Suz

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but my suggestion would be to purchase a convection toaster oven instead.

Recently a high school student boiled two cups of water for senior science project. She watered one somewhat identical plant with water boiled on the stove and the other plant with boiled in the microwave. In ten days, the plant watered with the microwaved water was dead. If this is what happens to water, what about other foods. Something to think about.

tessagin

Ours is a Sharp Carousel. We've had it for quite awhile. it has a turntable and I really like it. The only problem I have is it takes up a lot of space. It's very heavy. So when I want to clean behind it, I have DH help me move it. When it dies I will probably still stick with one for countertop. A dear friend of mine had one over the stove and she's about 5'5". Not real tall but not short. She was about eye/chin level. What was in the mw had stuck a little to the turntable and she got burnt in the face. Required facial burn care. Her husband got rid of the mw and put another on the counter. He felt so horrible because he insisted on the one above the stove. I'm sticking to the countertop unless a built in at chest/shoulder level. Hoping for a couple more years on the one we have. I'm a tightwad and don't want to spend the money.

Boston1954

Jim got our Emerson for $98.00 two years ago. It sits on a small table under some cabinets where there is no counter. Very handy.

callen

I now have an OTR microwave & the only thing that causes me some worry is if you were to drop something coming out of the MW onto the stove. My range has the glass top so I do worry about that. I am also 5'2" & find it just a tad high for me. Prior to our kitchen reno, my DH had made me an oak shelf that was just above the back splash of the counter & my MW fit perfectly on it. I honestly liked that better BUT you know how you get talked into "get with the program" & modernize so the decision was made for the OTR unit. It's an LG & so far, absolutely no problems.

ArchaicArcane

I've never seen one of these, what brand is it by chance?

What was it that was too large? Did it stick out too far? it just seemed like it was a huge appliance in your face? (That's my concern) Was it flush with the cupboards or did it stick out further?

this is interesting. I wouldn't have thought that it would matter about the heat. The grime I get, but if you'd seen the inside of this microwave because it's low enough that the biggest splatter offender doesn't ever see the splatter, you'd think it was a toxic dump sometimes. You know it's bad when I refuse to put cat food in it.

This was debunked by both Mythbusters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBus...his_at_Home.3F) and Snopes.com (http://www.snopes.com/science/microwave/plants.asp) I hear this every few years, but unless you put the water on the plants hot, it really shouldn't make a difference. In fact, in the Mythbusters episode, the microwave water plant did better than the regular water plant.

Here's the mythbuster's episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luSSbD-AoA8 it starts at about 2minutes 10 seconds and is about 3 and a half minutes long.

Anecdotally, We've been making, freezing and thawing in the microwave food for our cats for about a year and a half. Even the kitty with kidney disease has put on healthy weight since we started doing it.

Wow. That would be horrible! How is she doing now?

We have a glass top too. How do you like yours? I honestly don't like them. They take too long to heat up and cool down. I'd rather cook in our trailer with the gas stove. I do completely get what you're saying about the possibility of dropping a plate though, and it bears considering. The cupboards over the counters are low enough that there's only about 4 - 5 inches above the microwave at the moment, so in our case, a shelf wouldn't work unfortunately.

Mundy

Hi there Ihave a mocrwave and oven hat is all in one on top of stove love t mde by GE little costly bt worth it from home dept
.

Our countertop microwave - a 7+ year old Panasonic bought on a boxing day sale is having more senior moments than I do lately, so it's time to replace it. It's not minor stuff either, the turntable sometimes turning I can live with but the thermostat or something is going nuts in it. Sometimes it takes almost 2 minutes to defrost 100g of cat food, sometimes it turns it into a crepe that's welded to the plate in about a minute. Previously about a minute 20 was juuuuust right. There are also huge hot spots and frozen chunks, partly I'm sure from the lack of a turning turntable.

We don't use the microwave a lot, other than for cat food and reheating left overs.

DH doesn't want the extra expense, I'd like to regain the space. The current budget is about $400, which is about $250 probably for USD LOL![/QUOTE]

ghk1936

We have a General Electric over the range microwave that we have been using since 1981. Would definitely replace it with another OTR one since we have limited counter space.

DebbE

When we renovated the kitchen, we replaced the over the range fan with a microwave/fan unit. Am SO glad we did it, as we have more room on the counter. The unit we purchased is a simple GE, to match the GE stove & GE dishwasher. I've been very happy with the microwave & stove - both are great. Will not buy the same dishwasher again, though -- my daughter has an LG and its fantastic. But we love our microwave. I am short, 5'2", and it's fine for me. We installed the entire kitchen, including the appliances, and it wasn't the easiest installation (as we had to make our own piping to direct the air out the roof top duct), but we did a good job and it will pass inspections when we sell the house in a few years when we retire. I won't ever go back to a counter model -- I like uncluttered counters!

Onebyone

Microwave makes the molecules move very fast creating friction which causes heat. Nothing health harming at all. I don't use plastic to heat foods in the microwave, I don't trust heat and plastic together.

athomenow

I would only have an over the stove microwave. I don't particularly like the Kitchen Aid we currently have, only because we've had some trouble with it. I use it constantly, we eat a lot of the frozen dinners. So I'm sure I have worn it out by now. We eat popcorn and I love the button that senses the size of the bag and pops until it's done. I also like all the presets, like bacon, soup, and such. We have the space for it and it's high enough that I can still can. I'm only 5'2 and haven't had any problem getting things in and out. When something on the stove is hot and steaming, the fan on the microwave will turn on automatically. Good feature also.