directly from Wolf and the HVAC guys. 1. Different oven with smaller blower. 2. ERV with the current oven and a 900 or 1200 cfm blower - which also does not include the extra cost of any shingles or plywood needed to install the ERV. Roof and shingles are done right now. 3. Move to the Range top with double ovens which means a kitchen re-design and possible delays/extra costs. This option again is without the indoor grill and only 4 burners. I guess I'm having a hard time believing that you need an ERV with 4 burners and a grill on a range top. I even promised to "open a window," but I don't think that will go over well.

It looks like the Imperial 42" is the favorite. It is funny that most of my "inspiration" pictures have a similarly shaped hood, since I saved those images in my "backsplash" folder to try to help my choose the BS height (i.e., I didn't intentionally choose those pictures for the hood). The voting for BS height is mixed, with the majority so far choosing the 8' height. The image above with the tall gray glass BS is from the Smallbones catalog -- I love that look -- makes me wish I could have gone "topless." I think I prefer the taller glass BS, but I'm not sure how to overcome the technical difficulties with the chinmey extending beyond the glass. The glass and wall above will be painted the same color so the line will not be a strong contrast like most of the images above, although the shine factor will obviously be very different.

I don't think you will notice after a while. Mine is off by about 1" on the left, because the *&^&%$ range hood is a full inch less wide than the rangetop (I swear I bought a 48" range hood, not 47"!). But then again, we are DIY so I wasn't about to make my poor DH uninstall then reinstall all of the lower cabinets after it took him a full day in the first place; if we were paying someone for it, it might be a different story. If you choose to keep it, just make sure you don't do a stacked tile BS - you would probably definitely notice it then. Example of what not to do: http://www.peeltile.com/img/media/backsplash/layout.jpg