I have the very same range hood that goes up to an 8' bulkhead. The bottom of the hood is 28" from our counter height. I'm 5'5 and find that height to be great. DH is 5'11 and he says he doesn't have any issues either. Love, love the range hood. So quiet and series suction. Have only run it on hi to see what it does.

What color & material is your countertop? I like it. Thanks.

Generally, the average range hood height is 26 inches to 36 inches above the cooking surface. Wall mount range hoods are commonly installed 30 inches away from the range, while under cabinet range hoods are installed between 21 inches to 27 inches away from the range.

@hazelcraddock- this is quartz- Mont quartz eternity .

@hazelcraddock-thanks! It is quartz-Mont Classico

@spiritflower- do you have a picture of it? Trying to get a visual. Thanks!!!

What do the specs say for your hood? I detest something at my head when cooking so a lot of hoods were immediately struck from my list of possibilities due to manufacturer specs on maximum hanging height.

My hood’s max height was 36” above countertop. The tallest person in my family is 5’10” so I chose 34” off my 36” high counters....works for us, and I am the shortest at 5’4”.

The distance between the cooktop and the bottom of the hood should be between 30" and 36". Lower than that, it is a cramped feeling. Higher than that, and the smoke and grease has more opportunity to go elsewhere than into the hood.

I can't tell which Zephyr model that is. In the Zephyr line of hoods, I'd go with the Venezia model because it has baffle filters and is 24" deep front-to-back.

Here is what our hood looks like.

As a professional appliance installer I wouldn't recommend that you follow the factory recommendation for the following reason:

First of all, they will try to sell you the same brand as the stove. For instance, Thermador will always recommend you to use Thermador range hood. Meile will tell you to use Meile, etc

But the general problem is when your range hood is higher than 30 in it will lose its performance because there will always be a natural draft, AC return (which is 10x more powerful than any range hood) and they will all fight with the range hood performance.

In that particular situation there are two solutions:

1) Have your range hood much wider than the cooking surface (formula: 1 inch up and then add one inch to each side)

OR

2) To have your entire ceiling work as a capturing area for your range hood. Lately there are lot of different manufacturers offering so called ceiling build-in or ceiling recessed range hoods. They come in different shapes, colors and sizes to fit your needs.

The line of product I prefer to work with is Futuro Futuro

https://futurofuturo.com/range-hood/36-savona-inox-ceiling/

https://futurofuturo.com/range-hood/36-savona-white-ceiling/

https://futurofuturo.com/range-hood/54-skylight-ceiling-soffit/

I would use that approach if you don't want your view to be blocked or you don't want to bump your head on the range hood.

A ceiling hood that TH Kitchen recommended is impractical and inefficient. First, do you want to have to climb a ladder to clean the filters? Cleaning hood filters is a chore that must be done, but I'd rather just reach up a few inches and get the filters (and put back same way) than haul out a ladder to climb to do it. Also, the grease and smoke have a lot of opportunity to diffuse throughout the kitchen (and living room if you have an open kitchen) before it can reach the ceiling. As TH Kitchen said, "your entire ceiling works as a capturing area". Indeed. ugh.

Too bad that Futurofuturo's ceiling offerings don't conform to TH Kitchen's requirement (1), because that rule might actually be sufficient for a ceiling system. By "that rule" I mean that at eight feet the hood aperture would be 7 ft wide and 6 ft front-to-back or 42 square feet of baffles (and not slots or whatever FF is trying to pass off as a ventilation solution. For the baffles to be effective at capturing the larger end of the grease particle spectrum, an air flow of at least 40 ft/min might be necessary (unless some specially designed lower flow baffle was invented -- maybe the ball bearing filter approach would have merit in this case).

So 40 ft/min x 42 square feet is 1680 CFM. This would require a 2400 CFM rated blower and probably 12-inch ducting. These baffles would need to be cleaned more often than normal commercial baffles (per quantity of grease vapor) because being flat they would have no drain and will otherwise drip grease. Just be careful to not fracture the cooktop or the counter reaching the baffles to remove them. 8 to 12 dishwasher runs should be sufficient for the baffle cleaning process, depending on how they might stack in the dishwasher.

Non baffle ceiling solutions also work, but they require special techniques, such as UV breakdown of grease particles. For a full ceiling design, see for example the Haydal site:

http://www.kitchen-ventilation.co.uk/heydal

And the comment about drafts, from air conditioning diffusers or returns is a valid one, making the ceiling scheme ever more difficult to truly control.

And don't forget that the MUA system has to match this airflow.