Installing Your Over Oven Microwave

For the new home owner, installing a microwave oven over your stove can be a scary endeavor. It is, however, simpler than you may think. There are two ways you can do this. One way is with the exhaust ducted to the covering and the other is to recycle the exhaust back into the house. For this record we will keep it simple and assume the exhaust is recycled into the house. Running the covering exhaust is a topic for another day.

So your cabinets are installed and your electrician has run the wire and installed an outlet in the cabinet. You are now ready to install the microwave.

Microwave Cabinet

Unpack the microwave and set the glass trey and other components aside for a minute. Now on the back of the microwave you will find a large metal bracket. Remove the bracket by loosening the screws in the upper corners. Discard the screws and Remove the bracket. Now find the studs in the space for the microwave and screw the bracket to the the studs where you can and use the toggle bolts where there are no studs. Once the bracket is secured open up the plastic bag with the documents and pull out the hole template. This template gives you the dimensions for drilling the holes for the mounting screws, the external vent hook up and the power cord.

Begin now by seeing your town of the cabinet. This is regularly a 30" cabinet so the town is at 15". Make sure you take your measurement at the edge of the face of the cabinet where it attaches to the adjacent cabinet. Using a small quadrate make a line from the wall to the front at the 15" mark. Now, if you look at the template you will see that all of the dimensions come off the town line and the rear of the cabinet on the inside of the lip. You must result the dimensions exactly for things to fall into the right place. Take your measurements and make your marks for all of the bolt holes and the power cord hole. Drill the holes using the recommended drill size. Make up your filler blocks and pre drill them for the bolts. Your now ready for the microwave.

Pick up the microwave and raise it up into the bracket and slide it down until the microwave catches the hooks on the bracket. Hold the microwave down far enough to push the power cord up straight through the hole and set the filler blocks. Now raise it up with one hand and install the screws from inside the cabinet with the other. Hand tighten them as far as you can then halt with a screw driver. Plug in the power cord and you are done. install the screens and the trey and your ready for use.

Installing Your Over Oven Microwave