Not being an expert doesn't preclude me from having an opinion. My concern about the overhang would be directly proportional to how much of my messy cooking I'd figure on doing on the center burner.

The amount of extra overhang depends on the position of your burners, the mounting height of your hood, availability/location of your make-up air, etc. Smoke (including vaporized or particle grease) expands as it rises. That means the greater the distance of the hood to the cooking surface the more overhang you'll need. Extra fan capacity might be able to make up some of this but not all. There are other factors involved to. Any surrounding surfaces that will channel the smoke can help to reduce the overhang. Example here is if you've got standard height cabinets with the hood mounted say a foot or two above the bottom edge of the cabinets. In this case, the surrounding cabinets and back wall actually help to contain the smoke/grease so that the blower can pull it up. I've got an island configuration which requires the extra overhang in order to capture effectively. Adding to that, my hood is mounted a bit higher to avoid blocking eye level sightline through the kitchen/dining area (to give it a bit more open feel) required that I buy an oversized hood. Thus, I decided to spend a bit more for the larger hood. Also, it seems counter intuitive to buy a larger hood to make your kitchen look more open but it's the sight lines through the space that open it up. The extreme example is a hood that covers most of your kitchen ceiling but mounted flush to the ceiling will make your kitchen look very open eventhough the venthood is huge. Take a look at most restaurant hoods and you'll see they are mounted very high but extend well beyond the cooking surface.

Also, make sure your make-up air is not a window positioned too close to your range. Cross drafts through the house can actually pull the smoke into the house rather than going up the vent. When I cook, I close the kitchen windows but leave the patio door or living room window open. Both the patio door and the living room are not in direct line with the range so there is no cross breeze.

In your case, if you've got surrounding cabinets, then it should be fine. That said, if you can fit a 42" hood and the cost difference isn't huge, then it might be better to oversize a bit. Especially since you say you will be grilling and frying.

If you have the option, go with extra depth, not extra width. A 27" deep hood will better cover your front butners. Also, without a grill, 600 CFM should be sufficient. Going to 1200 CFM may require make-up air.

amcook, do you have a picture of your hood in your home? I'm thinking of doing a 42" hood above an island, but am having a hard time visualizing it. If you could post a picture, I'd really appreciate seeing it...Thanks!

I'm doing a 36" wide, 22" deep Modern-Aire hood in a 38" cabinet (to line up with the 38" cabinet that my Miele 36" induction cooktop is going in). I asked my contact at Modern-Aire if 600 cfm was enough power over a 36" induction and he said it would be plenty. The calcs I ran based on guidelines I had found:

Miele has 10.2kw with ~3500btu per kw, so 35000btu. Divide by 100 = 350cfm hood needed

I considered a 1000cfm and was told it would be super overkill.

There's a difference between "sufficient" and "superior". For your kind of cooking I'd prefer superior. Nowadays a lot of people use their hoods more for steam than smoke, grease, smells, etc. If you do a search or two, you should be able to find all kinds of info.

There's nothing wrong with Best by Broan, but did you check out any others? How does the design fit your kitchen plans? Do you like the housing?

I don't know about the numbers, BTUs, etc., but having had a 600 cfm, excellent hood (albeit mounted a bit too high by necessity), I went for stronger.

Posted by plllog (My Page) on Tue, Jun 16, 09 at 1:42
> There's nothing wrong with Best by Broan, but did you check out any others? How does the design fit your kitchen plans? Do you like the housing?

Actually, I do like the housing of the Best by Broan unit that the salesman showed me. Rather understated but the lines are sleek, curvy and very clean.

As far as others, the salesman also recommended Vent-a-Hood to "better" capture grease and keep it from getting into the motor, but I thought the unit he had on display was very ugly. It looked like it belonged in a standard restaurant kitchen.

What is the reputation of Best by Broan?
Are name-brand hoods like Wolf, Thermador, etc. considered as good as dedicated hood brands like Best by Broan?

I agree with a previous post -- that your hood should be deep enough so that it "covers" the front burners. Many hoods do not and this is unfortunate because most of your heavy cooking will be in your ultrahot front burner(s). I think complete coverage of the front burners will improve your overall exhaust capacity so you can use a lower cfm blower. It makes no sense to get a superpowerful blower that then requires that you install make-up air system that drives up the cost of the whole system, when you can probably do fine with a lower cfm system if it's just the right size and installed the right distance from the burners.

But, whatever you get, make sure the installation is in line with the manufacturer's specs. Otherwise you're inviting a disappointment.

I have the 36-inch Miele induction and my Modern Aire hood is 42 inches wide, 24 inches deep, 1200 cfm. I often use a cast iron grill pan that can generate a lot of smoke and my hood does a great job sucking it all up.

As you can see in this photo, the largest burner, which is the one I use for grilling, is located in the middle at the back, so the 24-inch depth works fine for me.