My over-the-oven microwave is dieing. I suspect it’s from heat and steam coming up from the oven.
So I go to the store to price new ones, and they’re VERY expensive. At Sears they start around $265.
Over at Target I can buy a countertop microwave for $40.
Should I just say the hell with the over-the-oven model? It’s expensive, I’ll have to install it, yadda yadda. Or should I spend far less money and sacrifice some counter space?
Will this decision really matter when I eventually sell my house? Thanks for helping a clueless single guy.
If you don’t want to spend the money on the micro that goes over the stove, you will probably have to replace it with another one or with a simple range hood when you sell. Most women prefer the over-the-stover, especially if counter space is not generous, and women have a yooge amount of the decision-making when it comes to buying houses, and kitchens are one of the deal-breaker areas of the house.
OK, I almost snipped a portion of YaWanna’s reply. I decided not to, because both of the points are very valid.
My first thought was, by the time you buy a replacement hood and have it installed, you’re not gonna save all that much.
My second thought was, that a lot of kitchens are short on space. Yours may not be, but counter space is nevertheless precious.
Third is YaWanna’s saying : “Most women prefer the over-the-stover, especially if counter space is not generous, and women have a yooge amount of the decision-making when it comes to buying houses, and kitchens are one of the deal-breaker areas of the house.”
OK, I almost snipped a portion of YaWanna’s reply. I decided not to, because both of the points are very valid.
My first thought was, by the time you buy a replacement hood and have it installed, you’re not gonna save all that much.
My second thought was, that a lot of kitchens are hsort on space. Yours may not be, but counter space is nevertheless precious.
Third is YaWanna’s saying : “Most women prefer the over-the-stover, especially if counter space is not generous, and women have a yooge amount of the decision-making when it comes to buying houses, and kitchens are one of the deal-breaker areas of the house.”
In my experience, the over-the-stove models have been heads and tails better than the ones that sit on the counter. More power, better at doing things like defrosting, etc.
Of course, if all you use the microwave for is to heat up coffee, you don’t care. But if you use it for more, the extra money is worth it IMO.
Huh. I’ve heard (nope, don’t remember where, sorry), that over the stove ones were generally worse than counter models - the steam thing was mentioned, and I think I remember them being less powerful or having less space inside. They’re definitely heavier, and they’re more expensive because they have to incorporate a fan an range hood.
I’m female, BTW, and I don’t really have a preference one way or the other. I’ve had both; my current one is a counter model.
Hmm, I’ve had the direct opposite experience, as I’ve noticed above. I’ve lived with two over-the-stove models, in two different houses. Never had any problems with either of them, and I tend to cook a lot. They’ve been both larger and more powerful than most than the average counter model, and have more features - defrost, timers, power levels, etc. Not that you can’t get counter models that have all this, it just seems like the average counter model ranges from low to medium in power/features, and the over the oven ones are the high end ones.
So I came up with the brilliant plan to buy a new microwave, bigger and better, and putting it in the pantry next to the fridge.
OK…so we bought the huge microwave and now we have to get electricity to the pantry. So, we pull out the fridge and then drill a hole to the pantry. Next we put in the microwave. Ooops. Too big. So we have to take down the shelves and then put them back up, Now the microwave won’t fit in because it is too wide. So we have to take the door off the pantry. Finally get microwave in pantry. The plug won’t fit through the hole. We have to drill the hole bigger. Finally get plug through the hole and plug it in. Put the door back on the hinges and we move the fridge back.
The movement of the fridge has now ruined the linoleum in the kitchen. Big ol’ ripping scar on the floor.
We decide to re-do the kitchen floor with Pergo. And as long as we are doing the kitchen, might as well do the living room. When they came to measure, we thought we might as well do the entire house. That took three weeks.
We forgot that our television barely fit in the living room niche with the carpet area cut out, and now with the new Pergo floor, it won’t fit in the niche at all. So we went and bought a new television to fit in the niche.
Now with the new floor through the entire house, the carpeting on the steps looks like crap from all the dust on our feet from the new Pergo floor, so we got tile for the steps.
So, for about the price of a new car, we now have new tile steps, new television, new wood floor and we have a microwave that is hidden from view.
My advice? Buy the damned microwave over the kitchen stove and be done with it.
I just got mine repaired by a local place named All Home Appliance. Check your yellow pages or local newspaper handyman section.
The parts and labor ran $75 and he had to repace the front panel with all the buttons.
I’ve got an over-the-stove model in my apartment that incorporates a range hood, and my objection is that it’s the kind of hood that just filters rather than exhausting the smoke to the outside. But it’s nice not to have the microwave oven on the counter.
So if possible replace one of the upper cabinets with the kind with an opening for a regular microwave oven. Best of both worlds; inexpensive microwave that’s not on the counter.
I would go with the over the stove model. If you can get the same manufacturer it might even fit on the existing mounts, which would make installation as easy as pie. Get the countertop model, and you’ll either have to live with a microwave carcass staring at you for years, or you’ll have to take it out and replace it with a hood. If you’re going to do all that work anyway, go for the nice microwave.
It will might matter when you sell the house, if the thing doesn’t work, the buyer will probably want a credit for it. Maybe you can squeeze them to not get a credit, but having broken built in appliances is pretty lousy, people tend to stand their ground for that sort of stuff.
