I’ve been to Consumer Reports and looked around the web a little. Bought a low-end toaster oven and found that every accessible square inch of the exterior got hot enough to burn you, decided that was not acceptable, am in the process of returning that one.
I’ve seen one or two reviews of ovens mentioning that they get hot (on the outside), but most ignore this issue – even Consumer Reports.
Does anyone at SDMB have a toaster oven that they like, that doesn’t get extremely hot on the outside (or at least on the sides)?
Well there are limts to how well insulated you’re going to be able to make a moderately priced kitchen applicance. The metal shell of virtually every toaster oven I’ve even used got quite hot except one, which was a convection toaster oven that was twice the price, and still sucked. It was so bad I went back to the non-convection standard units.
Out of curiosity why is this an issue? Aren’t the toaster control knobs made out of the regular ubiquitous “applicance knob” type black plastic that can be handled as necessary even if the skin of the toaster is hot?
I bought a GE Toaster Oven model 168955. Great product, in use at my office where everyone now has a new found love of poptarts. Got it cheap ($30) at WalMart and if it broke today (owned for 3 months) I’d buy another.
Actually, it has to do with having little ones who might not realize about touching the sides of the toaster oven. And the fact that I read a review saying that the panel containing the controls on one oven got so hot that using the buttons/knobs itself could be risky.
vetbridge, how does that GE oven do with the exterior temperature?
Take a look at this Page from Targets website. They have several toasters that are encased in plastic. Maybe one them would achieve what you are looking for
It’s a great little oven, and I love the thing, but it’s not a cheepy one. Living alone it’s so nice to be able to toast, broil, or bake one little serving, witout all the extra electricity to heat up my full-oven. The plastic never gets hot, and I’ve had not problems but again it’s not a particularly inexpensive version of the species.
Thanks, I will check out Amazon just to be sure, but I was at shopping.com, which gives epinions reviews, and there was a true paucity of them for most toaster ovens. Maybe 1 review, 2 at most, and I don’t know whether to trust those or whether some of them are manufacturers’ marketing folks in disguise.
wolfman, thanks, I had seen that and I may gravitate toward the B&D ovens with “ThermaGuard™”. At least they’re addressing the issue head-on.
