Okay, that's a fair statement.
Under cabinet shelf microwave. Your thoughts.
- Thread starter Bruno
- Start date
Brett-EDH
TVWBB Olympian
Zline hoods have some strong blower motors. I installed one in my previous home.
Jim C in Denver
TVWBB All-Star
Bruno -- totally with you on the hood over the stove top microwave. While you do get a lot move CFM volume, TBH it is mostly about having the cooler look of the hood.
I think that shelf suggestion from your GC looks totally fine. So long as you can find a microwave that fits your space fairly well. So it looks "sort of" built in-ish. Is there a fairly standard size for that format? If not, I might buy a second one and keep it in a box for just in case.
We've always had the microwave built into cabinetry. Looks nice, but a pain if the microwave ever needs to be replaced. And you also use up a lot of space with the cabinetry and trim collar. Our current kitchen has a pretty small microwave sitting in a 30 inch wide cabinet. Much wasted space.
Our weekend house has a drawer style microwave built into the base cabinets of the kitchen island. I wouldn't have picked that. But having had it for a while, it is totally fine. Has flip out controls so you can operate it while standing up. I would not want an under counter microwave with a door and front controls -- which means bending or squatting to operate.
I think that shelf suggestion from your GC looks totally fine. So long as you can find a microwave that fits your space fairly well. So it looks "sort of" built in-ish. Is there a fairly standard size for that format? If not, I might buy a second one and keep it in a box for just in case.
We've always had the microwave built into cabinetry. Looks nice, but a pain if the microwave ever needs to be replaced. And you also use up a lot of space with the cabinetry and trim collar. Our current kitchen has a pretty small microwave sitting in a 30 inch wide cabinet. Much wasted space.
Our weekend house has a drawer style microwave built into the base cabinets of the kitchen island. I wouldn't have picked that. But having had it for a while, it is totally fine. Has flip out controls so you can operate it while standing up. I would not want an under counter microwave with a door and front controls -- which means bending or squatting to operate.
Bruno
TVWBB Hall of Fame
You sir are my kind of guy. I would definitely do something like having a spare microwave.
DanHoo
TVWBB Olympian
Ventilation and power also need to be considered. Make sure the outlet on the microwave can handle full power with anything else on that circuit.
You don't want to plug in an air fryer while the microwave is going and kill the breaker for your refrigerator...
Bruno
TVWBB Hall of Fame
House is getting all new electrical I will make sure to ask about that.
Timothy F. Lewis
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
DanHoo
TVWBB Olympian
My builder did a good job on my kitchen outlets. There are two circuits with GFCI for counter top outlets. One to the left of the sink, and another to the right of the sink. A third was used for the the microwave and one outlet for the small counter below it. This did not need to be GFCI as it is away from the sink. A fourth breaker with a dedicated outlet without GFCI was provided for the refrigerator.
Peter Gallagher
TVWBB Guru
Yeah, you should certainly follow up on that - when we redid our kitchen, the code here in WA state actually requires a dedicated circuit for the microwave. I wouldn't doubt if it was the same in CA - Good luck with the project!
Wilmer Cogburn
TVWBB Super Fan
@Bruno
Do you have the real estate in your kitchen for a wall oven? If so, I would stack the microwave in the cabinet above the oven.
Honestly, microwave shelves are yesterday's technology today and you will likely have voids when you stuff your microwave into the shelf and your choices of unit will be limited. We quit offering this at least 10 years ago in our new homes (I manage new home residential construction). Even a new kitchen will look quite dated with a microwave shelf in my opinion.
Picture below is my wife's kitchen. Microwave on top (they call them "Speed Ovens" today"), single oven in the middle, and warming drawer at the bottom. This is a 30" wide cabinet with 8' ceilings.
They do make microwaves which mount under counter (called microwave drawers). I don't like them. The drawer motion is typically clunky and spasmodic. Lastly, when your food explodes and makes a mess, you can't see the impact on the units ceiling, so it never gets cleaned and access to clean it is quite poor.
They do make above range microwaves which are vented to the outside which are quite powerful. But if you want a hood, then this is out.
They do offer wall mount microwaves. These can be accommodated in a wall cabinet run by adjusting the width of the wall cabinet above and its height. Not the best picture, but this was the wall mount microwave at the wet bar I built for my last house.
With all appliances, follow the manufacturer's directions regarding circuit size and whether it needs to be dedicated. Many of today's speed ovens are 240V20A or more (some are plug in while others are direct wire but both need to be accessible). In our new homes, the microwave/speed oven is on its own dedicated circuit. We also have dedicated circuits for the fridge, freezer (if separate tower), oven, and dishwasher.
When the house gets a gas cooktop, we share its 120V15A circuit with the hood above. We install the GFI for the cooktop in the base cabinet and slave the hood off the load side of the GFI. Tripping the GFI then acts as the disconnect for the direct wire range hood eliminating need for a breaker lockout at the panel.
For your dishwasher, mount a GFI receptacle in the sink base cabinet and have a plug in cord on the dishwasher. This saves the expense of a GFI breaker at the panel (GFI receptacle much cheaper than a GFI breaker) and eliminates need for a lockout at the panel.
Code will require at least two (2) 120V20A GFI "small appliance" circuits in your kitchen. We alternate the circuits on the wall to lessen chance of overloading a circuit.
Hope this helps and is not too much info.
Do you have the real estate in your kitchen for a wall oven? If so, I would stack the microwave in the cabinet above the oven.
Honestly, microwave shelves are yesterday's technology today and you will likely have voids when you stuff your microwave into the shelf and your choices of unit will be limited. We quit offering this at least 10 years ago in our new homes (I manage new home residential construction). Even a new kitchen will look quite dated with a microwave shelf in my opinion.
Picture below is my wife's kitchen. Microwave on top (they call them "Speed Ovens" today"), single oven in the middle, and warming drawer at the bottom. This is a 30" wide cabinet with 8' ceilings.
They do make microwaves which mount under counter (called microwave drawers). I don't like them. The drawer motion is typically clunky and spasmodic. Lastly, when your food explodes and makes a mess, you can't see the impact on the units ceiling, so it never gets cleaned and access to clean it is quite poor.
They do make above range microwaves which are vented to the outside which are quite powerful. But if you want a hood, then this is out.
They do offer wall mount microwaves. These can be accommodated in a wall cabinet run by adjusting the width of the wall cabinet above and its height. Not the best picture, but this was the wall mount microwave at the wet bar I built for my last house.
With all appliances, follow the manufacturer's directions regarding circuit size and whether it needs to be dedicated. Many of today's speed ovens are 240V20A or more (some are plug in while others are direct wire but both need to be accessible). In our new homes, the microwave/speed oven is on its own dedicated circuit. We also have dedicated circuits for the fridge, freezer (if separate tower), oven, and dishwasher.
When the house gets a gas cooktop, we share its 120V15A circuit with the hood above. We install the GFI for the cooktop in the base cabinet and slave the hood off the load side of the GFI. Tripping the GFI then acts as the disconnect for the direct wire range hood eliminating need for a breaker lockout at the panel.
For your dishwasher, mount a GFI receptacle in the sink base cabinet and have a plug in cord on the dishwasher. This saves the expense of a GFI breaker at the panel (GFI receptacle much cheaper than a GFI breaker) and eliminates need for a lockout at the panel.
Code will require at least two (2) 120V20A GFI "small appliance" circuits in your kitchen. We alternate the circuits on the wall to lessen chance of overloading a circuit.
Hope this helps and is not too much info.
Last edited:
Bruno
TVWBB Hall of Fame
Thanks Wilmer,
No such thing as too much information.
It will be all new electrical including the panel, I’ll follow along as it gets installed.
I love the idea of a hood, it would make the oven wall really nice and different from what we had.
However the hood was the contractors idea and with our small kitchen it might be best to go back to a built in vented to the outside.
Decisions, decisions.
No such thing as too much information.
It will be all new electrical including the panel, I’ll follow along as it gets installed.
I love the idea of a hood, it would make the oven wall really nice and different from what we had.
However the hood was the contractors idea and with our small kitchen it might be best to go back to a built in vented to the outside.
Decisions, decisions.
Wilmer Cogburn
TVWBB Super Fan
Bruno - Don't skimp on the outside vent. Not negotiable in my opinion.
When you search specs on venting, many will be 399 cfm or lower. There is a reason for this.
At 400 cfm or more, building Code requires makeup air. This is air brought into the home so it can be exhausted by your hood/microwave (ie, it makes up and replaces the air the vent exhausted). Without it, in theory, the venting pulls a vacuum on the house, causing back drafting of other combustion appliances and fireplace if you have one. Back drafting can induce CO into the home which can be deadly.
With an older leaky home, you are likely not to notice lack of makeup air for hoods up to say 600 cfm, but your inspector will be asking for the makeup air system since you are 400 or more cfm.
Makeup air can be passive or active.
Passive is a hole in the wall with a screen on the wall cap (no flapper) which allows air into the home thru a motorized damper and filter box. The damper is energized with a pressure switch on the hood and opens to allow fresh air in. My opinion, these are marginal depending on the house. Small tight house (say 2500 sf or less), they are useless. Large tight house (say 7000-11000 sf), then they work. Small tight houses have less total air in leakage; large tight houses simply have much more SF and even with best practices leak enough. There are graphs showing that the hole required for passive makeup air becomes huge and I believe it.
My wife's kitchen has a roof mounted 1500 cfm blower with a 10" duct. She has an 8 burner Wolf gas range. We have foam insulated the home beyond what I do at the day job. The house is around 1900 sf on the main level (ranch) with unfinished buried basement. The 8" passive makeup air system is useless. If we turn the hood fan on, it will pull a vacuum on the house and back draft the wood stove with smoke pouring into the house from its air dampers. The door to the garage has spring loaded auto-close hinges since its a fire door; when the hood is running it won't let the door close as its sucking air from the leaky garage. The work around for now is we manually open a kitchen window when we run the hood.
Active makeup air systems use inlet fans to pull air into the home to match the rate of exhaustion. Meanwhile your conditioned air is being purged. So, they add resistance heaters for this. I am still noodling this retrofit out to automate things and elimate the manual window opening at our house.
In retrospect, I wish my wife had looked into an induction cooktop/ range. I tried but no luck. They have amazing performance rivaling gas, yet no combustion gases and no heat requiring venting. This in turn allows a much smaller more reasonable hood size for steam and grease fumes.
Lastly, our Wolf 1500 cfm hood is variable speed. But on low, its about 58% or 870 cfm which is still very large. Imagine your car only being able to go as slow as 58 mph with a top speed of 100 mph, the manufacturer knows this, and decides not to tell you. Pretty poor not to disclose the turndown on the cfm.
Wife's kitchen remodel has been a huge mindset rethink for me. None of these issues occur at the day job, but those houses are huge in comparison. Our house is somewhat unique being smaller, extremely tight with foam insulation, and overkill on appliances.
Sorry again for TMI, but maybe there are some nuggets here to help you with your project.
Bruno
TVWBB Hall of Fame
We had GE profile appliances pre fire, we liked them a lot.
I think we are headed in the same direction.
After all this we decided we like the idea of a hood and will look into the shelf idea.
If it looks like the picture we’ve seen we would be happy.
DanHoo
TVWBB Olympian
How wide? How many BTU total? Just curious
Bruno
TVWBB Hall of Fame
Have not picked one out yet, just a basic stainless 30”, probably GE profile but not set in stone.
Ed P
TVWBB Platinum Member
Wilmer, we saw a demo on an induction cooktop and I was impressed by what I saw. Why was it a no go for your wife?
And Bruno, have you considered and rejected an induction cooktop, and if so, why?
Steve Hoch
TVWBB Hall of Fame
I just purchased this one to replace my thirty year old Jenn Aire cooktop. I'm in the process of figuring out how to install it now.
Wilmer Cogburn
TVWBB Super Fan
Wife was just dead set on gas burners.
She grew up cooking on gas, all of our prior homes were gas, so her new kitchen had to be gas and that was pretty much the end of the discussion. Current house was all electric so I had to run gas piping in the home, underground, and contract for a tank just for the burners on the range.
Not sure the offerings available for induction ranges. Her Wolf range is 8 burners with dual electric ovens ("dual fuel" as they refer to it).
One of my customers had us install an induction cooktop at their home I constructed. At the walk thru, they brought a proper pan and filled it with water. Was like magic how responsive the induction cooktop was! No heat on the "burner" surface, smooth surface for easy cleaning, etc. Honestly, I am surprised my company isn't installing these as standard.