Latest advice appreciated on the best big induction downdraught hobs please (Berbel, Bora, Gaggenau, Siemens, Bosch or others). We want best steam and fat clearance rates, quietest motors, easy-clean (unsure re self-clean, ducted or recirulated air). Berbel's FaceBook page features lots of customer complaints regarding after-sales service and spare parts, but some seem due to Covid delays which we think is unavoidable; another mentions guests sitting "in a haze" from the recirculated air and obviously nobody wants that! We need to order very soon but definitely don't want ceiling extraction. Many thanks for prompt replies!

The only issue i ever have with hobs and thin worktops is the depth of the hob, so it really depends on what you have under the hob. Really can't see any issue having the thinner worktop and certainly haven't heard or read of any problems. Induction hobs are thicker than standard hobs, upto 60mm thick so if you have a thin worktop you might not have a working drawer below, if there's a built under oven than this could be an issue. Induction hobs do get warm and have fans in them so they produce warm air underneath which can warm up whats in a drawer below so some hobs state a heat board should be fitted but that doesn't affect the worktop. As previously stated Corian is fabricated to your spec and can be made to pretty much any thickness, it comprises a board core and corian top with a front edge glued to it so it can be pretty much any thickness but make sure you have a certified Corian installer for your guarantee. There's also plenty of alternatives to Corian on the market but as with all these types of worktops they can scratch quite easily (can be polished out) and dark colours show scratches the worst.

Sorry Mat not sure if I follow. Are you having storage put in by the door? There is no storage labelled on your plans. If so, then visually speaking, the room starts from where the floor starts not from where the wall behind the cabinets starts. So if you have the same distance from both sides i.e. from right wall and from the left cabinet, it will still look symmetrical. Do you see how the room starts from the door of the cabinet and not from the splash back behind the sink? Here the column between the doors looks the same size as the wall next to the cabinets, whereas in reality the wall is at least 60cm wider. Again here the door appears to be in the centre of the room but in reality the wall on the left hand side is much wider because it carries on behind the cabinets. The designer has cleverly placed a T.V. there to stop the eye from noticing the rest of the wall. The same effect can be achieved with floor to ceiling cabinets. Was that what you were asking about or have I gone way off?

Having the extra carbon filter fitted to convert an extractor to recirculating mode makes very little difference to the power/efficiency of any extractor, but you have to change the carbon filter as required so you do have a small extra cost (as opposed to a grease filter which is usually washable). But extraction is also governed by building regs part F and if its a kitchen extension you may have to add further ventilation (minimum 60 lit/sec), if its a refurbishment so long as you only had a recirculating extractor previously and the ventilation hasn't been made worse then a recirculating extractor is all thats required.