Berbel extractor hood has the best recirculating technology but currently only available in Germany and UK. In conventional hoods grease is absorbed in filters. Grease particles clog the pores of the filter, and hood performance is reduced in increasing proportions. With the berbel principle grease is accelerated out of the air by centrifugal force, and is effectively separated at two points. The interior of the fan box remains virtually free of grease particles. There are no consequential costs, no unpleasant odors, no vermin, and there is no fire hazard. With berbel the unit can be cleaned with just one wipe, as easy as cleaning a Ceran hob. The stainless steel tray is made of the highest quality stainless steel and thus is dishwasher safe. http://www.berbel.de/int/index.php?id=300351 http://www.berbel.de/int/index.php?id=10

OK, wok cooking: This requires the highest level of residential ventilation if you want all of the grease and water to be expelled instead of condensed on the interior. Start with capture. The plumes from pans expand as they rise. We believe that a good approximation for hood capture width is the cooktop width plus six inches. For a wall hood, the front-to-back opening should be wall to 3-inches past the cooktop (toward the cook). Lights and switch panels add to this, depending on how the hood is configured. Continue with containment. Given these aperture dimensions, modified by the reality of whatever products are actually available/affordable/aesthetic, and how the cooktop is installed in the counter, one computes the area of the hood entry area in square feet. Multiply by 90 CFM/sq. ft. (equivalent to an intake air velocity of 90 ft/min). This is the required or actual CFM. Multiply by 1.5 (if you don't want to do a complete analysis) to get blower-rated CFM, which is only valid when the blower is hanging in free air. Next is ducting: This is usually specified by the hood manufacturer, but the goal in cold climates is operation near 1000 ft/min, and otherwise in the range of 1000 to 2000 ft/min. This is given by duct sectional area divided by actual CFM. Don't forget noise: Best blower noise reduction is achieved by using a roof blower or in-line duct blower, with a silencer mounted between the blower and the hood. Silencers are about 4 inches larger in diameter than the duct, so silencer installation needs to be considered ab initio. Last, but really contemporaneous, is make-up air. MUA must be supplied such that the house internal pressure does not fall so far that combustion appliances, if any, are back-drafted. Some such devices, if not supplied with their own MUA, can be very sensitive. Even without such devices, one wants MUA pressure loss to be a small fraction of the cut-off pressure of the blower (top left of the fan curve). Review MUA related threads on this forum for more information.

"The manufacturers of Vent Hoods are miseducating the consumers." Yes. Somewhat. Not really. They are in business to make money and they do that by making hoods as inexpensively as possible and then selling as many as they can for as much money as they can. Their goal is NOT your health or the IAQ of your home - that is up to you. Telling consumers that they'll also need to spend money on MUA if they buy hood X will negatively impact their sales (ignorant consumer will just go buy a hood from brand Y instead because it doesn't say you need MUA even though it has an identical need for MUA) so they do not want to do that. MUA is also not something that fits well within consumer hood manufacturers world except to the extent that they might offer a hood w/ integrated front curtain ducting. It is much more of a pure HVAC thing. It can be supplied to the return ducts of an HVAC system, the supply ducts or ducted directly to appropriate locations. Incoming air can be heated by gas, electric or hydronic. Incoming air may need to be humidified or dehumidified. It often needs to be electrically integrated with the HVAC system controllers to function properly. Consumer hood manufacturers - ARE NOT IAQ or HVAC people or engineers - they make something decorative that by nature must include air movement so they reluctantly include air movement in their product. Commercial hood manufacturers - ARE IAQ and HVAC people and engineers. Their customers are much more educated than consumers. The one singular purpose of the product they are selling is IAQ - so they design and sell systems that provide good IAQ. Aesthetics is quite secondary for them. Residential HVAC companies in the U.S. - ARE NOT IAQ people (they should be though). A tiny few, less than about 1%, know it well and a few more know it a very little but the vast majority know just enough, based on what they've been told at a 4 hr CEU course, to sound like they know what they're talking about but they don't really understand it. Most residential HVAC people do not understand air movement or why things are done the way they are - they only know how to use tables that tell them to do this or that and as soon as something is outside of defined parameters they're totally lost (though sometimes don't even realize that they're lost). Licensed Professional Engineers do (or most do, some don't) understand air movement and other elements. They are the people who create the tables that HVAC people use. They can think independently. Defined parameters for them are not tables but the physics of air - it's movement, temperature and components. Unfortunately, most U.S. engineers do not have a good understanding of human physiology (except perhaps for biomedical engineers). They do not, for instance, understand how CO2 functions in our bodies and how high levels of CO2 due to poor ventilation affect us. Or how poor ventilation resulting in high levels of VOC's, PM, Carcinogens and Pathogens affect us.

Thanks all that commeted so far! This reno wouldnt happen for another few years atleast. I guess I should have been more clear, that this wouldn't be all that I would change in the grand scheme. I’d be changing the cabinets out and taking out that L shaped island completely (there used to be a wall there). The fridge would go next to the range. Where the current fridge is, I’d like to do a smaller rolling island that can be tucked under the cabinet, creating more open floor space. The future sink wall would get a new window that would look out to my backyard and the dishwasher would go next to it on the same wall. The current window looks out to my neighbor and driveway which I don’t enjoy looking at. That’s why I was thinking of trying to salvage the frame/trim for the range hood eventually. Maybe tile it or paint it as part of the backsplash. The former owner (who did a half ass job with the kitchen and bath because they rented it out) used low end-everything and we are slowly re-doing everything, as its starting to fall apart 10 years later. Thankfully they left the oringinal floors, trim and plaster walls intact. Thanks again everyone :)