I have bought a £55 Currys microwave for our MH as a stop gap while we sort out a long term solution for something built in.
The instructions say that you need 20cm either side for ventilation. This means that it can't (theoretically) be used in a cupboard but has to be hoiked out every time.
However resting in a large cupboard with 70mm either side there seems to be loads of room.
I am now wondering if the instructions are to cover extreme cases and protect the corporate a$se or if there is a realistic danger.
I've heard of several cases of microwaves overheating in caravans and MH's, the work around seems to be to provide extra ventilation. Something like a 12v fan, as used in an old desktop PC would do that.
In general what you are looking for is the ability to shed heat. As a one time designer of power electronics, how hot stuff gets depends on how much power is going through it, how high the ambient temperature is, and how good the unit is in conducting that heat to the ambient air,
Needless to say this does not map well to 'leave 7cm either side'.
I once had a low power unit go weird on me after 4 hours of being switched on. That was how long the hot air took to build up inside the (sealed) case. We punched some louvres in its lid and base, and it was fine. That was all it needed.
So you are operating in a cupboard? Is there room above the unit? Can hot air easily escape the cupboard? Is it also an oven/grill as well as a microwave? Is it in continuous use? How hot is the kitchen? Is there any fan on the unit? Could you fit a fan to the cupboard?
In essence as long as air can move past the unit somehow it will be designed for that. Shoved in a tight fitting box is what they want you not to do
In the cupboard there is plenty of space above and behind the unit. The door will be open during (and after) operation. It is only a small microwave. 700W
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No oven or grill.
It looks OK in situ - but then what does OK look like?
It's not just the heat as such, the oven will have a fan inside it that needs to blow air out through the louvres in the top or sides. Panny microwaves blow air out of louvres in the top. It is this airflow that needs a sufficient gap.
If it is a combi microwave then in oven or grill mode then it is going to get hot anyway.
We have a Daewoo 600w uWave in our Rapido. It fits perfectly in one of the cupboards above the kitchen area. No gap at the sides, space behind, the vent on top is clear and there is a gap above. We had the dealer fit it.
We had a similar set up in our previous MH.
You need limit yourself to 750W, at least if you plan to travel in Europe- some sites are limited to 6A.
I think our uWave is a QR1. It is a basic one, no fancy controls etc. but ideal for what we need. We also find a small air fryer useful. As you probably know, the gas ovens in motorhomes aren’t very good. An air fryer adds a small fan oven capability, provided you have a decent EHU.
Rapido owner here also. :-) Chatting on the Facebook page about replacing the dire Rapido gas oven with a much better Thetford one.
I am assuming your microwave is designed to be built in.
We were considering replacing the gas oven with a built in combi oven, but we liked the Thetford oven in our previous Hymer caravan and the Hymer also had a small microwave which made a good cooking combination.
Consensus seems to be that it may be OK so we will try the free standing microwave as a temporary measure.
£55 from Curry’s? I’m guessing the issue is that it *isn’t* a built in one.
Personally at that price I’d just try it and see. Make sure that no obvious ventilation holes are blocked and add a PC fan if one is really worried about heat build-up but given the duty cycle of a motorhome microwave, I find it hard to believe that there will be any significant issue.
The Rapido one in ours is a ‘badged’ Dometic as far as I can tell. If anything, it is better that the Thetford one we had in our previous MH, a Swift.
I think the problem is insulation - due to size limitations they can’t / don’t insulate the oven very well. Getting up to temp and holding it there is a challenge. We use one of those round oven thermometers - we stand it inside so you can read it through the door.
However, the air fryer has largely replaced it - at least when we have a decent EHU.
No.
Our dealer supplied & fitted it when we bought the MH.
We have an 883F ( an A class if you don’t know the models). There is a cupboard above the kitchen area which it fits into perfectly. They used the shelf, modified and flipped, to clap it in place. They added a mains socket, from the one below.
Previous one, in our Swift, was a Cookworks from memory. Again, a free standing, simple, domestic, low power one the dealer fitted in a cupboard. We had it 7 or so years and never had a problem. I never explored how it was fixed, it was all hidden.
As I mentioned, the current on is Daewoo, must Daewoo products seem to have a 3 year warranty.
As above, our Thetford was certainly no better than the Rapido / Dometic oven, if anything worse. We’ve had some success with the latter but I don’t recall any success with the Thetford. ( Both were new vehicles when we bought them and we have them checked yearly etc.)
We find the uWave very useful, not least as I prepare meal in advance for ‘travel days’ and freeze them.
We replaced our 3 way fridge / freezer with a 12v compressor one. The 3 way died just out of warranty. The compressor fridge is much better, not least as our drive slopes and we couldn’t pre load 3 way the day before a trip.
The heat from the case of a uWave tends to come from the magnetron and associated electronics.
The cooking chamber gets warm but not hot, unlike a normal oven, as the food is heated directly.
Plus, cooking times tend to be much shorter.
I’ve never noticed ours getting more than warm, even after longer periods of use ( eg defrosting a couple of frozen meals *, heating them up, plus perhaps a couple of baked potatoes.
I prepare meals in advance and freeze them, mainly for travelling days.
I'm a bit amused that these people go off touring in the EU, where, as every knows, the food is far better than the spam egg and chips that us Brits survive on, and then they carry on eating the same old home-'cooked' garbage that they eat when at home :-)
The numbers relate to length (in a range) and I think a series but only for the Fiat based ones as far as I know.
That said, I think they recycle numbers- ie there is an older 883. I think the layout is much the same but the front is different and, as generally happens with MHs, the later versions have things the earlier ones don’t / are a bit more fancy etc.
The Rapido group is very good, lots of expertise.
We tow a trailer / car with ours.
I use Wokingham Motorhomes - we bought ours there. We find them very good. Generally only hab checks- we’ve not had any real issues with the vehicle.
I expect some do. We don’t. Even when you could take food into the EU, we only took enough for the first day or so and a few meals ‘just in case’ for traveling days etc.
In France especially, the fun is shopping in local markets for fruit & veg etc. Bread from a small shop. We tend to buy meat / fish from a good supermarket - they have very good sections for both.
Plus, of course, we visit restaurants etc.
We do much the same in the UK, looking out for local specialities.
A lot of people BBQ - we do occasionally. We aren’t veggies but equally, we don’t eat huge slabs of meat.
True, we do generally have a ‘full English’ on a Sunday in France - they do a good version of black pudding and a version of bacon. Finding beans is a challenge. Fortunately, they aren’t on the banned list to take into the EU. A few tins is enough for a typical holiday.
French milk is an ‘acquired taste’. Not sure why it tastes different but it does. Milk is the one thing we used to take a lot of before the rules changed.
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