Microwave wall BURN

... or how NOT to let your "microwave plus convection oven" burn down your RV.

We LOVE (or, should I say LOVED) the convection oven part of our microwave.  We used it quite a bit.  When we were using it a few weeks ago, we heard a "pop" sound and the convection part stopped working.  Doing some detective work (i.e., querying google), we saw references to a fuse just inside the top of the unit that, if replaced, should get our convection oven working again.  Not feeling particularly motivated to pull the unit off the wall at that point, and knowing that we'll be in MN and have access to tools (if needed) and a reliable shipping address, we decided to wait.

Let's state right here that we had been thinking about getting an air fryer for a while and just didn't pull the trigger.  Being in a RV, you have to consider the space something like that takes up.

Soon after arriving in MN, we pulled the unit off the wall.  Not a very difficult thing to do.

WOW

As you can see, the wall behind the unit was charred, toasted by the heat of the convection oven.  The wallpaper was even melted to the unit itself.  We plugged in the unit and used the microwave for several minutes and, sure enough, the unit itself was NOT hot.  Therefore, the heat had to be coming from the convection oven.

Again, doing some detective work on google and YouTube, we discovered that many people have had this issue.  One unlucky soul actually had a fire in their RV.  There is NO insulation between the unit and the wall.  There is NO ventilation between the unit and the wall.

Needless to say, we decided to NEVER use the convection oven part of the unit again.  We did not even bother trying to figure out why the convection oven part wasn't working.  We no longer cared.

Just to be safe, I did tape some reflective insulation on the wall before re-installing the unit.  I just used the stuff they put behind a clothes dryer in a house.

We decided to buy that air fryer we had been procrastinating about.  We LOVE it.