Ahem. I believe flex aluminum ducting, as the above image appears to show, is prohibited for grease contaminated ducts. They have to be steel to resist fire penetration. Even if one chooses to ignore code, for safety's sake please routinely inspect and replace if build-up is detected. Alternatively, if the ducting were surrounded by steel in both cavities -- such as metal on all the cabinet surfaces -- it might be passible.

I would never do electric. It would be my third choice. Induction would be my first. 1. The house and the cooktop do not heat up. So even in summer you stay cooler. 2. The cooktop never gets hot. It gets warm so NOTHING can bake onto it. No needing special glass top cleaners or razor blades to clean up spill overs. The only thing I need to clean up my induction cooktop is a paper towel and some windex! Seriously. 3. If even cleaning up with Windex is too much work, I can put paper towels, plain newsprint or a silicone mat under the pot and around the area so I don't have to deal with spatters and no, the paper will not catch fire. 4. Want to make rice without having to switch burners because first you have to boil rice and then let it simmer? On induction, you just turn it down from boil to a low simmer heat and it's immediate. I mean the second you turn it down, is the second it goes from hot to simmer. 5. Hate waiting for water to boil? A quart of water boils in 90 seconds. A full pot probably takes another 30 seconds. 6. If you have children or the elderly it's much safer because once again the surface doesn't heat up.

Thank you LWO. In that case, I'll just have to live with having a small vent sticking out the island then...I would go with GE Cafe, GE Profile. The following is not addressed to you, LWO, just a general comment. I've done extensive reading last weekend at this Kitchen forum. I understand the predominant voices on Houzz ask for range and hood on kitchen perimeter. I wish I read it before I bought the house. The previous owner spent 300K and hired an architect to remodel the house. It's very difficult to change the current design without gutting it. I now know the difference between a DIY house and a professionally architected house. Every design has a reason and it's symmetry everywhere. I've talked to four builders about moving the range off the island. There's no place along the perimeter...my only option is to remodel the whole kitchen, taking down the exterior wall and relocate the windows. I can't do that because I just bought the house and I've already paid for the current kitchen. I definitely should ignore pros who enforce their ideas on homeowners. Of course it's easy to gut the whole thing and start fresh, but that's also the most expensive solution for homeowners.

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