My wife and I are renovating a 700 sq. ft. house. We're thinking of a 24" rangetop and a 24" wall oven. In the Washington DC area the BS deealers are an apppliance store and one kitchen designer who doesn't stock anything. Nobody has an oven. We even tried to get a salesman to give us names of customers so we could ask to look at their's but he wouldn't do it. The factory in Reading PA has a showroom with a 30" oven but it's not connected. If you want to talk to them ask for Monique. She's honest and helpful. I'm looking forward to hot broiler to make black and blue steaks with. I've never seen a salamander but it looks so easy to change the rack position. Oven shelves don't give you such a good choice of heights. If I bought their high splash with a shelf it would perch there nicely without using up counter space and my hood may catch the smoke. It bothers me about wall ovens that you can't vent them when you broil. With an electric oven you have to do it with the door open and a lot of greasy smoke goes into the room. Somebody here told me that with these ovens you close the door to broil. I don't know if that improves the smoke or not. I can't comment on char broilers but all I can think of is my house filling up with smoke. I guess you can see what my obsession is. I'll be waiting to see if you get some info here.

There are a few sources of noise in a hood ventilation system (and potentially also in a powered make-up air system). The dominant noise when a silencer isn't or can't be used is fan blade tip turbulence noise. Second will be either baffle turbulence noise (more like a hiss), or its counterpart if mesh filtering is used, or duct turbulence noise. Baffle noise domination assumes that the duct is damped on the outside and the air velocity in the duct is not too high. Otherwise duct turbulence noise may dominate baffle noise, and the duct may also rattle passing on blower unbalance vibration noises. External blower noise is usually lower with a long duct than with a short duct, but one should not expect a really big reduction in noise just because the blower is outside instead of in the hood (for equal volumetric flow rate). (The exception would be a commercial external blower, configured deliberately so that the fan is oversized and the belt drive sheaf ratio is set for a slower tip speed.) For residential operation, where room for a silencer is available, an external roof blower and inline silencer is the quieter approach, leaving baffle hiss below normal speaking levels at full power. That is my configuration. Part of the duct turbulence noise will also be removed -- that from the duct between the silencer and the external blower. Fantech silencers are larger than the ducts, e.g., 14 inches in diameter for a 10-inch duct. http://www.fantech.net/products/fans--accessories/accessories-ventilation/silencers/ld/ld-10-silencer/ They have the general appearance of a motorcycle muffler scaled to a dragline excavator engine. The silencers are also somewhat longish, so if the duct was going to go up into an attic and straight to the roof at the roof edge, it would be necessary to use an angle duct after entering the attic to extend the duct length in the attic to accommodate the silencer, thence use another angle to bring the duct to the roof. Avoid horizontal ducting if possible. Try to make the ducting accessible if possible.

I would not buy the cooktop either because of the placement of the knobs and cleaning is more difficult because it is more like the old school residential so called "open" burners with no pull out tray. The term "open burner" is ambiguous though and it is better to look at each aspect of the burner to see what you have in the way of performance with the cooktop. You still have the benefits in cooking in that the burners are not capped so the flame goes straight up. This is probably the most important thing to getting the flame to the middle of a pan or wok if you want that. Not many people have the cooktop here so I would call BlueStar and ask them about cooking with a wok. It would seem like it would be the same as the range but maybe not for some reason. The top does come apart for cleaning, which is another feature associated with an "open burner", just no pull out tray. These are some of the best pictures that show the cooktop. You can see the burner itself is very much like the range. https://hiveminer.com/Tags/cooktop,palmello You also still have the star shape and high BTUs.

Please excuse my intrusion on this thread which I'm not trying to hyjack. I've tried for the last three days to post without any luck. I need help,opinion on converting LP to Nat gas the format has not allowed me to do so???? Instead of hitting the POST button it says NEXT then everything disappears. Very frustrating I have a Viking Range top Model VGRT360-4GSS that I am converting from LP to Nat Gas along with the entire house. It's been extremely frustrating but that's another story for another day. My Mechanical Contractor used the parts I ordered for the conversion. I've never had Nat Gas and know it burns not as hot as LP. However, the burners are rated 15,000 - NG and 13,000 something for LP. The flame looked kind of wimpy but it was all blue and worked at all settings. The next morning I cooked breakfast as usual and found the range top not functioning very well. In frustration I fiddled around trying to adjust the burners. I was able to up the flame a bit but nothing meaningful. Following day I called the parts people explaining my problem and asking if they perhaps sent the wrong parts. No, the orifices are correct size. Then after a long discussion the guy said, Oh that model is a 2001 and there is a pin. If you screw the orifice in too tight the pin restricts the flow. Just back them off and things should work. I failed to ask how much does one back off. I borrowed a box wrench from my framer. He tweaked one burner a bit and left. When I reinstalled the burner and venturi It made a big difference. I've tried to do the same with the others without much luck. They are reamed on so tight I can't get them to budge. My question is, would it be best to uninstall them (if I can get in there and manage to do that) and then reinstall and how much do I screw them in. I know that's probably hard to answer but any help is very much appreciated. I have to make do with this equipment until we do a major kitchen remodel. This is my 3rd time trying to post. It says NEXT then when you hit send, I think there is nothing to send. This time I will make a copy. Anyhow, Thanks for any helpful information and again I apologize for the intrusion Inga