Mums Microwave died.

T i m · 2016-05-24T18:53:50+00:00

Hi all, We got a call from my (86 year old) Mum today to say that she saw smoke coming out of her microwave so she unplugged it and carried it out into the garden! It's not a modern lightweight jobby either, a pretty substantial one we bought her around 30 years ago. Now she knows not to put anything metal in it and has been using it for 30 years (after all), and was apparently, just warming some soup when it happened. The only 'thing' is that she also left a light, clear plastic food tub / punnet in there as well (she didn't spot it because it was transparent) but that didn't seem to have suffered so presumably didn't get hot itself? Can anyone suggest what happened from this picture (taken looking up inside at the top):? Is that circle the output port of the magnetron you can see though the hole? A question this raises is that are old microwaves a fire risk (and if so why), as ours is probably older than mums was. We did try to find a more colour coordinated microwave the last time we decorated the kitchen but couldn't find anything that was as substantial and capacious without being more complicated or expensive. ;-( Cheers, T i m

May 24, 2016 64 Replies

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whisky-dave 10 years ago

Almost always.

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whisky-dave 10 years ago

Non that I know of but gas applainces seem to explode even though they don;t contain a bomb.

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tabbypurr 10 years ago

AIUI we were discussing electrical appliances. Gas cookers, cars, nuclear reactors etc are all different animals. This is not worth continuing with.

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The Natural Philosopher 10 years ago

You can make flour explode if you have a mind to.

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even without an oxidant

(e.g. Chupatti bomb)

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whisky-dave 10 years ago

I wonder is this has any conection with our local tescos are selling 10KG bags of it, or whether they are just using it to make isles seprating the tills from the self service areas. They have 10KG bags of basimati rice too.

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