If you want a pro style range, you will need pro style ventilation. Yes, you need an ERV with makeup air. Otherwise, your home will be tight enough that it can cause a huge safety hazard by sucking the air from down your chimney or furnace vent. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Just a plain makeup air vent will solve that problem, but it gives you a new problem. You're venting expensive conditioned air out that vent. In a cold climate, that's quite a few $$ going up the vent. Thus the heat recovery unit. Works the same with summer time air conditioned air that you spend $$ creating.

If you want an indoor grill you're going to need a powerful hood and that will require makeup air - no way around that. If you forgo the grill, you could get by with 600 CFM which in many places doesn't require makeup air but you need to check your local codes - some places require makeup air for anything over 300 CFM - particularly with a new airtight house.

I wonder how much heat goes out the door when people grill outside during cold weather. Four or five trips is about the minimum. So maybe indoor grills are net energy savers.

Back to your specific situation, do you have room to plant something that would hide the vent? Your subdivision might find that acceptable. We were able to retrofit a 1960's house with ventilation of the scale being recommended to you (exited through the roof over the garage), so there should be a way. What options are available if out the side of the house simply won't work?

The code here appears to be 4 cfm for every 1000 btu's. I'm still looking into this and hope to speak with the HVAC people in greater detail. They advised the ERV would be about 5k. I have never heard of them so I'm looking to see if this in fact is a good or average price. Does anyone know how loud these things are? I assume they are on the roof, but can you have an external blower then or does this just work of the main HVAC unit?

Clipshot - then only options presented from the builder are directly from Wolf and the HVAC guys.

1. Different oven with smaller blower.
2. ERV with the current oven and a 900 or 1200 cfm blower - which also does not include the extra cost of any shingles or plywood needed to install the ERV. Roof and shingles are done right now.
3. Move to the Range top with double ovens which means a kitchen re-design and possible delays/extra costs. This option again is without the indoor grill and only 4 burners.

I guess I'm having a hard time believing that you need an ERV with 4 burners and a grill on a range top. I even promised to "open a window," but I don't think that will go over well.

Your builder and HVAC guys are the experts and should be able to come up with ways for you to get what you want, even if that means another visit to the subdivision board. Don't let them take the easy way out. Any compromise that takes you away from your desired 48'' with grill will gnaw at you. If you have good trades I wouldn't worry too much about the roof or shingles. We also put our vent through an existing roof, it just stung a little less because it wasn't brand-new.

I wonder about the cost/benefit on the ERV. Not questioning need for makeup air, but so what if you're pulling cold air in? Yes, you'll spend more energy heating that air. But how much? Enough that $5k will seem cheap? I doubt it. Couldn't one just get an outside duct to right near (under?) the range? The cold air will get heated or removed when you're running the fan.