james_davis_nicoll | This is why I can't have nice things

This is why I can't have nice things

Bus went missing. A bunch of us at the Stanley Park Mall split on a cab. That got me a few blocks from my place. Slog home, put a snack in the microwave, the power dies before I can hit on. I put the frozen snack back in the freezer, wait the power cut out. Power comes back on. I turn on the microwave.

White smoke comes out. See, I forgot to put the food back in before turning the microwave back on....

Fuck fuck fuck.

At least I didn't burn the house down.

Well, I know what my next major purchase is....

Any recommendations for cheap, reliable brands of microwave ovens?

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Empty microwave ovens destroy themselves? (Also, still beats my day -- $1200 to replace a shower faucet.)

Edited 2011-02-06 05:29 (UTC)

It may still work but white smoke came out. I've probably damaged the magnetron.

It's unplugged now and where I can keep an eye on it just in case dead microwaves have failure modes I need to know about.

kithrup, what did you do? did it break the intake pipe?

that is extravagant* for plumbing.

*even in a 1912 house. where if something breaks it's pretty damned stupid.)

Edited 2011-02-06 05:52 (UTC)

Microwaves are pretty much disposable electronics these days. Just grab whatever recognisable brand is on special; this is how I got my Panasonic one for about $100 a few months ago.

Old faucet. (I don't know if I'm using the right term -- the thing to turn the water on.) In this case, it was a very old plastic and metal thing, which you pulled out to turn on, and pushed to turn off. The cleaning people came, turned it on to clean out the shower stall, and... it wouldn't turn off.

The plumber had to cut off the tile, cut through the wall to get access to the pipes, cut through both pipes to replace the unit, and then install the new one. (He also replaced the shower head, but I think that was because it came with the faucet part at the hardware store.) The shower does not have a separate shut-off valve, and there was no other access to it other than through a wall.

This took 5-6 hours. I'm not pleased with the cost, not by a long shot, but for "oh crap the water has to stop NOW," I don't believe I was ripped off. If I'd been able to plan its replacement better, and hire a handyman, it probably would have been quite a bit less.

The part that I do hate is that I'd been thinking of replacing it for a while (I absolutely hated the old one, it was too hard to use), but I just put it off a bit too long.

it was purchased for a main reason that a 9x13" pan would go around okay on the turntable, it's a champ that we''ve had for almost 10 years.

Stand-alone ones are; built-in ones are harder and more expensive. Also depends on the size.

Built in?

Guess that's not what you have then :).

Ones that are mounted on the wall, usually between cabinets and/or above stove tops.

I like mine a lot too.

I can wait to hit a good sale, I think. The microwave is convenient but I can make do without it.

Microwaves operate under the assumption that most of the actual microwaves will be getting absorbed by water in the food. If they're just kicking around in there with nothing else (or with something the microwave frequency is incapable of heating), the actual microwave ends up absorbing them and gets fried.

...I think?

I also had a really great experience with a Panasonic that I owned for a decade. Vastly better than the antique Amana I had before that, or the Kenmore I have now.

Well, modern microwave ovens are supposed to be able handle being run empty. Unless this one is from the 1960s or earlier, it probably failed in some unrelated way.

Well, it was at least 15 years old.

From most people, that sentence wouldn't send a frisson of alarm down my spine.

Just saying.

Does the shower now have a cut-off valve with an access panel in the cut-through wall, I hope?

Our current microwave was a cheap nobrand that cost us £25. I've no idea what that translates into $CAN, but it's nothing. It was bought when I started visiting (in 2007) as I can't live without one as it's how I learnt to cook. It still works fine and does everything I need.

Essentially, if you just need a basic microwave feature, you should be able to get something so cheaply it matters not.

I have never experienced a failure with the magnetron (or associated high voltage components) in any brand. Even control panel failures have been with ancient mechanical timers.

If you do real cooking, or even warm pastry, you'll want to be able to run at different power levels, especially if you get a 1200 or 1500 watt unit. In practice, since in most models the magnetron always runs at 100%, this means diddling with the duty cycle. Older units have cycle times of ten seconds or more; this means, for instance, that a muffin being warmed at 50% for ten seconds gets nuked at full power for five seconds, then just sits there spinning on the turntable for the rest of the time.

Some more modern units run very short cycles, a second or less. Some Panasonic models use an "inverter", which apparently actually controls the power level. Either way, it heats more evenly, which keeps pastry icing from getting blasted and keeps stews and the like from spattering so much. (I have not purchased a microwave since this feature became available, but the next time I get one, it will be a requirement.)

I was just looking for a replacement for the turntable roller (little Y-shaped thingy under the glass plate) for our small GE microwave. It's a 2004 model that cost ~$50US. The turntable doesn't work now because the little wheels have gotten flat. Just a few weeks ago I accidentally ran it for about two minutes with nothing inside. No damage as far as I can tell.

That exact same thing happened to my mom. In the construction of houses of a certain era, apparently no one thought the shower would ever need maintenance and those craftsmen and contractors were awesome mud-bed tilers. Sigh.

The kind you often see as part of a stove hood vent system. They don't sit on the counter and they tend to have more elaborate wiring/installation required. People like them because doing it that way gets them off the countertop, but it does tend to require one to do a lot of reaching up to operate the thing.

I've never heard of anyone providing a backup shutoff valve for any faucet in a house. But it *is* best practice to ensure that showers and tubs back up against an adjacent room so they can be accessed at need from the back through the drywall rather than from the front through the tile or fiberglass.

I'm not sure what you mean by "backup"; every faucet I've ever seen in halfway-well-constructed houses has the control valve that you actually use in normal use, and a shutoff valve before it so you can replace washers in the control valve or whatever.

kithrup was saying that his had no shutoff valve at all, aside from presumably the one for the whole house's water supply; thus the problem in replacing the control valve. So I was hoping one was added.

(Edit: Hmm, actually, I may just be thinking about kitchen/bathroom sink faucets, where the shutoff valve is easily accessible below the sink. I'm not sure whether many of the other houses I've been in have had shutoff valves for tub/shower faucets or not.)

The house my parents built (well, designed and general-contracted for and had other people build, mostly) actually had the showers backing up against a partition wall within the bathroom, and they put in plywood access panels in those walls so you merely had to unscrew them rather than chopping up the drywall, and the shutoff valve was behind that. Very convenient, and I'd forgotten that that arrangement of things was unusual.

Edited 2011-02-06 19:12 (UTC)

New Year's Day, 2011, at the family compound in the region described by Monopoly, on the beach near the casinos. Whirlpool Gold overhead range hood/microwave/convection oven (some kind of touch screen and a fast cook option) - I was running one stock pot and three pressure cookers under it, as the fume hood was running flat out. Suddenly - Bang! Pop! WHIIIIIRRRRRRR! and I got hit with globs of molten plastic, on account of the damn thing having turned itself on, due to the excessive heat from the range top having degraded the touchscreen electronics.

2nd degree burns to the index and middle fingers of my right hand.

I hate the damn thing. We don't have a microwave at all in NY.

Our 20-year-old microwave died from a popcorn fire. We did a whole bunch of research -- and concluded that no brand of microwave has a good reliability record now. Full story at http://auriaephiala.livejournal.com/232102.html

We ended up with a Panasonic Genius with a turntable and an inverter. It works well -- for now.

I have a 1912 house but the main useage bathroom on the second floor is a total remodel. Not a great one, but a remodel. There is a hole with a built-in (well, two drywall screws worth built-in) bookcase behind it, covering all the pertinent plumbing parts for the tub/shower.

Just after we moved in I needed some kind of service to the first floor bathroom toilet. Plumber accidentally broke that intake pipe. However it was just in the basement and had direct access. He installed new pipe and a new turn-off valve, it wasn't as costly because all the crap is accessible. But that bathroom,.. we need to redo the tub plumbing and that will take pulling off paneling in a stairwell. yikes.

My condo wasn't quite finished when I bought it and the foreman was surprised that I didn't want a microwave above the stove. I reminded him I'm disabled and would prefer not to drop hot things on my head. So they took the price of their microwave out of the contract. (I've only used the oven three times -- falling onto a hot door isn't very fun either.)

Do you have London Drugs in Ontario. They are our go-to place for small appliances (can you carry it home from the store? yes? then it is small). Most recent is about 3 years ago. Oster. Around $100.00 Our previous cheapy developed bad door closure. This one recently appeared to die all over, and then returned to life about 12 hours later. It is still working now, but who knows. We'd be willing to buy the same brand again when the time comes, but we always look at the sales.

Based on the actions of our DVD player from the hour of its purchase (about 8 years ago), I wouldn't have a Phillips anything, not even as a present.

Yes, you're thinking of sink faucets. Shower and tub faucets almost never have separate shutoff valves - just the control valves.

I'd say between $45-$50 in Canadian terms, slightly less than that if you're an American.

[It helps that I lived in England for a few years.]

Nope. "London Drugs" is specific to Alberta and BC. [Sigh.]

Surely the big news is that a bus is lost.

Anyway, apologies for sounding smug and all that, but one way to avoid Microwave Empty When Turned On Smoking Syndrome (MEWTOSS) is to get into the habit of leaving a mug of water in it all the time. Take it out to cook something, put it back in immediately. It gets automatic, like putting on a car seat belt*.

*I am assuming you use a seat belt when in a car.

Have you read Patrice Kindl's The Woman in the Wall? I quite like it despite its problems, but apparently the little girl/woman bakes with a normal oven, and I want to know how she manages to do that without injuring herself given how tiny she is (small enough to fit in a purse when we first meet her).

No, I don't know about that book, and I don't know how a small person could cook in a big oven!

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This is why I can't have nice things

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for all that is holy

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We like our Panasonic model

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And when they fail, they fail badly.

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