Mine is plywood under the hood but I dont have tile behind my stove. I went with a sheet of stainless steel. The tile goes up to the stainless. If you ever wanted to change out the hood though it might be nice to have that tile go all the way up.

I tiled behind mine, because I wanted to be able to change out the hood someday if needed, and not have to re-tile. But my hood is top-vented. In my neighbor's kitchen, which I just tiled for her, the hood is rear-vented. I tiled up to the bottom of the exhaust pipe in her case, just in case she should ever swap the hood for a slightly shorter model...

We tiled behind ours . . sort of. I miscalculated the tile order by about two square feet. So rather than reorder, we just didn't tile behind the hood chimney. Shhh. No one will know but you and me.

Oh, and it depends on the hood. Ours is sort of "light" with a glass "hood" and SS chimney as a feature. If you have a big hood that covers a lot of area, it might not matter so much.

We tiled up to the ceiling, but also have a chimney hood.

Allie

I tiled behind mine as well.

Wonderful timely thread. Our tile guy had originally said make a plywood cutout the same shape as the hood. But I wondered why and after reading the responses here, asked him about it again. And then, he said, it doesn't really matter: tile or plywood. And he agree that using tile would provide the ability to change hoods (or move the hood slightly). So tile it is.

Thanks for these responses and photos. We decided to tile behind the (large)hood, which has a chimney flue. Seems unlikely that we ever would change the custom hood, since it's an investment. But one never knows. And I am reminded of Flo Ziegfield: when asked why he paid for lavish lace on his showgirls' underwear, where (in those days) no one ever would see it, he said "THEY'll know it's there...."
Lynn

off topic:
Must register a "score!" for the allusion to Flo Ziegfield. Only on the GW. Good work, FarmGirl! Bonus points to you!