microwave..........??

Question

Does it use more power to use your microwave to heat up something....I have heard that it did....

Answer 1

That's a good question....if you use the regular oven, you have to use more power to cool everything back down in the summer, but it will help warm up in the winter.

Answer 2

Your question is faulty for two reasons,....

-When you use the word "more" to compare something, you need to provide not only the subject that will be compared, but also a base to compare to.
Asking if a microwave [oven] uses more "power" has no meaning unless you specify what we are suppose to compare it too....a camp fire? A convection oven? A toaster? A 100 watt light bulb?

-The term "power" measures the rate of energy usage (energy per unit time). Almost certainly, you meant to compare the overall energy usage between a microwave oven and soem unspecified base, not the power.
An object could be very powerful (use a lot of energy in a short period of time), or an object could use only a little bit of energy over a long period of time (low power). In either case, we can make so estimate of the total energy usage unless we know the power rating on the object as well as the length of time which it is drawing that power.


Also, the term "heat something up" is very vague. Melting an ice cube into cold water is, by definition, heating the ice cube. Taking a bucket of water and boiling it all away is also "heating it up" Based on just what and how much of the substance which is being heated drastically effects the overall energy requirement.


There is absolutely no way anyone can provide you with the answer you are looking for without much more information being specified.

Answer 3

A cavity magnetron (the source of microwaves in the oven) is about 65% efficient. So 35% of the input power is simply lost.

The walls reflect rather than absorb microwaves.

Answer 4

Yes, a microwave uses a slight amount more power than a conventional oven--not enough to be concerned about---perhaps 100 watts out of 1500 watts (my seat-of-the-pants guess)

The 100 watts maximum goes to operate circuitry, and takes into account the inefficiency of the magnetron that produces the microwave energy. (It might be as little as 25 watts)

For the number of minutes one runs the microwave per day, a mere 100 watts doesn't matter.

Answer 5

Microwaves heat things by a process of magnetic induction. The power of the magnetron is generally 650-800 Watts. This is the amount of power it will use wether it is cooking or just heating.

Jules, lecturer. Australia.

Answer 6

yeah, a lot of radiation is being absorbed by the walls

Answer 7

ya