I have a 36" induction cooktop and we ventilate it with a Faber Synthesis 280 cfm ventilation hood. We chose this size because of something called the make up air issue. We could not purchase a ventilation hood with anything higher than 300 cfm because of this issue. However we found that it does an excellent job. I rarely use it at full speed.

I think that's a vast underestimate. I think the confusion may come from how you convert kW to BTU/hr (the standard way of rating gas range output). If you do a straight conversion, 10.2 kW does indeed convert to about 35K BTU, a very low level. However I do not believe that is the correct conversion.

I am quoting from a favorite induction site of mine, theinductionsite.com.

"If you're new to induction, keep in mind the rule of thumb from gas-energy values: induction-element kW times 7185 equals gas in BTU/hour. If you have an induction element rated at 2.2 kW, that is equivalent to a gas burner rated at over 15,800 BTU/hour; by most cooks' standards, that's a lot of cooking power!"

Based on this, your range is the equivalent of a 75K BTU gas range. That in turn would dictate at least a 750 cfm hood.

I do not believe much in the line you hear frequently that induction is much cleaner and therefore needs less ventilation. While it's true that induction does not generate products of combustion (CO2, H20), and loses less heat to the room, it generates just as much smoke, odor, and grease as an equivalent gas burner, and those are the things you are really trying to remove with your hood. So, I'd argue at least 750 cfm, and if you like to sear, stir fry, deep fry, etc I'd argue that a bit more would be even better.

Which hood: just search the oodles of threads here. There's nothing about a hood for induction that would be different than one for gas.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Induction Site: choosing a range

Rules of thumb, rules of thumb. Confusion about confusion. Convert right, convert wrong. Uh huh.

shari_n_pete, look at the thread linked to below, which links to another thread related to your induction cooktop.

Here is one vent I admire these days:
"Silhouette hood fits under kitchen cabinets and slides conveniently out of sight when not in use.
Compact, trim-line styling maximizes kitchen cabinet space
Dramatic glass visor slides out to turn on blower; ideal for contemporary-styled kitchens.
Provides powerful ventilation performance of 300 CFM with ultra-quiet performance of 4.5 Sones
Infinite speed blower control
Exclusive Heat Sentry system automatically turns blower to high speed when excess heat is detected
Includes 3-1/4" x 10" adapter with built-in damper
" Hope this helps.
-david

Here is a link that might be useful: Yay, my venting worries are over - now a question

David and I have disagreed on this before. Much depends on how you cook and what your expectations are.

I cook, a lot, and do a lot of high heat cooking. For example, last weekend I did my daughter's favorite salmon recipe again. It involves heating an All Clad pan on our biggest burner (18,000 BTU) for 4 minutes, then dumping in salmon filets coated heavily in olive oil. With our hood (1200 crm through a way-oversized hood liner) running full bore, I had NO smoke escape.

Conversely when I do that recipe at the lake house (15K burner) the smoke totally overwhelms our 600 cfm Vent a Hood, despite running both fans full bore. It's a 42'' hood over a 36'' Dacor cooktop, running a straight shot of 10'' duct up to the roof, no turns, less then 15' total run. I acually use a sheet pan to try and contain some of the smoke from escaping from the side of the hood.

A Viking induction range will clearly cook as hot as my gas ranges. Using the same recipe I guarantee you'll generate enough smoke to overwhelm anything less than major league ventilation.

So, feel free to use an undercab 300 cfm hood. If you don't stress the system, and if looks are paramount over performance, then it should be fine. But don't expect to cook hard and keep things under control.

If you cook greasy or stinky, it won't matter if it's induction or gas. Gas has extra heat and extra fumes, but not enough to treat the two types differently when considering ventilation.

Wow, thanks for all the feedback! So, we shan't underestimate the need for adequate ventilation, regardless of how it's calculated.

We're trying to decide between Wolf and Miele's 36" models, but the kitchen will be in a traditional style, not a modern one; probably one that is surrounded by woodwork.

We also know that we require a good sized capture area and want easy-to-clean filters. Has anyone been down this path before? Any recommendations about what hoods we should look at?

Thanks!

I totally love our hood liner.

(Sorry! Old photo before the backsplash went in)

As you can see, we also went with a cabinet alcove/surround. Inside is a custom 64'' wide Modern Aire SS hood liner. It's fully baffled, 300 series (highest grade) stainless steel, custom sized to our kitchen (our range is a weird metric size measuring just over 55'' wide, so a standard 48'' or 60'' hood was suboptimal, so we went custom at 64'' for an extremely small extra charge). It's beautifully constructed. The baffles look like a work of art, but you can throw them in the DW and they come out sparkling clean with no hand washing (unlike our VAH).

It's ventilated using a Fantech FKD 10XL remote inline blower mounted in our attic, rated at just over 1200 cfm. It's coupled with a Fantech LD10 silencer. It's virtually silent at full blast. If you do the "paper towel test," it will suck a row of six paper towels against the baffles hard enough you have to "peel" them off. It's controlled with an infinitely variable speed control mounted on the wall to the left of the range. Super convenient.

I cannot imagine a better combination of hood liner and blower. Happy to answer any more specific questions.

I'm probably going with a Fantech FG6 (300 CFM) and a Variable Speed Control.

I found the following in the Broan web site catalog:
"Broan Elite internal blowers provide high ventilation and durable construction to meet the needs of professional-style cooking appliances for the home."
Model mount CFM max BTU Amps Rough-in duct
P5 Internal 500 60,000 1.8 3-1/4" x 10"
P8 Internal 850 95,000 3.4 3-1/4" x 14"
331 Exterior 600 60,000 2.3 10" Round
332 Exterior 900 90,000 5.8 10" Round
335 Exterior 1200 120,000 3.0 10" Round
336 Exterior 1500 120,000 3.8 10" Round
HLB3 In-Line 280 40,000 2.6
HLB6 In-Line 600 65,000 2.9
HLB9 In-Line 800 85,000 3.0
HLB11 In-Line 1100 110,000 5.0

I quoted Miele in another thread, illustrating the same thing as in the Broan information above, which is that a Several_Hundred_CFM range hood is fine fine fine for most purposes, according to the very makers and sellers of these products who have every incentive to make you want more. Miele says they can send 400 CFM down a 6" round duct quietly. Broan has 500 CFM going through a 3.25" x 10" duct (!), with the P5 internal blower (first one in the list above).

Everything Clinresga has said above is good. We have agreed on many threads before. I need to express the contrary viewpoint, so that GW people and lurkers don't go too far down the self-censorship road. Or, worse still, groupthink. Until last year in GW, 600 CFM was considered plenty / enough/ a lot/ for a wall-mount. I wonder where the makeup air comes from in everyone's house. I think in my place it came in through the wall studs (bad air). These last few weeks made me wonder where my "new" air is coming from; now that the temperature has warmed up and I can open windows, I smell nicer air in my house.

I'll be going with Fantech because I'm fussy about quality and I like to customize. The mix of products I chose is a path I'd not recommend to most lurkers and newbies.

Kudos to Clinresga (and a few others) who helped me so far. I couldn't have found fantech.net otherwise.

HTH
-David

david makes an excellent point.

It's easy in the GW world of obsessive compulsives to lose sight of reality. Many discussions, including ones I've participated in, are driven by esoteric concerns over what are in the global scheme of things, trivial points. We argue over whether 22K BTU are that much better than 18K, whether a cutlery tray is superior to a cutlery basket, etc.

David is correct here in that modest ventilation will suffice for the vast majority of situations, for the vast majority of users. Will 400 cfm do a good job of minimizing grease and odors wafting through the kitchen? Sure. Will they handle one of my smoke grenade recipes? Maybe not, but how often does one actually cook like that (a lot, for me, but rarely for most).

So, I still am a believer that more (cfm) are better than less, since you can always turn the blower down, but you can't rev it up beyond what it can do. However, in this economic climate, it's equally important to realize that we don't have to have the most expensive solution for every issue to still end up with a great, highly functional kitchen.

So, as usual, we're on the same page.

I think I'm putting either the 30 or 36inch Wolf induction in my island and will use their downdraft. I'm still debating if I should do a 15 inch induction, steamer, and 15" multifunction gas module. I attended a WOlf demo with chef Joel at the Wolf factory Monday night. I asked him about it and one of the designers (there was a group of them attending) said " a real cook doesn't use a downdraft!" She said, "that's why you need a desigher". I was a little upset with her comments but didn't say anything. It all depends on how you cook. I've had a JennAir for 25 years and it pulled down everything so I think I will be ok. We can't put a hood in because of the seiling joists so that's our only choice.

Thanks, everybody, for all the info. We're so glad to have stumbled on this GardenWeb forum - it's become one of the real go-to resource for us.

Clinresga, your kitchen looks unbelievably gorgeous and we're much like you - we cook at high heat often. We'll need something that will handle more than a boiling pot of water.

Davidro1, thanks for all the different brand suggestions - we'll check them out this weekend. We'd love to hear more about your non-lurker list of kitchen appliances.

Shari 'n Pete

Ventilation enthusiasts: note an important aspect of Clinresga's beautiful setup -- capture and containment are enhanced by the three sides that surround his range all the way down to the counter. If this range were aggressively cooked on in an island configuration, he would need even greater air flow and hood overhang for the same level of capture and containment. Cross drafts might make an island configuration leak odor even then.

On the other hand, I can attest that an induction cooktop used for heating water requires no ventilation.

Clinresga: Perhaps I missed it -- have you ever enlightened us with a description of your make-up air approach?

kas

kas:
yes, I've discussed it before: it's a combination of poorly insulated/sealed house, plus intentional opening of windows (fortunately we live in Atlanta), and occasional inadvertent use of our chimney (when I forget to close the damper--that's when I get the house smelling of wood smoke).

Under most circumstances, running the hood at under 50%, I don't do anything as there's enough air infiltration to suffice. If I'm running it full, I'll crack a window by the range.

Formal makeup air is certainly more elegant, but I had one major concern, which is drawing all of that cold (in winter) and warm (in summer) air into one specific area, typically near where I'd be cooking. In the absence of a heat exchanger (a very neat concept but too pricey for me to contemplate), supplying unheated/cooled makeup air via an air intake would create this high velocity stream of unconditioned air. I'd rather have it sort of creep into the house at multiple sites (i.e. around all my poorly sealed windows) and/or be able to control where the air is entering (by choosing which window to open). This system obviously has flaws if you 1) are violating code or 2) live in Minnesota.

If I were doing the "my company just went public" (or in this environment, I guess a better analogy would be "I just got a fat government contract") kitchen, I'd add a heat exchanger.

I can also attest that heating water with an induction cooktop requires no ventilation...unless you have cabinets in the vicinity you don't want dripping from steam. But that's not particular to induction!

Well....as I mentioned above I own an induction cooktop and for the record I do more than boil water. I fry, steam, boil you name it....7 days a week. We rarely eat out and as I said before, I have a hood that is just under 300. It is all I have ever needed. In fact I rarely use the highest speed.

Clinsrega, I think your set up looks great. My husband saw it and said your set up would work fine in any restaurant he has worked on. However, if we had tried to install such a setup without the make up air issue having been addressed, our new build would have never been passed. I think you did mention it in your last post but I think it is worth repeating, as alot of people...myself included...are not always made aware of such things when they make their purchases. It can cost thousands of dollars to address such issues and it is not something you can just ignore. In fact from what I understand it is something that is inspected where a permit has been issued for new builds or renos. In speaking with our inspector he mentioned that this issue is quite often not addressed until the purchasing decisions have been made leaving the homeowner scrambling for ways to deal with the make up air issue. So I guess I would just like to remind people when they are shopping for a ventilation hood to have these figures readily available when trying to figure out what works best for them.

does anyone have actual experience with a wolf downdraft? My sister's Jennair used to bend and even blow out the flame on occasion, but that wouldn't pertain to an induction unit.

I have a woof hood with baffles in my current house and hate it - it's a misery to get the baffles in and out - and the nose is horrendous. A wall hood chimney would be an option but I'd rather use the space for cabinets.

Is there a wall-oven that people highly recommend?

We will be installing our Wolf 45 inch downdraft in about three weeks. I had a JennAir (island) and it pulled away everything that I cooked - never a problem. A hood would not work in our kitchen and our house is very open with 30 foot ceilings. I know many people here are really against downdrafts but it is my kitchen and I know how I cook.

I also ordered the Wolf E-series wall oven.