Your Microwave

Does anyone have or have had in the past, a microwave that mounts under your kitchen cabinetry in the space above your stove where the exhaust fan is usually found?

These microwaves come complete with the fans so in essence they serve both purposes.

I want to know how convenient this set up has been for you. What are the drawbacks? What are the advantages?

How strong did you find the exhaust capacity to be?

Re: Your Microwave

Hey Muzna, we have this at our cottage and its nice except if you do decide to have this make sure that the height of the microwave fits with yours.....that was basically the biggest problem we had with it.

Re: Your Microwave

We have that. Its pretty straightforward to operate and maintain. Except I think the exhausts on the front of the microwave do get more than their fair share of brown sticky residue (no doubt from the dhuwaN *of various *desi haandis). Its nothing a good cleaner can't take care of, though.

Re: Your Microwave

Okay....so the height is an issue.....

And that's something that I thought might be important.

Does the height interfere with cooking on the stove? Like if you have larger pots....do you end up banging your head on the bottom of the microwave?

Don't laugh.....my brother's exhaust fan contraption is such that if I lean too far over the pot on his stove, I bang my forehead on the edge of the range hood.
Lucky bhabhi isn't so tall.

Re: Your Microwave

We have the same one. no drawbacks besides what Faisal mentioned.

Why would u bang ur head under the microwave? :confused: u don;t put ur head on the oven while u cook right? :cb:the microwaves are not usually as big as the oven so they extend to about 2/3rds over the oven, no head banging involved. We have small burners at the back of the oven so we don;t usually place large pots at the back, even if we do its never a problem peeking in to them.

And those are not exhaust fans in the real sense. They do not suck air and throw it out, they have filters which the air goes thru and then I don’t know where it goes, probably filtered and back in to the kitchen again I guess!

Re: Your Microwave

Instead of over the stove microwave, one of my relative had their cabinet (a suitable one in kitchen) short in length and mounted the microwave under it. It is at the perfect height. ie. a typical 5.1 desi woman will have it at her face :D It is atleast 8 inch lower than the over the stove one, and allows you to watch the whole room inside the box, easy for cleaning/adjusting try as well.

Re: Your Microwave

Isn;t that how it is always mounted? Under a shorter cabinet?

Re: Your Microwave

FF :hehe: “I don’t know where it goes”

Muzna,

We have one too over the cooking range. No drawbacks really, just the filters have to be changed once they get all greasy from the salaans wagaira. Never bumped my head either, nor did anyone else in the family.

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I don’t live in kitchen neither I make cabinets :clown: Pad me for being male.
I just noticed it since all other homes I see either have mounted over the stove or sitting on kitchen counter.

Re: Your Microwave

:Pad:

Re: Your Microwave

The problem we had was that it was too high up, the people that lived there before us were freakishly tall....but we had it lowered and it worked perfectly.....besides if you have a smaller kitchen its really helpful cause it doesn't take up the counter space.

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unless the ladies of the house were 6 feet or above I refuse to believe they were freakishly tall :snooty:

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^^ we bought the cottage from two men and they were **freakishly **tall, although i didn't measure them i guessing well over 6 feet :D

Re: Your Microwave

:cb:

then its ok.

Re: Your Microwave

Okay....the bumping will probably not happen because the microwave will not be the same depth as the stove. Makes complete sense.

Now it's just the issue of the height being difficult to manage in case someone is too short. Hmmmm....maybe I should measure it before I make up my mind.

And btw....what do you mean the air comes back into the kitchen? Isn't it mandatory to have an exhaust to the outside?

Re: Your Microwave

Ya Muzna that is what a proper exhaust fan would do but these are not exhausts, they just sorta absorb the smoke and oily fumey air and send the filtered air back to you to breathe in! :bummer:

Re: Your Microwave

So that's typical with all of these mounted microwaves or the one that you have?

Re: Your Microwave

I believe it is typical cos if the exhaust like thing is at the bottom of the microwave and there is no vent going thru the microwave for the air to pass and the spot ur oven is mounted is not directly above ur fire place not allowing the air to go thru the chimney I don;t know where else the air can go.

We should wait for someone who has it differently.

Re: Your Microwave

I have it and it works great. We added it when we moved into our house, because the previous owners had a countertop one that they took with them. The fact that it frees up so much counterspace makes it invaluable.

My parents have had one for a while and that's what I was used to growing up.

I haven't had any height or cleaning concerns yet.

^By the way, I'm 5'2" and it's been fine.

Re: Your Microwave

If these are not proper exhausts, and that makes sense, then I'm not sure that this is what I want.

I'm already looking for a more powerful exhaust fan (something in the range of 400 or 500 cfm), so if the microwave will not even give me the typical 200 that most folks have, then I'm not sure it's the right solution for me.