I went with the Profile double-oven gas: here are my reasons. I like the smaller-size top oven for daily use, and the lower oven will only be used on occasion, so I'm ok with its location. (There's no room for a wall oven in my tiny kitchen -- and I have no plans to tear out cabinets and rearrange.) I'm a good cook, and I honed my skills on low-end domestic ranges because that's what was available: I don't need a commercial range to cook what I like, and I'm too busy with other aspects of my life to change my cooking style now. I also prefer not to deal with "pro" level BTUS and the ventilation complications they might add. I also am not willing to give up self-cleaning ovens -- which puts many pro-style ranges out of contention. I liked the slide-in setup and the angled control-knob location on the Profile, so that, and the price advantage, led me to choose it over the Cafe. Re: price, I bought mine from a local dealer, and I got the price down a bit by asking them to meet the ajmadison.com price. They didn't quite get there, but I was willing to pay a little extra for local sales/delivery/service reliability. Everyone's situation is a little different, but I found that the Profile slide-in fits best with my kitchen and the way I use it.

For all intents and purposes, your range is definitely an "island" or "peninsula" range. The half-wall will help a bit, but the majority of the effluent will still be in the open. Regarding the wall, it should be at least 9" thick -- that's the bare minimum you should have behind any open range or cooktop. If those are stairs directly behind the range, then I would be very careful about skimping on ventilation -- people going up/coming down will have anything not caught by your hood in their faces -- think billowing steam from boiling water, smoke from any browning/frying, splattering grease, etc. I'm with you on no downdraft -- they're better than nothing at all, but not much better! (Experience speaking!) They only work for items right up next to the fan -and- shorter than the top of the fan by several inches! They're also loud! (See that item in the video above -- tiny and short! Did you also notice in the video that even at the highest speed not all the steam was captured - quite a bit escaped above the fan? If that were a typical pot -- say 8 quarts or 12 quarts, even more would escape!) Regarding the need for venting...there are two primary things that affect what you need for venting: the type of cooking you do and the type of cooking appliance. Cooking is the most important with appliance second. If you do any grilling, you will need a very effective and much larger/stronger hood. If you fry, stir fry, brown meat, etc., you will need a good hood If you just steam or boil water, you will need a good hood, but the fan may not have to be as strong. Gas, especially high BTUs, will need better venting b/c of fumes and higher heat "Regular" electric still has heat, but not the gas fumes Induction does not introduce added heat from the burners, but there is still heat from the food -- much less heat overall, though BTW...others are correct, it's more expensive to vent in an open space like your situation than when against the wall. The hood is more expensive b/c it has to be finished on all 4 sides Venting can often be more difficult -- having to go up, turn a corner, and go out an exterior wall (be careful about venting through the roof) You need a bigger and stronger hood b/c you have more and stronger air currents that will make capturing the FOGSS (fumes, odors, grease, steam, smoke) more difficult....plus anything missed will quickly spread throughout the home. The lack of cabinets flanking the hood and a back wall to help corral the FOGSS is also an issue. So, how to minimize the impact since you are dead set on having the range in that location. First suggestion: Would you be wiling to leave part of the wall up? Say the width of the range + 9" to 12"? That would give you a wall to help your hood work better and to cut down on the FOGSS spreading. The hood size won't be as big an issue as well. Keep in mind that you spend far less time standing in front of your range cooking than you think -- only about 10% of your time. The rest of the time is spent prepping at counters & sink next to or across from the range (about 70%). (The other 20% is spent cleaning up -- at the cleanup sink, wiping down table & counter, loading/unloading the DW, etc.) Sizing of Hood: Width...The hood should be at least 6" wider than your cooking surface. So, for a 30" range, the hood should be at least 36" wide. This provides an extra 3" on each side. FOGGS do not just rise, they also expand as they rise. Since you don't have cabinets and a wall stopping the expansion, your hood definitely needs to be wider. (I might even consider 12" wider since it's going to be so open.) If your hood were against a wall with cabs flanking the hood, then 6" wider would be sufficient. Depth (front to back)...The hood should be 27" deep for the same reason as the width above. If your hood were against the wall, then it would only need to be 24" deep. Height...you want the hood to be able to corral the FOGSS for expelling to the outside, so the taller the hood body is, the better. Fan...I would go for at least 600cfms. Note: You might need makeup air (MUA). Some municipalities are starting to require MUA. I know you don't want something so big, but if you really want the range in the open, then one of the consequences is the need for better/bigger venting.

I may have left out some words due to repetition. The number of square feet refers to the entry aperture of the hood. For example, a 36 x 24 hood aperture would be 6 square feet, and would require 6 x 90 = 360 CFM actual, likely needing a blower rated at 540 CFM. Pressure loss not only entails the ducting, but the baffles and the MUA path. Leaky walls are not exactly a free path for air. A leaky house may be sufficient for MUA in practice (given that the blower rating takes the pressure loss into account), but the OP may live where aggressive code enforcement will demand at least a damper in a duct to the outside. The rationale for 90 ft/min is based on ensuring entrainment into baffle gaps that typically are around 50% of the baffle area and have to deal with upward plume velocities of as much as 1.2 m/s. See also the table (Figure 4) on page 9 of the Greenheck Guide available here: https://www.tagengineering.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/KVSApplDesign_catalog.pdf The discussion leading to that table should prove useful for background information. In particular, the Greenheck method vs. the linear feet of hood edge (all the way around for an island hood) method is discussed. (Note commercial cooking rarely is true island type; even located in the middle of a kitchen the hood is connected to the cooktop via a back section. There may also be side skirts on the hood.) Last, let me point out that capture can fail under cross draft conditions, which are almost always worse for island/peninsula configurations than wall configurations.

OK, in no particular order: Down ducts containing greasy effluent may need to be cleaned sometime, as grease and moisture will settle-out in the area of the bottom of the floor duct. Where the duct turns from the wall to the floor needs an access hatch and a "street T" type of fitting for cleanout via a panel underneath (assuming that point is accessible). The floor duct can be cleaned from outside, I assume, by removing the blower or cap. Normally, residential cooking is not so grease extensive over many hours that there is much grease to clean out. Most grease particulates that pass the baffles rise to the roof and are expelled. What condenses or impinges tends to harden and not be a problem. Down ducts fight the natural rise and I think that there is a risk of more condensation in that duct and the long horizontal duct. For a island type hood, where cross drafts add dispersion on top of normal plume conical growth, you should be using a 27 by (at least) 42 inch hood, not more than 36 inches above the cooking surface. (Wolf Pro Island hoods are 26-inches front-to-back aperture, but there is probably another inch to be claimed by the thick edge details.) Flow rate for this 7.9 sq. ft. aperture should be 7.9 x 90 CFM/sq. ft. = 700 CFM. Under normal pressure loss conditions, this would require a blower rated (static free air) 700 x 1.5 = 1000 to 1100 CFM. With the tortuous duct path adding to the baffle pressure loss, a 1200 CFM blower might be best. Without any information on the MUA there is no way to estimate its additional pressure loss that the hood blower will have to work against. You really should have a proper hood, or an insert providing the same capture area surrounded by whatever paneling or sheetrock you want. All attempts at ceiling capture and containment will fail to directly capture all of the grease and odor (allowing some to settle out elsewhere) except in commercial installations where the entire ceiling is the exhaust system entry. The total pressure loss should be analytically determined. Two separated blowers will be harder to control, and might react against each other. This means that the point on the fan curve for the selected blower intersecting 700 CFM has to be a higher pressure loss than the actual pressure loss at 700 CFM. This influences the rated CFM as well as the fan design as this pressure in your case may be higher than typical.