opening the microwave door when its running blasts everyone nearby with radiation

[alittlethyme]

OK so I am a tin foil hat person, but at work I sit near a microwave and people always spend ages typing in a number only to just open the door before its finished.

Aibu to think this door opening is blasting everyone with unnecessary radiation?

You have nothing to worry about: www.repairfaq.org/sam/micfaq.htm#michldmeh

Doesn't it stop the minute you open the door?

I don't have a microwave, so not sure.

YABU, the mechanism stops when the door is opened, silly!

Yes, you are being totally unreasonable.

It's a fucking microwave, not a box of plutonium.

Um, opening the door automatically stops the microwave whether the time has finished or not. It makes no difference.

You actually believe this?

I have a great mental image of you sitting at your desk in a tin foil hat glaring at people heating up their soup!

Anyway everyone knows that microwaves are powered by tiny aliens pedalling teeny weeny intergalactic bicycles round the back.

Have you actually made a hat out of tinfoil, or do you just buy some of those foil pie tins?

If you have a microwave that works when the door is open, its faulty, take it back.

And this is why it automatically stops when the door is opened.

As Tali says, if it DOESN'T stop, get rid immediately. It's faulty and highly dangerous.

Which one of these is yours then? I quite fancy some of the designs actually. Oh I really needed this thread today. Thank you OP :d

My DP insists microwaves cause cancer.

Odd really because he's quite sane and rational normally.

When I was in college I had a part time job working in a hospital. One of the duties included getting people ready for their ultrasounds and x-rays.

I remember once turning around and the lovely old man I had brought down for a chest x-ray was standing there bare bummed with his hospital gown over his head. When I asked him what he was doing he said 'protecting myself from the radiation'.

You remind me of that man.

Anyway everyone knows that microwaves are powered by tiny aliens pedalling teeny weeny intergalactic bicycles round the back

Ha ha. I used to know a woman who claimed that if she ate food heated in a microwave it made her fillings hurt.

Microwaves are in fact very dangerous machines - my father worked in electronics, in the labs of several very well known appliance manufacturers and he wouldn't have one until the mid-90's when they were much safer.

You shouldn't ever look inside microwaves as they're turning - it's not a myth, and you should stand away from them to be super-safe. They're not dangerous like they were years ago, but I show caution because my extremely non-woo, very rational father was always very careful of them.

Also - don't use them if the door is cracked. My father was horrified when at one of my friend's parents house to see their plastic door had split and it had been taped up. He was so concerned he gave them our spare one.

They do however stop as soon as the door is opened and are safe from that point of view.

Put your tin foil hat in the microwave. Sit under your desk.

Problem permanently and loudly solved.

My DH always leaves the microwave door open 'to let it air'

It drives me mad, because it means the light inside the microwave gets left on and uses infintesimal amounts of energy.

Kaykayred

scary post.

probably typed on a phone which is kept permanently nearby, in a house and office full of wi-fi and electrical cables.

none of which are of any proven or noticeable hazard.

I'm off to start my tinfoil hat business.

Daphne mine does this too

I'd be uncomfortable sitting next to a microwave that was in use constantly but the door being opened or not wouldn't change that.

I don't really think they're dangerous but I think there's a chance they might be. Same with mobile phones, parabens in cosmetics, fire retardency chemicals.... There's loads of stuff all around us that might be causing long term health problems and the startlingly high increase in cancer rates. Trouble is there's so much of it the science is never going to be able to properly establish which are safe and which aren't and even if it did, we're so dependant on it all we'd continue to use them anyway.

Why shouldn't you look inside one when it's on? That doesn't sound very logical to me. Either stuff leaks out or it doesn't.