I am in the process of building it in. The biggest problems I've run into are: 1) The skirting around the bottom to hide the casters are 1" wide all the way around, 6" high. I have to jog the steel studs to accomodate this. This also will make the unit face flush except for the bottom where it will stick out 1". 2) The deck height is 34". Typically, countertops are at 36". The problem with that is that my stainless fridge I'm building in is wanting a 34" under counter height, so I have to bend over the plate studs above the fridge to get it in, and try to find some other support for the hardibacker and tile to rest on. 3) Rotis bracket is 1" lower than deck height. For this, I am going to form my countertop with a jog where this is needed, slide the unit in, and then use a right angle ratchet or something afterwards to screw it in. 4) Handle and shelf. I can't use these for obvious reasons. Maybe I'll put them up on e-bay or just keep them in the garage. 5) Return air in the back. This is not square to the rest of the unit, but I figure you won't be able to see it on my built-in becase I have a 6" backsplash on it. If you are building an island, you have to jog the back to accomodate this. Other than these things, it should work fine. I'll post pictures once I'm done.

I've been looking at the built-in Firemagic and Lynx grills and while I like a lot the Firemagic from a technical point of view, I can't get over the 2" wide stainless steel band around the edge to support the grill on the counter top. It seems this should be hidden under the counter top (granite, tile, etc) but all the pictures and displays I've seen show it sitting on top. What were they thinking? Why would anyone want that 2" band around the grill? It would look horrible sitting on a nice counter top. The Lynx and others have a much nicer way to seat the grill on a built in base. Am I being too picky?

That is a wonderful write-up. Thanks for taking the time to write it. We have a Viking cooktop and your observatoins match ours in using it for 7+ years. Alas, we don't have a grill so nothing to add here. We do have a portable infra-red grill we bought for our boat. And our experience matches yours. It is great for stakes but everything else will get torched from below, but no heat from above. They should call this steak grills and be done with it. BTW, we don't have the boat and never use it. FYI, we have a cermaic cooker now which we use for slow smoking (e.g. 12-18 hours). I have used it rain and shine including in snow. It will use only one single bag of charcoal for 24 hours. It has an automated controller for temps and I am able to manage it from the PC inside our house (through a program I have written). It is able to maintain its temp within 2% or even better! Not saying you should go that way but it is worth considering what you can do with an outside unit for at least slower cooks. You only have to put up with the weather when you load and unload it. And of course, it will create a BBQ which rivals or betters more restaurants. Again, much appreciate the feedback.

We installed a 36" Wolf dual fuel with grill last January as part of a major renovation at our house in Toronto. For exhuast we picked a 40" vent-a-hood with dual blower. At the advice of my kitchen designer and as noted in the wolf manual we mounted the hood at 36" above the range. The Vent-a-Hood installation manual clearly says 30" max. I mounted it at 36" because as a 6 footer 30" above the range seemed low. Problems. While I have successfully cooked a steak on the grill with out the house smoke detector going off. The hood has not been able to extract all the smoke from cooking both lamb or beef burgers on it. We will be lowering the hood back to 30" and I hope this removes the excess smoke. The wolf is great but you should pay close attention to the exhuast requirements stated in the chargriller manuals.