Microwave Project

     “What are you frying?” became “Ugh!  Bacon!”

     One disadvantage of living in a nice, tight, energy-efficient house is the frying pan on the range.  What we fried stayed with us for a day or longer.  We noticed it when coming up the steps from the basement.  “Ah yes, those sautéed onions.”  Or when returning from an outing, as we walked through the garage door entering into the kitchen.  “Bean soup with the ham shank doesn’t smell quite as good as it did last night.”

    We lived with that for a year.  Fish had to be done on the grill outside, an okay solution most of the time, except in zero or below weather.  Stuff done in the oven wasn’t quite as volatile as the stovetop.  Baked fish was a tolerable cold weather alternative.

      Things came to a head in November with the onset of chemotherapy.  That’s when “Ugh! Bacon!” hit the air.   While chemotherapy reduced the Goodwife’s overall ability to smell things, bacon hit an olfactory nerve not deadened by the chemicals.  It was the only thing that caused her to have anything close to nausea.

      I tried frying the bacon on the grill.  It’s one thing to step out into the cold to light the grill or turn the fish at the end of the day while fully dressed.  It’s quite another to keep an eye on the bacon strips in early morning garb.  Bacon can turn into charcoal pretty fast and has to be watched.

        I tried using the microwave fan with charcoal filter that supposedly filters the cooking odors as it recirculates the air.  That maneuver only sped up the bacon diffusion and spread it further from the kitchen.  Plus the fan was so loud that with it on, I couldn’t hear radio, television, a conversation, or even the phone in my pocket if it decided to ring.

      The over-the-range microwave had other deficiencies.  It had no turntable, it was that old.  It was white over a stainless steel stove. (Pretty important, I hear.)  I guess its biggest problem was the taboo of a consumer-oriented economy, and the thing to be avoided in modern America:  it was old.

     When we built the kitchen in our Kansas house, we installed a range hood vented to the great outdoors.  It functioned well, venting the cooking odors with a powerful, quiet fan.  LED lights illuminated the stovetop.  It only had one drawback.  A cold southeast wind could find its way through both dampers, the one in the wall cap and the one in the back of the vent hood.  It let in cold air under the right weather conditions.

         I built a “lollipop” to counter that problem.  It was a Styrofoam wedge that fit the wall cap and held the damper closed while it insulated things a little.  It was glued to a short piece of dowel rod that was easily inserted or removed.  The dowel sticking out of the wall cap reminded us that the vent was plugged.  The device was only needed two or three times a year, as only a cold southeast wind caused the problem.

     We discussed replacing the microwave in this house with a vent hood.  There were some problems.  Where would we put the microwave?  What was behind the microwave?  Did the tile go all the way up, or was it only up to the microwave?

     I researched vent hoods.  Most of them have a noise scale, showing how quiet, or noisy, the vent fan is.  Try to find that information for an over-the-range microwave.

    Sometime in January, after the Christmas and New Years’ madness settled down, and when I no longer had to worry about finishing the roof job, I grew brave and pulled the old microwave down from its perch.  Sure enough, the tile went from backsplash to cabinet bottom.  We could put in a range hood if we chose.

   

     In the end, we opted for another microwave.  It had to be quieter than the old one, or we would never use it.  It should be stainless steel.  A trip to the library to consult the Consumer Reports turned up a GE model rated best buy.

     That model was on sale at Best Buy.  It had to be ordered.  It arrived a week later.  Then came the difficult part.  Cutting through the wall to install vent piping.  The vent opening missed wall studs, but the backside of the wall, a wall shared with the garage, had a cabinet clinging to it.

     Using the installation instructions, I marked where the vent had to go through the wall.  With a masonry bit, I drilled through the tile in one of the lower corners of th proposed vent opening.  With a longer bit, I went through sheetrock, insulation, sheetrock again, and I was through the wall and into the garage.  I stepped around the refrigerator, through the door and looked.  Lo and behold, my bit was protruding just above the cabinet!

      There were still problems.  The outlet used by the old microwave had to be moved.  Cutting through the tile was a challenge.  I started with the round bladed tile cutter to score the lines I needed.  I tried a hammer and chisel to deepen the cut.  Pretty slow and not very effective.  The most successful tool was the jigsaw with a hacksaw blade, except the blade wore out pretty quickly.  And, there were two electric wires in the space I needed to go through. 

    In an earlier life, I did cut through two 110-volt electric lines with that very same jigsaw, and lived to tell about it.  I really didn’t want to challenge fate in that way again.

     I got a vibrating cutter for Christmas, but the blade was only for wood.  I made a trip to the hardware store.  I bought a packet of metal-cutting blades for the jigsaw for about $9.  One metal cutting blade for the vibrator was more than twice that.  I really didn’t want to go through a handful of those blades for a 4” X 12” hole through the tile. 

      The expensive vibrator blade came through like a champ.  It went through the tile quickly and was still fairly sharp when I got done.  It didn’t go through the sheetrock so didn’t endanger the wires in the wall. 

     By chunking off the sheetrock the size of the 4” X 4” tile, I could reach into the opening, keep the wires out of the picture, and use the jigsaw to cut safely through the sheetrock.  As usual, the right tool made the job easy.

      The fitting that converted the vent from rectangular to round has an odd shape, necessitating an odd-shaped opening in the garage wall.  My handy hand-held saw cut through the sheetrock on the garage side.

     Four more holes with the masonry bits got the mounting plate secured to the wall.  The Goodwife helped me boost the microwave into its place and get the back of the machine hooked into the mounting plate.  But alas! The bolts they sent to secure the front of the oven through the floor of the cabinet above were a half-inch short.

     The old microwave sat on the counter for a couple of weeks while we waited for the new one to arrive and while I was making the necessary alterations to the wall.  Now, the new microwave had to spend some time on the counter.  It sat there while I took four days to sing Valentines.

      Finally, a trip to the local hardware store netted three longer bolts.  The kitchen range came out for the second time, the microwave carefully elevated and hooked to its mounting plate, and this time the bolts made contact with the threads in the top front of the machine.  It was there.  The only thing left was to run the vent through a nearby outside wall. 

       That didn’t get done right away.  For a few days, the fairly quiet over-the-range microwave- range vent vented into the garage.  The garage smelled like Italian sausage for a while.  Better the garage than the living room.

     On a cold rainy day, the vent found its way through the exterior garage wall.  Mission accomplished.  But then, it’s not about the goal.  It’s about the journey, they say.  Nothing like spreading a day job over three or four weeks.