A gap is desirable and we end up building in 3” on each side usually. That being side, a few factors have an impact:

• how wide is cooktop?
• how wide is hood?
• what type of hood?

Other factors as well probably. Those were the first to come to mind.

36” cook top , 36” range hood , wolf 36” cooktop wall hood - stainless with metal duct. 1200 cfm. Thanks! We Will have cabinets adjacent going up to 9’ ceilings.

Your cabinets will get greasy with that configuration. You’re better off searching a little longer for a 42” hood I think.

Aesthetically a 3” gap minimum for a floating hood, otherwise it looks squished in the space. That said, I promise I have installed lots of them where they touch adjacent cabinets because the kitchens were small and we had to utilize every inch. If you have space for a 36” range you probably have enough space to give up 3” of cabinet space on both sides of the hood...

I too have installed with no gap. I also find if the hood has more CFM than required it seems to better at capturing the grease and you seem to have that covered/

Thank you everyone for the great advice! Unfortunately, Wolf didn’t have the 42” hood in the style we wanted, so making it up with the higher CFM.