In modern times, many kitchen appliances make cooking as well as cleaning up a pleasurable experience than the laborious chore it used to be. But, a small secret that some of you have noticed is that certain gadgets also tend to damage your kitchen cabinetry over a period of time. Some of these appliances discharge significant heat/steam gradually impacting the integrity of your kitchen cabinets.
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How steam and heat impact your kitchen cabinets
Kitchen cabinets and other enhancements made of MDF, wood, Thermo foil or Melamine cannot stand extreme moisture or heat. Kitchen cabinets also constitute fine furniture needing care as well as consideration. The impact from appliances that release steam damages your cabinets with continuous exposure to such an impact. The substrate or the material with which your cabinet is made of will determine the extent and speed of consequential damage.
Extreme heat also behaves similarly and can burn your countertops. On a granite or quartz countertop, you may notice heat rings when you use a slow cooker. You can prevent this by using a ceramic cooktop or putting a trivet under the slow cooker so that the heat does not transfer to the countertop.
Microwaves
There are many variants in microwaves and some of these can cause serious steam damage to your kitchen cabinets. If you are using a top venting type of OTR microwave, you should focus on a small vent right above the microwave so that the vent does not get wholly blocked. On the other hand, if you are using a tilt-up type venting microwave, you should create a tilt-up vent which opens and helps in pushing the steam out. Further, it is a great idea to consult an appliance specialist to ensure that your venting style is appropriate for your current and future use.
Major causes for heat damage to kitchen cabinets from microwaves
Following are some of the major causes of heat damage to kitchen cabinets from microwaves:-
- Inadequate air gap between your kitchen cabinet and the microwave/oven
- Inadequate heat insulation in the oven body or casing
- Cabinet coatings like vinyl wraps that are heat sensitive
Heat protection products
There are many heat protection products/ heat shields that can protect your valuable kitchen cabinetry. Kool Wrap is an Australian business that offers a special oven cavity insulation kit. This kit comes with 2 sheets of fibreglass with heat insulation properties and a layer of self-adhesive material at the back. Installation is pretty simple since you only need to peel off the paper from the back and stick the sheets to the right and left side of the cavity where the oven sits. These sheets are also provided with an external layer of aluminium foil to reflect heat back and away from your kitchen cabinetry. This foil is capable of withstanding up to 660o C which is significantly higher than what typical ovens produce. Installing these sheets should take no more than 10 minutes and they can also be cut with normal scissors if needed.
More benefits from heat shields
Apart from kitchen cabinetry, heat shield can also enhance the efficiency of your refrigerator when the refrigerator is also close to the cooking area. These heat shields are also available for commercial as well as domestic applications. In many homes we find a stove top abutting the refrigerator and particularly so in smaller kitchens. Typically in this type of situation, the heat shield can reflect as much as o 90% of the radiant heat significantly improving efficiency and performance of your refrigerator, apart from saving energy costs.
The heat shield is offered with a rugged layer of aluminium and for the commercial-grade variant, resistance to water, cleaning solution and grease are also added in. In some instances, you can even choose dense fibreglass insulation to stave off health hazards akin to a combination of fibreglass and polyester.
Conclusion
In modern times, the digital world offers solutions for a variety of everyday problems. In most situations, you need some quality time to explore these solutions and take appropriate action to tide over the problems.