Microwave removal across the Golden Isles.

A microwave is the appliance people assume they can handle themselves, and for a countertop unit they usually can. The reason this page exists is the other kind.

An over-the-range microwave is bolted through the cabinet above it and hung on a wall plate behind it, and it comes down at head height over a stove. It is heavier than it looks, the mounting bolts are up inside the cabinet where you cannot see them while you are holding the weight, and the failure mode is dropping a forty-pound appliance onto a glass cooktop. That is a two-person job every time, and it is the single most common reason somebody calls us about a microwave rather than carrying it out themselves.

Built-in and trim-kit units are the same story with more cabinetry involved. They sit in a framed opening, fastened at the sides, and the trim kit has to come off before anything moves.

The other pattern here is that microwaves rarely travel alone. They come out as part of a kitchen — a renovation, a rental turnover, an estate cleanout, a second home being refreshed between seasons. The old range goes, the dishwasher goes, and the microwave goes with them. On the coast we also see a steady trickle of units that simply died of humidity and salt air, where the touchpad stopped responding long before anything else failed.

Whatever the reason, it is a small item that becomes a real job the moment it is attached to something.