Replies

1. 
   Flathumb | Mar 21, 2003 05:05pm | #1

   I believe in inflicting my own learning curve on myself.  Hence, my first built kitchen design was for my own house, and it had a telescoping downdraft. After living with it for two years I will never use one again and never recommend one to a client.  The reason is that a downdraft must suck in a tremendous amount of air to counter  the natural tendency of steam/smoke/hot air to rise.  My unit pulled 900 cfm.  It sounded like a tornado even with a remote blower, and it also pulled a LOT of heat off of the stove.  The stove did not heat evenly.  Rear burners lost a lot of heat and had difficulty boiling water.  Front burners also pulled toward the rear, but not as much as the back burners.  Pots tended to scorch at the rear and barely simmer in the front.

   Also - keep in mind that those "professional" cooktops put off more heat and more updraft.

   Mind you, this was a gas cooktop.  Maybe electric was the answer (except I don't cook on electric if I can avoid it).  However, my lesson was that it is better to design for a hood so that hot air can go where it is supposed to--UP.

   Storage below was screwed.  The cooktop was in a three drawer base.  All three drawers had to go back to the factory to be custom "notched" to fit around the downdraft hardware.  The resulting drawers were only useful for smaller pots.  Bad planning on my part.  I should have used a sink base.

2. 
   KevinT | Mar 21, 2003 06:17pm | #2

   I have a 36" six burner Viking range in an island installation.  I installed it about 2 years ago.  I also considered various downdraft ventilation options, and ultimately decided on a overhead hood, with as best I can recall, a 900 cfm remote blower. 

   Like others of said, these pro style stoves throw off a ton of heat.  Each burner on the Viking is 15,000 btu. With all six going, that is a potential 90,000 btu.  For comparison, I think that my gas furnace is 75,000 btu, and I also have a gas sealed fireplace that is in the neighborhood of 36,000 btu.

   If the pro style cook top is what you want, you have to go with pro style ventilation (imho).  These things throw off so much heat that you have to have good ventilation, and as far as I could tell, the downdraft types just can't keep up, regardless of the cfm.  An island installation compromises effective ventilation right off the bat; don't further limit it with a ventilation system with additional built in physical limitations.

3. 
   BillHartmann | Mar 21, 2003 08:00pm | #3

   Look at this one

   http://www.broan.com/product-detail.asp?ProductID=1145

4. 
   johnhardy | Mar 21, 2003 11:50pm | #4

   My remodel used a Dacor cooktop and a separate Dacor downdraft vent. The are installed back-to-back. They're not integral. In other words, you could install just the cooktop and have an above counter vent.

   To answer the original poster's request, I think you could get a separate downdraft unit, but as to whether they'd look good together ... that's something you'd have to decide. The controls for my downdraft are on the downdraft itself.

   And as to under-counter space ... get the doors. The downdraft uses too much space for full depth drawers, and you may have things like gas piping to worry about.

   John