Fixing the Unfixable

For the past couple of weeks our over the range microwave was making a weird noise.  Whenever you turned it on, it sounded like an airplane about to take off.  We knew it was only a matter of time before it stopped working altogether, so last week my handy husband decided to fix it.  He thought it was the fan so he set out to find the best price for the part by searching online.  The cheapest fan replacement part was about $125.  For that kind of money, I wanted him to be sure that was the part we needed. 

So he un-installed the microwave,

 unhooked the fan and turned the microwave on.  Hmmm, still sounds like take off time.  So the problem's not the fan. 
Next he took off the top of the microwave to see what else could be the problem.  His next guess was some part that I didn't pay enough attention to remember what it was called. 

Once again, he searched for the best price online and this time the fix would cost about $65.  I joked and said that's not cheap enough, that part can't be the problem.  So he double checked if that part was the problem and funny enough, it wasn't. 

About this time, Sweetie Pie notices the microwave isn't in its usual spot and asks why it's sitting on top of the stove.  I told her we were making it more kid friendly by putting it at a height she could reach.  Obviously my humor was lost on her as she said, "but how will we use the stove?"

Well we did need to use the stove to make dinner so Kevin moved the microwave to the floor.  Making it a baby/toddler friendly appliance.   Here is the Babes trying to cook something.

After digging deeper into the microwave, Kevin finally came to the conclusion that some little gear in some little motor had broken and the motor needed replaced.  The good news, it was a $25 fix.  The bad news, no local stores had it in stock and we'd have to wait a couple of days to have it shipped to us. 

But why wait when Kevin can fix it himself.  These types of motors are not made to be taken apart, much less have the insides repaired, but he knew he could do it.  He'd done this before with a different microwave motor. 

So Kevin took the motor apart and used some epoxy to glue the gears back together.  Then he put the microwave back together and back in place.  We waited 24 hours to make sure the epoxy was set, before we used it.  So when dinnertime rolled around the next night, and we heated up some left-overs, we no longer felt like we were eating next to an airport.

I love having such a handy husband.  Oh, and when I told him that's what I was going to refer to him as in this post, he said he would prefer "engineering genius".   Either way, he's one heck of a guy!