I suspect that it depends on the type of hood and design of your kitchen. My upper cabinets basically touch the hood and I wish there was about a 3" gap on either side. My hood is just a basic stainless steel vent-a-hood with white shaker cabinets.

I wish I had the space to put 10" on either side of my hood! My new kitchen has windows on either side of the hood. I had planned on 6" with about 3" of that being trim, so only 3" of open wall space. I ended up choosing narrower trim and forgot to calculate the window wrap trim the right way. I ended up with about 5-6" of open wall. I think it'll be a happy mistake once the hood goes in.

It seems to me like if you had 10" of space to each side of the hood, your hood should have a decent presence to it so it doesn't look lost in all that space. Could be wrong.

If your hood is large and has a sculptural shape, then having the ten inches on either side looks great-- lets the hood "breathe" and opens up the whole wall -- looks spacious and features the hood. If you have a smaller hood or a hood that has straight sides, such as a classic barrel shape, then having the cabinets close to the hood or even right next to the hood might look better.

I have a 40 inch dome shaped hood with about ten inches on each side and backsplash tiled to the ceiling. Having that open space really brought a feeling of lightness and spaciousness to my kitchen (which is on the small side) and is one of the things I like best about the remodel.

Our hood touches (just about) the cabs on either side. We have a 36" range w/ a 36" wide hood. We don't think it looks bad, and we appreciate having those inches of storage space in the upper cabs flanking the hood. In a bigger kitchen, with more available wall (and other) space, a more open look might have worked as well.

I have never had a customer ask to lose cabinet space for clearance to a hood.

It is not required.

I have a 42" hood over a 36" range, and the upper cabs are flush with the sides of the hood.

i've often wondered why there is no discussion of the cabinet sides' flammability. Hoods are the same width as the cooktop. Flammable material touching the hood is essentially right above the cooktop. This doesn't make sense to me. For 20 years I used to see my oak veneer on the wall cabinets right above the cooking surface, right next to the hood. Steam from cooking caused the veneer to go ugly on me. Yuk. But, if there had ever been a stovetop fire, this veneer would have either been damaged or worse yet, fed the fire and helped it spread. (!) Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

i've often wondered why there is no discussion of the fact that hoods are usually not container-shaped. They LOOK very very container-shaped when seen from a distance, but the filter (baffles) are not recessed into an upside down cup that would contain a few gallons of fast-rising smoke. This is not helpful in a real fire, but it IS helpful in everyday operation = and that IS the main goal, to keep greasy smoke inside the canopy and the exhaust system (not allow it to spread throughout the house). Wok and grill cooking produces bursts of smoke. One can always overcompensate by having the blower suck more CFM's but then this forces the house to provide a lot more make-up air, which forces the AC or heating system to work harder... and then this forces people to spend a few thousand more for make-up air compensating systems.... (!) Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Hth.

our kitchen is just like catmoms ..when we are finished we will have an 1/8 of an inch on either side..we called the manufacturer of the hood and that is what they said we could do..I hope they are right. b/c we need the xtra inches also.

"i've often wondered why there is no discussion of the cabinet sides' flammability. Hoods are the same width as the cooktop. Flammable material touching the hood is essentially right above the cooktop. "

I have never seen a residential stove that did not have some type of clearance as part of its listing.

The most common one is nothing flammable less than 18 inches above the top of the stove to either side.

If the cabinets touch the sides of a same width hood and are at least 18 inches above the cook-top they meet the clearance.

Most times 3" is sufficient. But it may depend on the look of the hood or kitchen your designer is going for.