Buying a suite of appliances from one brand is almost always a bad deal and no retailer can possible sell every brand available in the US. Induction is not amazingly superior to gas. Although induction is superior to typical sealed gas burners induction is not superior to commercial type open gas burners. There are pros and cons to each. KitchenAid induction is in fact inferior to American Range and Capital Culinarian range tops. Many induction cooktops produce a buzz noise and KA is in fact notorious for it. The younger you are the more likely you are to hear it and some people refer to KA induction as teenager repellant. LOL Both AR and CC have a higher high plus you can use the multiple power burners all day long. In the KA you can only use the single power hob for a time limited and it pulls electricity from other hobs so you can't use all induction hobs at maximum rated KW at the same time. Induction is in theory more even in heat distribution but in reality undetected. KA has a lower low but not really useable below what is provided by dedicated simmer or small pot burner in the CC and AR burners. When induction breaks it can't be used until replaced with specific part or assembly. Gas burners can only have two things that break; generic spark modules or igniters, and you don't need them because you can light with a match or lighter. Those commercial burners will give 50 years service life while the induction will be in the landfill with no longer made antique parts. No appliance company makes the best appliance in every category. KA's main competitor is GE Profile. Profile makes better ovens while KA ovens have a reputation for dying after self-clean cycle. KA makes the best American type dishwasher while GE dishwashers suck. Miele makes even better dishwashers. They clean better, have fewer problems and use less water and electricity. The one advantage of some KA dishwashers is they can dry plastics better. KA refrigerators have shown to be more reliable than GE but less reliable than Samung. It is better to buy the best appliance in each category and shop for best price than to buy a suite of some good, mediocre, and bad appliances. Even if you get a rebate and matching handles.

OK, youall have succeeded in drawing me into another argument. Let's start with the purpose of the overhead vent. The vent is intended to capture and contain effluent contained in the rising and expanding cooking plumes. It has an overlap capture requirement that depends on height, and a flow rate containment requirement that derives from plume velocities and secondary factors. It is not for capture or blockage of grease splatter, as that could require enormous air velocities to achieve. Down-draft "venting" and pop-up side-draft "venting" cannot achieve the needed capture and containment provided by an overhead hood of proper specification for these reasons: Air flow velocity drops rapidly as a function of the smallest dimension of a slot air intake (see the 2003 ASHRAE HANDBOOK, HVAC Applications, Fig. 6). The air velocity in all cases is too low to significantly change hot cooking plume momenta except those plume portions close to the pop-up, so the overhead hood depends on the natural rise of the plumes. Deviation of the upward momentum to the side, or by 180 degrees to head downward, can only work if the plume has low momentum, as in steam from boiling water. Hot oil/grease/moisture plumes from wok cooking and searing will be poorly deviated sideways or in reverse. Fume hoods can have horizontal hood configurations, but the top and sides are blocked from allowing fumes to leak out. The turbulence issue is complicated. Up-rising plumes can be disturbed by side drafts, poor insertion of make-up air into the kitchen, and cook motion. Side-drafts will be pulling air across pan and pot clutter, so some added turbulence is possible, but I don't think it will be a significant addition except close to the pop-up due to the velocity fall-off introduced above. On the other hand, a pop-up can block splatter trajectories from the burner up the the angle between pan and the top of the pop-up and as far as the pop-up sides shadow the area beyond. For this function, no air flow is needed and much of the pop-up system hardware can be dispensed with. If a blank face is used (no vent holes/slots), cleaning may be greatly simplified. Underfloor ducting, blower, external cap can all be deleted. Some cabinet space for the elevation mechanism has to be sacrificed. While a pop-up splatter blocker is a good idea if the degree of blockage is deemed sufficient for the expense, the subject raises the question of why children are sitting in range of hot grease splatter. At a minimum they would need eye protection. There are requirements (that I don't have at hand) for desirable rises and/or runs of seating countertops connected to cooking surfaces. I recommend proper desks in quiet areas for studying. The student should be fully absorbed into the material to be studied without distraction (or at least as little distraction as a post pubertal youth can manage).

If your designer says you can fit a 48” range, then you can fit a 36” rangetop and 30” double wall ovens. Note I said *rangetop*, not range and not cooktop. You‘d get everything you need. A 36” wide rangetop will give you 6 burners, yet not need the enormous exhaust and upper wall space of a 48” range. (You’ll still need a good exhaust though, don’t overlook that whatever you do). You’d get your 2 ovens. And they won’t be cavernous 36” ovens that take a while to heat up. And you put your pots and pans in the deep drawers directly under the rangetop (see pic) for great convenience and efficient use of space. And you won’t have to bend down for that low range oven either. Win, win, win, win. Here comes that Thanksgiving turkey or that roast, imagine basting while standing straight. Here are some photos of rangetops in case you aren’t familiar. (P.S. your rangetop and separate double 30” wall ovens do not have to be the same brand.)

Since folks occasionally come across this thread, perhaps it's time for a 2023 update. Bosch Bosch has released a new "Pro" model in their 800 series line. The 800 Series Induction freestanding range (model number HIS8055U has front control knobs, but a rather small oven at 3.9 CuFt. While it does check my boxes for individual burner controls, preferably knobs, there's a few things to note: Oven size is rather small No bridge burner While Bosch themselves don't list out the wattage of each burner, it is a 40A circuit, so it may be a little less power than the Miele, Wolf or Fulgor Milano And this is a rumor and something I heard on a few appliance review videos, but unable to confirm: This product is the Smeg cooktop. If so, the burner power would be two burners at 3,000 W and two at 1,400 W. Which is indeed quite a bit less than the other top choices I had listed in the original post So overall it may look great, has front control knobs for each individual burner, but it may not have the power and/or reliability of the Bosch Benchmark slide-in induction range. Thermador They have been known for their "Freedom Induction Cooktop", especially in the 36" version. There are no truly dedicated burners, but a large "flex zone" on both the left and right side that are each powered by two separate inductors. You can use each zone as two individual burners or as one large cooking zone. You can slide pots and pans around over the entire zone and with several different programming options, it will remember your setting and transfer it to wherever you move the pan. Or you can set it to be in incrementally lower power settings front to back. So it can be on 9 at the front, 7 in the middle, 5 further back, etc.... Sear and just slide it back to lower the power setting. Extremely high tech and super impressive. So now Thermador has released this in a 30" induction range. The Thermador Liberty® Induction Professional Range 30'' Pro Harmony® (that's a mouthful) with model number PRI30LBHU is a sleek looking cooking range, with an impressively capable induction cooktop. What stood out to me: The Liberty or Freedom cooktop is phenomenally flexible, powerful and high tech. A little overwhelmingly high-tech even However, in a 30" range, it seems a little small. While the entire glass cooktop is 22 1/2" deep, a large section in the front is taken up by the controls. Based on some initial measurements, that means the flex zone cooking surface is only about 15 1/2" to 16" deep. I have to find one in person to confirm that, but based on images and scale, that's it came out to. Sounds awfully small to me And, for me, the biggest sticking point is the lack of individual burner control. On the 36" version there is a very sleek looking control panel that is very intuitive with a slider control. On the 30" version, it looks very much like the Bosch controls and hence not my personal favorite. But it may work for you All that being said, it's probably been the most exciting release in the 30" induction range world for the last year. The images attached are the size of the Thermador cooktop and the comparison the controls of the 30" Liberty range vs the 36" Freedom cooktop Other updates Dacor Has completely abandoned and discontinued the 30" induction range Fisher & Paykel Someone did point out that DCS sold the household appliance brand F&P to Haier. Which is a Chinese conglomerate that owns GE Appliances, Hoover, Hotpoint, Sanyo and a few other brands. I have not necessarily heard anything bad about F&P and know several folks have purchased F&P 9 series Classic models since they come in different colors to match your desired interior Fulgor Milano They seem to be more prevalent now than they were when I wrote the original article. And many people are quite impressed and happy with the quality. One re-occurring comment I see is that the oven seems to indicate that the preheat is complete, while the temperature is not fully distributed throughout the oven cavity yet. Especially in simple bake mode. The workaround seems to be to preheat with a convection mode to ensure the entire oven cavity is heated through and then switch back to the preferred baking mode. A bit of a workaround, but it that's the only complaint, I think it remains a strong top contender GE Cafe and Profile No major updates Miele Likewise no significant updates. The induction range is still on version 3 and remains equally impressive as it was when I posted the original article. Wolf Only has released a style update with a different oven door handle. Wait times seem to have gone down, but no feature or other technical updates As far as I know those are the updates I was able to find, so I hope this helps those continuing to shop around