GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven: Making My Kitchen the Most Efficient It Can Be

With my new house in New Hampshire, the one thing I’d done in New York that I wanted to carry through to the new home was putting the microwave over my stove. I liked it right from the moment we started doing this as I liked having the extra counter space by keeping it off of the counter-top.

I ordered my new microwave oven direct from the builder. The model that came in my house was the GE JVM1850 1100 Watt Microwave Oven. After about six months of using it, I have to say I am very happy so far.

SPECIFICATIONS

This GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven has a 1.8 cubic foot capacity and a 14 1/4-inch round turntable recessed in the cooking compartment. It can hold a large container of food or two bowls of oatmeal at a time for heating up. The turntable is made of heavy heat-resistant glass. If there is something very large in there, the turntable can be turned off but I haven’t used that yet as I have always found that microwaves heat better when whatever is in it turns. There’s one metal rack included with the microwave oven, but we don’t use it. There are two levels it can be placed at in the oven should I decide to put it in there.

The GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven measures in at 16 13/32 inches high by 15 1/4 inches deep x 29 7/8 inches wide. This is a standard space for most over the range microwave ovens.

Our house came with the GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven already installed. All we had to do was remove one of the front panels to install the filter for the vent.

FEATURES & USE

There are ten different power levels on the GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven, allowing for just about any condition needed. However, the controls are so specific I rarely adjust the power. There’s a setting for defrosting food and I usually just use that and enter in the weight rather than adjusting the power levels. The oven will prompt me to turn over whatever I am defrosting - usually meat - making it almost foolproof. There are two different cooking modes should you want to use two different power settings and times for the same dish.

There are settings also for beverage, popcorn, potato, vegetable, and basic reheating. I like these functions but I have found them to be hit-or-miss as to whether the food is cooked the way I like it. The neat thing is that there’s also this button to “add 30 seconds” to the cooking time. This way, if I’m listening to the popcorn and the time is winding down and it’s still popping pretty good, I can have it keep going without killing the power and restarting. This works for any of the settings. Stopping it sooner is just a matter of hitting the stop button or opening the oven door.

There’s also a quick-cooking modules on the numbers 1 through 5. From it’s normal state when not in use, I can put in a cup of coffee to reheat and just touch the 1. The GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven then turns on for 1 minute. If I wanted it for 2 minutes, I’d touch the 2, and so on up until the 5 for 5 minutes. Coffee I normally reheat for 1 minute 30 seconds, so I put it in and press the 1 and then the “add 30 seconds”. A lot of the controls seem a bit redundant, but I suppose that’s to allow each person to work the microwave to their own personal preference.

The numbers are easy to read, even from across the room. The alarm which sounds at the end of cooking time is loud enough that I can hear it when I’m in the bathroom, and it keeps sounding every few seconds to annoy me until I take the hot food out of the oven. Since it is for above the range, the GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven has a vent fan on it for times like right now when my teenage daughter is burning something on the stove below it. The fan can work at three different speeds and really does nothing more than spread the smell all over the house quite well.

There’s a kitchen timer function on the GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven, but I have found that this can cause a problem when people try to use it and end up turning on the microwave when it’s empty.

What I do really like with the GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven is the light for above the stove. Not only is it great for when I’m cooking on the stove, but we also use this as the primary night-light in the house, allowing there to be a light in the kitchen for those late-night trips to the refrigerator. It’s also programmable, so if I wanted it to turn on and off at certain times I could set it, but we generally just turn it on in the evenings and shut it off in the morning when we wake up.

CLEANING

Cleaning up the interior is probably the hardest issue with any over the range microwave oven, and the GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven is no exception. I have a Black & Decker Scrubber I use on it to clean it up. If people in this house (ahem) would simply clean up splatters when they first happened, it probably wouldn’t be much of an issue. However, once they’ve set in, it becomes more difficult. Once it is clean it’s just like new, however. The turntable comes out and cleans up easily as well.

The outside of the GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven cleans up pretty well too. Ours is black and this does tend to show fingerprints really fast and quite well. I usually try to clean the control panel with the door open so I don’t accidentally turn it on.

WARRANTY

My GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven comes with a one year limited parts & labor warranty on the entire appliance. I seem to be luckier with this one than I was with the last one in New York which after about six months of usage had to be sent back in to have the magnatron replaced, something I have learned is very common with GE microwaves. Would I have gotten it through the builder if I knew it was a GE and that this was a common occurrence? Probably, just for the convenience of not having to find someone to install it, although I’ve since learned that’s not as big of a problem here as it was in New York.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I really like this GE Spacemaker Microwave Oven. It’s easy to use for just about any microwaving need. My entire family except for my five year-old uses it without any problems. I really enjoy having it off the counter and above the range. It’s very functional and blends in with the rest of my kitchen very well.


© 2006 Patti Aliventi