Even though you may know a lot about microwaves, there is one question that sometimes occurs when you are cooking food for too long or when you sense the temperature rising, i.e., can microwaves overheat?
Technically, yes, microwaves can overheat. Is it common – No!, The microwave generates heat waves that excite water molecules in the food to cook it. However, if you are running the microwave empty or cooking the food for too long, in both cases there is no moisture inside so nothing is actually absorbing the heat waves, resulting in overheating of the microwave. There can be various reasons that could cause a microwave to overheat.
In this detailed guide, I will try to tell you about them and how you can avoid overheating in your microwave.
Why do microwaves Overheat?
When the temperature rises inside there is some safety feature in the microwave to avoid it from overheating, but it still overheats why? Well, it could be because of –
Fault in auto-switch off function –
If you are still wondering as to why microwaves overheat then I would like to tell you.
Though most microwaves usually consist of an auto-off function which is automatically activated when the microwave overheats, to shut down the microwave and protect it from further damage.
Yet, sometimes due to some sort of damage or issue, the system can fail, and the microwave may not switch off automatically and keep running despite having a high temperature resulting in overheating.
Overcooking –
Coming back to the main reason for microwave overheating is overcooking of foods.
If you overcook the food the water molecules will no longer be there to absorb the energy, due to which all heating will be kept inside the microwave walls even after the microwave is switched off the heat will still be there which ultimately results in overheating of the microwave.
That’s why it’s recommended to always monitor the food while cooking it in a microwave.
An issue with the fan –
Almost all microwaves consist of a fan to regulate their temperature, you could even hear it in the background while running the microwave.
However, if the fan somehow fails to work properly, the microwave shouldn’t even start but if somehow it does then there are high chances of microwave overheating as there is nothing that will maintain the microwave temperature and prevent it from getting extremely hot.
Be sure to check the other article on – why do microwaves get hot on the outside
How to prevent the microwave from overheating –
Regular household microwaves are not designed to not overheat when running empty or when there is no moisture inside, they tend to overheat no matter what, while the commercial microwave can easily withstand high heat and still not overheat as quickly as regular ones.
Still, there are some measure that you can follow to avoid overheating to a certain extent in microwaves –
Avoid overcooking of food –
Do not cook food for too long and also don’t overcook it. Overcooking can result in complete depletion of moisture inside the microwave and when there will be no moisture the microwave will overheat.
So make sure to run the microwave in small intervals and properly cook the food.
Make sure the Fan is working properly
While cooking the food you should ensure that the fan is running, you could easily tell this by hearing the sound, and if you feel something is wrong take your unit to a repair shape before things turn ugly.
By making sure that the fan is okay or not, you can prevent overheating in the microwave.
Why do microwaves overheat and shut off automatically?
If your microwave had ever overheated and automatically turned off, you can not stop yourself from asking – Do microwaves shut off when overheated? Right!
Microwaves unlike other home appliances such as a television, etc. are not supposed to overheat, and if they do, they should shut off.
When they do get overheated, generally there is a thermal cut-out switch or auto shut-off function(in ordinary language) present in the microwave due to which it shuts down on its own to protect from any further damage or incidents.
Whatever the reason for overheating is being it cooking food for too long or faulty fan, etc. microwaves are supposed to turn off.
The Bottom Line –
A quick summary, in this article I’ve talked about can and how microwaves overheat, and why they do so. I’ve also covered a number of things you can do to avoid your microwave from overheating.
The main cause of overheating is cooking foods for a longer duration, and also it could be because of either a faulty fan or malfunctioning of the auto-switch off function or both.
Now that you have what you were looking for, if you have any further suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments.