Venting Stove and Microwave

This forum is for Born Free owners to detail modifications that they have made to their coach that might be of interest to other owners. Since this is a locked forum, submissions must be made to and approved by the forum administrator (email: bfadmin@bornfreervclub.org).
User avatar
bfadmin
Site Admin
Posts: 562
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:45 am

Venting Stove and Microwave

Post by bfadmin »

After ten years of talking about it I finally decided to vent the stove hood outside. Also seeing the effects the high heat from the convection oven on the woodwork directly above microwave/convection unit I wanted to get as much of the heated air out of that cabinet as quickly as possible. To accomplish this I chose to utilize both the existing fan in the stove hood plus an additional fan to draw directly from the area surrounding the microwave. Not wanting to cut a hole in the side of the coach I opted to exhaust the system through the roof using a standard roof cap similar to the one venting the black water tank. I utilized a fan designed to remove odors from the holding tank, but with a larger fan motor than supplied with the standard unit, for a higher volume of air movement through the 2" ID PVC piping used for the ducting. None of the piping is glued to allow for replacement of the fan if necessary.

As our coach has the non-vented type of stove hood it was necessary to cut a 6" circle out of the top of the unit along with a matching cutout in the floor of the microwave cabinet. For maximum air flow I made a short tube out of a piece of tin to enclose the area from the hood fan to the bottom of the microwave cabinet. Both fans are controlled with the original switch in the stove hood.

Using a grill type remote thermometer with the sending unit suspended approximately 2 1/2" from the top of the microwave there was a 33 degree reduction in temperature when using the fans with the convection oven set at 375 degrees for thirty minutes. Temperature without fans operating with the same oven setting and time registered 194 degrees.

NOTE: Today I made an adjustment to the tube from the stove hood, added a directional deflector and removed the original deflector in the microwave compartment. Using the above test was able to reduce the air temperature to 139 degrees with the fans operating. This finally makes me a happy camper with the project.

I believe the reason for the damage to the wood above the vent of the unit was caused mostly by the extensive use of the convection oven and not by the microwave use. A picture of the damage added to this post 8/27/12

Mel Wilbur
Attachments
Heat damage .jpg
Heat damage .jpg (18.51 KiB) Viewed 6327 times
Hood exhaust 4.JPG
Hood exhaust 4.JPG (26.86 KiB) Viewed 6423 times
Hood exhaust 2.JPG
Hood exhaust 2.JPG (24.78 KiB) Viewed 6448 times
Hood exhaust fan 1.jpg
Hood exhaust fan 1.jpg (26.88 KiB) Viewed 6448 times
Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club Website Forum Administrators
(bfadmin-1) Dave Moffat - Primary Administrator
(bfadmin-3) Sandy Perley - Assistant Administrator
(bfadmin-2) Bill Hemme - Backup Administrator
(bfadmin) Email: bfadmin@bornfreervclub.org

Return to “Coach Modifications”