Amateur Microwave Installation
By Pete Busch

One of the best parts of being a home inspector is finding things like this. This is an amateur installation of kitchen cabinets and a built in microwave oven that I found while performing a home inspection in Plymouth Minnesota.

In this first picture you can see the microwave is installed close to the kitchen wall. At first glance you would not recognize this as a problem, neither did I.

In this next picture below you may now see why this is a problem. As you can see the left side of the door hits the wall.

This third picture below show how far the door will open. Can you imagine what went through the guys head when he realized this after he installed it? I never got to hear back from the buyer but I wonder if this seller was hoping nobody would notice LOL.

Typically a built in microwave is located in the center of the kitchen cabinets allowing it to extend outward on both sides of the cabinets to allow for the door to open. I didn’t have a good simple solution for this problem as I’ve never come across it before. Feel free to leave a comment on how you would deal with this. Keep in mind, it must be a simple solution, not a kitchen remodel.

Pete Busch
Minnesota Home Inspector