We compromised with a
6 inch back guard, and a stainless steel sheet extending below the guard.

The 6 inch guard is nice in that the hot air from the oven is directed at an angle away from the wall, whereas the island guard hot air goes straight up.

I have the 6" backguard, with marble tile backsplash behind it. I thought that I might have issues with splashing on the backsplash, but it hasn't been in an issue at all over the past year.

If you're thinking of fabricating a custom backguard for decorative purposes, that might be interesting. But the BlueStar one works for me.

MarinaGal writes:

"Thanks for posting this photo and idea! It's really helpful. Can you tell me how high the back guard goes from the top of the grates? I imagine the grease and splatters from cooking would hit both the guard and the stainless steel piece you installed, right?"

____________________________________________________

It's exactly 6 inches from the top of the burner grates to the top of where the hot oven air exits.

Hardly anything makes its way to the back guard and nothing hits the sheet metal on the wall because we do all of our heavy duty frying on the two front blowtorch burners.

We just do wipe downs with stainless steel cleaner for smudges and to keep oil particulates in the air from accumulating. Inside the stainless steel hood is another story entirely... it's pretty gummy up there. ; )

I have the 6 inch backguard as well, and don't find any interference issues with large stock pots, and haven't had any discoloration on the outside of the guard. If you eye is at a certain height, you can see into the backguard, where the oven vents, and you can see some slight discoloration - which may be grime - but I have never bothered to try to clean it. I also have a sheet of stainless steel that I got at a home center that goes from the bottom of the hood to below the top of the backguard.

I have the 6" back guard with glass tile on the wall behind and above. My 6 burner BS range top is configured with the 22K burners on the front left, and right rear. The glass tile has never experienced any heat or scorch related issues in eight years of intensive use.

However, when using 12" standard sloped side fry pans, the back guard absolutely does restrict the ability to center the pan on the rear burners - there is no way around that. The short back guard would give you slightly more rear range on big sloped pans.

And the back guard behind the 22k rear burner is subject to scorching and minor warpage due to the intensity of the 22k burner - with wide pans deflecting heat into the guard. No such problems with the guard on my 15k rear burners or on the 22k with, for example, the 11qt stock pot.

Looking at the current BS burner layouts, it appears that BS has moved the standard 22k burners to the front so you should be fine on the scorching issue. And you will likely use those 22k for any large pans - so you should be perfectly fine with the 6" back guard.

Thanks, everyone, for the specific feedback. I decided to go with the 6" back guard and may add something like tempered glass or stainless steel on the wall behind it after I have tried the range for a while. I added a 22K burner in the back so I could have more flexibility with the higher power burners, so I will have to watch what I cook there until I get a feel for it. Again, I really appreciate your feedback.