They are expensive and not very effective. Do you still want one? If you take the time to view newer kitchens, most planners do not place a range, especially gas in an island.

Down drafts are for cooktops. They take up actual room below. And even on a cooktop, they pull the flame to one side and remove the heat away from the pot. They are worse than useless.

You need an overhead hood or anothe location for the cooking zone. Cooking only occupies 10% of the time you spend in a kitchen. Prep occupies 70%. Create an island where you’ll spend most of your time prepping. Not an island where you spend 90% of your time with your back to it.

So true, rethink the placement of the range for sure.

actually in a peninsula - we are cutting down a wall to open the view - gas line is already in place and to further complicate the remodel, we are on concert slab - no basement or crawl space.

Moving a gas line is easy. Move the range.

If you're set on that location, the Best Cattura seems to be the most effective. That's based on my research, no personal experience. You'd have to check the specs and installation instructions to see if it would fit with your range. It appears to be very flexible in terms of vent placement. I do think a gas range is not ideal with this set up; induction would be better as it gives off less heat and there's no flame to be pulled back by the fan.

Yeah, I think they pull into basements. The air has to go somewhere! You're better with a range on an exterior wall anyway, where it can actually be vented to the outside. Time for a kitchen designer to help you rethink!

This forum is very negative on downdraft vents. And I can understand why. In our kitchen, we have a high CFM hood that properly covers (most) of the burners. It works pretty impressively. But it still lets some cooking smells come into the rest of the open-floorplan living space. Our remodeled kitchen will have an even more powerful hood, 100+% overlap with the burners, and reposition the stove.

On the other hand, I regularly visit friends in their mountain cabin, and they have a gas stove and downdraft. It works. In fact, it works better than I would have thought. And with a good gas stove, it doesn't impact the flame too badly.

Does it work as well as the hood that I have at home? No. Most definitely not. Would I want to put it into a newly built kitchen. Again, no. But your mileage may vary. If you don't mind cooking smells as much, then maybe it's an acceptable compromise.

HATED that nasty old Jennair downdraft. No one ever talks about cleaning out the gunk from a downdraft. It gets rancid and smells because the moisture condensed and the low spot in the duct gets full of a disgusting greasey soup.

I wouldn't do it because gas stoves give off combustion products which can affect your health, so you want them properly vented -- not down, not recirculating, but out of the house.

@MaryMargaret Sambas where I live, the building inspector wouldn't allow a "low spot" in the duct. That's a fire hazard and isn't legal for any residential construction, no matter whether you have an updraft or a downdraft.

It is allowed for commercial kitchens, if and only if the restaurant cleans it out very regularly.

Well, that probably wasnt the only “unallowed” issue with that old house. But it was still gross. I can’t imagine all of that draining out of the outlet to the driveway or wherever. I thought I had a dead mouse until the handyman went under the house and found the sag in the duct and opened it up.

Thank you all for input - confirmed many of my hesitations - I am working a new configuration with will allow for standard chimney hood with direct ventilation on the exterior wall

The major motivation for our kitchen reno was to get rid of the downdraft!