My hood is at 34 inches above a side-by-side induction cooktop and induction wok configuration. I think you should draw a stick figure side view of the cook, the countertop, and the hood and check sight lines and waist bending arc to ensure no head intercepts. Halogen flood lights used in Wolf's hood (or at least mine) are quite hot above one's head, so if your standing position is non-fortuitous w.r.t. the lamp layout, consider changing to LED floods. The technical answer on hood height would be based on the effluent expansion angle that varies with pan temperature and grease and water emission rate, along with pan size, accounting for some slight draw-in at the aperture edges. I find wok cooking on one side of my hood to be collected acceptably with an 11-degree half angle (outermost hot part of wok to interior edge of hood aperture), but the Finnish papers at My Clippings show up to 22 degrees half angle expansion occurs for some cooking (generally commercial in their case). I don't grill on my cooktop. 1500 cfm nominal for your hood size, which is modestly smaller than my pro-island hood, should provide good containment, and some enhancement of capture area due to air flow. Most of the time you will find you can run at lower blower settings and capture most generated effluent from normal cooking. However, for grilling you would be advised to have the grilling zone in the center of the cooktop, and ensure adequate make-up air so that the actual cfm is only limited by the baffle loss, hood transition loss, silencer loss, and duct losses. You want to use 10-inch duct for this flow rate. Install the hood so that it is centered over the cooktop and not over the counter that the cooktop is in. (This only applies in one direction if you are mounting on a wall.) We want to strive for maximum effluent capture and not room symmetry. If you want room symmetry, change the location of the cooktop to be under the hood. Joists above the cooktop may need to be revised to accommodate the duct and the mounting locations of the heavy-duty screws needed to hold these monster hoods. I have an 8-foot ceiling where the hood is mounted, and an extension (from Wolf) is used to establish the hood height. Island hood mounting is most easily done if the counter is not yet in place and a drywall lift is used. Or a team of competitive weight lifters might be employed. Wall hoods may be mountable using props or temporary structures; I have no experience with them. kas

Have had Wolf with Charboiler for 7 years. I assume the design hasn't changed. Don't know if the "reverberator plate" is the same as my "blank off" plate, which is a small SS plate that you put on the IR honey comb to reduce the heat. For what we grill, usually don't use it to get a full sear (and does it ever sear). But, curiousity led me to buy another plate and cut it into about a 4" and 7" plate to give different heat levels and by putting one of the shorter ones towards the back for a two stage, front sear and rear cooler finishing part. Works pretty well. As for cleaning, we used to follow manual and put damp cloth over grid to soften it up, but saw in a Wolf cooking demonstration where they just put a shallow aluminum throw away backing pan right over the grid for about a 10" burnoff after grilling, and that pretty much vaporizes residue to a white dust. Then every few times just pop out the whole liner and get it with Bar Keepers Friend and a SS scrubbie in the sink. Hope this helps . . .

Posted by gabethan I'm trying to decide range vs cooktop and wall oven Questions... 1. Is it true that it is better to have a range because heat will flow out better from the oven vs. having a wall oven built into your cabinets?? Many of the wall ovens vent to the front so I don't think a wall oven is a problem. There does seem to be some variance in how much heat is released and may be due to how well they are insulated. I have had two brands in my wall space in the last several years. The Electrolux that I have now does not put as much heat into the kitchen. With a range, a gas oven vents much more heat than the electric ovens do. 2. I have read about the porcelain chipping in the wall ovens. Is that true for 2013? If you search on this forum you will find that this is an ongoing problem. It is hard to tell how wide spead these issues are. In my area(small market), Wolf has replaced other liners to ranges but you don't read about it that much online with the ranges. The wall ovens in the future from Wolf will have a replaceable bottom and you would want to make sure you get that if you choose a Wolf oven. The range will not have that. I have the Wolf DF range and the porcelain has failed a little after four years. They cannot give a fixed estimate for a repair and just the labor starts at $800. They will only warranty the new liner for one year. It would seem that since this has been an issue, they would do better than that. I don't think the blue chips are fixed but they are making it easier to repair. It is a shame because there is no other range with an oven like that. I'm thinking 36" Dual Range OR 36" Cooktop Double Wall Range Those packages come out to roughly the same price. Trying to make the numbers work!! I would go for the components. You can pick exactly what you like and if one goes, it can be replaced. I have a very expensive storage cabinet at present. It is not safe to have food cooking with glass shards flying around. Appreciate any advice. I've looked at every brand and keep coming back to Subzero and Wolf . If you want Wolf range, I would go for the all gas because the enamel is not blue. I would buy the longest extended warranty you can get if you buy something with a lot of electronics or any type of blue porcelain. I have had blue enamel failure with Dacor, Electrolux and Wolf, all in different ways. Dacor was bought back for multiple issues, Electrolux was fixed under extended warranty and Wolf I am out. The dealer told me Wolf would stand behind their product and I would not need an extended warranty. This was true because they have replaced double ovens 4 years old with new ones for $500 for someone on this forum. They don't do that anymore. I was a big fan of Wolf until this happened. One reason I bought that range was the supposed "peace of mind"---HA!

This is going to boil down to personal choice. Every cotton pickin appliance person I spoke to tried to talk me out of a grill on my 36" stove. And they all lost the sale for not listening. I grew up with a Jennaire grill that had a downdraft vent and we used it all the time. It was brilliant! So for me it was a must and I have absolutely no regrets. YMMV. I've had a 36" BS w/charbroiler for 3yrs. now. You do need a more powerful fan with the charbroiler, I believe mine is a 42" wide 27" deep 900CFM ventahood which captures all the smoke quite well. (how the Jennaire downdraft did it I do not know). Yes, I miss the continuous grates - its a great feature, but I love the grill more! And I seldom feel the need for more than four burners anyway so no great loss. We have a gas grill outside, but I find myself using the BS grill quite often, due to its size and location. Its just so much more convenient to flip the cover off, turn the knob and toss a couple of pieces of fish, chicken, veggies or burgers on while I'm cooking than to run back and forth from outside. Granted, if I am cooking more than 3-4 pieces I use the outdoor grill because the BS is just not big enough. Like the others I do NOT try to keep it pristine. The top grates are easy enough to keep clean, I just use a wide grill brush to scrape them, flip the grates over (using the handy hook on the bottom of the brush) and scrape the bottom. They clean up nicely. The interior on the other hand is a bit trickier. It would be fairly easy to clean too if it weren't for the sharp edges. I usually use a smaller brush and scrape the areas I can reach, but have to be careful not to cut myself on anything. I line the bottom tray with foil so that is simple to clean. Wish you luck with your decision!