They remove one problem found in virtually all traditional ovens – having to bend over to add or remove pans. They are built to function in any kitchen regardless of the space or layout.
It is perfectly OK to separate the stovetop from the wall oven. It can go a long way to reduce congestion in your kitchen and even allow two or more people to prepare meals at the same time.
When selecting one, your choices will be limited to just two types –
- the single oven and
- the double-oven design.
The door can be
- standard
- side-opening
- or French.
Some ovens come in one-and-half design, whereby one half provides room for grilling, reheating, and warming.
Wall ovens with multiple rack sections are just the right kind of oven for your manufactured home’s kitchen as they provide extra space for storing larger cookware.
Some of the double units you will find in the store combine a few different cooking technologies that boost the versatility of the appliance.
The added technologies reduce their size and pack more functionalities, like an oven serving as a microwave and a heating appliance at the same time.
Related: Is It Safe To Use The Oven Without A Light Bulb?
Five Manufactured Home Wall Oven Pre-Shopping Questions
Not just any wall oven would be perfect for your mobile home’s kitchen. Ask yourself these questions to assist choose the correct model:
- What size of the oven would be perfect for your kitchen?
- What specific needs do you want the appliance to meet?
- Are you planning to add a cooktop above the oven?
- Would you like a big oven capable of holding dishes inside?
- Do you wish to cook faster?
Eight Factors to Consider When Choosing a Wall Oven For A Mobile Home
Here the factors to consider when buying a wall oven:
- Type
- Conventional v/s Convection
- Cost v/s Budget
- Basic Wall Oven Features
- Space
- Controls & Settings/ Ease of Use
- Installation
1. Type
What type of wall oven do you think will meet your needs?
Understanding the type of appliance helps you choose other features better.
There are two main types of the appliance:
- Gas wall oven
- Electric wall oven
Typically, the type of fuel/power use in your home will determine whether to choose a gas or electricity-powered option.
If you can easily choose either of them, things like your cooking preferences and budget become the main driving factors.
Electric
Why you might want to choose an electric oven:
- This type of wall oven heats meals more evenly than gas-powered alternatives.
- They are considered easier to clean if you don’t buy the self-cleaning type.
- A typical electricity-powered wall oven costs about $100 less than the closest gas-powered option – basically, the electrical sort is cheap. The cost of installation is low as well
- They provide a range of cooking modes
Drawbacks
- Can be affected by acute power outages
- They cook slowly compared to their gas-powered counterparts
- The cost of electricity tends to be higher than that of gas, so they are expensive to run.
Gas
Why you might want to choose a gas-powered oven:
- This type of oven is not prone to dry your food as much as an electric alternative
- Near-instant control over temperature and flame
- They are cheap to run as gas is cheaper than electricity
- No interruption caused by outages – gas is available most of the time
- They cook faster
Drawbacks
- Can be dangerous in the event of gas leakage
- Expensive to acquire and install
- There is a limit in sizes that you can choose
2. Conventional v/s Convection
Conventional
In the conventional type, the source of heat is stationary, often radiating from a single heating element at the bottom of the oven.
Convection
The convection oven, on another hand, comes with a fan that circulates heat waves in the oven, resulting in evenly cooked food.
The convection type can be
- single-fan
- single-fan European
- multi-fan or
- multi-fan European.
Related: Is It Better To Have A Double Oven Or Two Single Ovens?
3. Space
Unless you own the largest Double Wide mobile home, space should be the first thing to come in mind when planning to buy the appliance.
A wall oven is a huge appliance and might end to be the largest, if not the second largest, item in your kitchen after the fridge.
There are no standard dimensions, but most of the wall ovens you will find in the store fall in these three commonly used sizes:
- 30-inch
- 27-inch
- 24-inch
The average kitchen size in an average manufactured home is 151 sq. ft.
A typical Single Wide is about 71 ft. W x 15ft. W, with a total area of 1,080 sq. ft. A kitchen the size of 103 sq. ft. would be reasonable for such a home.
This size of the kitchen may still feel spacious with 24” or 27” wall ovens although 30” isn’t far off to warrant a bigger kitchen.
Kitchens in Single Wides can be a little bigger than the estimated 103 sq. ft. Size, which means all the three sizes of wall ovens would still fit in them comfortably.
Any oven bigger than 30″, however, should make you reconsider.
When choosing a size, remember to look at the oven’s capacity – often measured in cubic feet – shown on each model and take into account the number of individuals you will be preparing food for on a daily/regular basis.
- 2 – 3 cubic feet will be perfect for homes with one or two members.
- 3 – 4 cubic feet will be perfect for homes with three or four members
- 4 cubic feet or higher will be perfect for homes with four or more members
You may be tempted to buy a larger wall oven than you really might need, especially if you like to entertain friends and family at your place regularly, but it’s rarely worth the extra money.
4. Cost v/s Budget
The fourth most important factor to bear in mind is the cost of the unit and the amount of money you are willing to spend on it.
- According to Home Advisor, the average cost of acquiring a wall oven is between $700 and $3,500.
- The cost of preparing the cabinet, completing the wiring, and the related labor can cost between $100 and $200.
- A gas installation guy is normally a different person, and usually charges the north of $200.
- The job of doing the wiring, outlets, and installing additional circuitry requires a licensed electrician, who will add between $50 – $100/hr on the overall installation costs. The cost of materials is separate.
- Most homeowners in the United states wound $2000 on average for a wall oven plus installation.
A few factors may come into play. The cost of materials can vary between different locations. Whether the unit is gas or electricity-powered can have an impact as well.
A wall oven can be costly, especially if you are thinking about the larger 30” type with some few awesome technologies inside. Before even committing yourself to acquire one, prepare a well-thought budget first.
That budget serves to help you stay focused on what you really need and lets you allocate the right amount of money for acquisition. Basically, budgeting helps you avoid overspending.
Start by deciding the maximum and minimum amount of money you’re willing to spend on an oven. If you need a product with more features or bigger size, factor in the specific additional features and if you really need it.
Also, be critical of the size just so you don’t end up paying for a larger unit that you don’t even need.
Once you decide the specific amount of money to spend, it becomes way easier to come up with a list of features the cooktop must have and those that you needed but are willing to trade-off with others because of the cost.
5. Manual or Self-Cleaning?
There are two types of wall ovens out there as far as ease of cleaning is concerned.
- Self-Cleaning
- Manual
Self-Cleaning
If you dread cleaning ovens, just like everyone does, you are more likely to opt for the self-cleaning type.
This type of oven burns cooking splatters and spills with a high temperature (about 500 C° or 932 F°) to assist in cleaning.
Most of the popular oven makers in the market today have a line or two of self-cleaning ovens, including,
- Whirlpool
- Viking
- Maytag
- LG
- Kenmore
- KitchenAid
- Jenn-Air
- Fulgor Milano
- Frigidaire
- Electrolux
- GE
- DCS Fisher & Paykel
- Bosch
- Bertazzoni
- Blomberg.
Besides the massive convenience they offer, self-cleaning ovens are cheaper because the initial cost of acquiring one is offset by the time-saving attributes and convenience.
Their insulation tends to be better than that found in manual options, meaning they are more energy-efficient.
They also don’t require you to use strong oven cleaners and similar solutions that may produce dangerous fumes.
The self-cleaning attribute, however, is a bit overrated. Note that a typical oven with this feature takes about 4 – 5 hours to clean itself. If you were to do it yourself, it wouldn’t last past 20 minutes.
That’s the good side of the manual wall oven.
And because the self-cleaning process involves very high temperatures for such a long time, it ends exposing internal parts to premature aging and wear and tear.
Usually, the first part to develop issues is the locking system, then the thermostat.
Related: How Long After Cleaning the Oven Can You Cook with It?
Manual
Manual wall ovens are the best option for hands-on control and cleaning – the user has total control over the appliance.
The harsh oven cleaners may be detrimental to one’s health when used inappropriately, but at least they don’t end up ruining the system.
And because no searing temperatures are used during the cleaning process, internal parts last longer, eventually contributing to the overall durability of the appliance.
The major issue of manual wall ovens is the significant cleaning effort required to keep it sparkling clean.
6. The Basic Wall Oven Features
There are features that should not miss even in the most basic wall oven you could lay your hands on.
While all of these features may not be present in an oven at the same, the presence of two or three of them can improve your kitchen experience quite dramatically.
Here are the five basic features you should check in every wall oven:
- Dual Ovens
- Sabbath Mode
- Glass Doors
- Timer & Delayed Start
- Convection
Dual Ovens
Also, referred to as Double Wall Ovens.
You have probably tried to find an oven temperature that can work for several meals and allow you to cook pumpkin pie and turkey at the same time. That’s really hard to achieve with a typical oven.
Thanks to the Dual-Oven feature which makes it possible to use the typical wall oven to cook two meals at different temperatures at the same time.
This feature comes in the form of two compartments on the oven, one spacious enough to swallow a bigger dish and the other petite.
Each compartment has its own temperature controls to help you cook with confusion.
Sabbath Mode
This mode has nothing to with a religious holiday.
A wall oven is said to support the Sabbath mode when it can “hold” on food and keep it warm for long periods.
Sabbath mode is very much similar to those red lamps used in restaurants to keep dinner warm as you wait for your significant other to arrive.
Glass Doors
It may sound like a must-have but some wall ovens don’t come with glass doors; others do come with them.
The reason why you would prefer one with it is the need to see your cooking food without opening the oven.
Because the oven tends to lose significant energy when the door is opened in the middle of a cooking session, a glass door can be an energy saver.
Timer & Delayed Start
The timer does the obvious – it stops the cooking after the programmed cooking period has elapsed.
Yes, it sounds obvious, but can only be appreciated if you’ve ever incinerated your fish after missing the stoppage time in your old oven.
Delayed Start is a useful feature too. It delays the cooking until a specific convenient time you’ll set, at which it will embark on cooking, automatically.
Convection
We already mentioned this. Instead of using radiant heat to cook, as it’s the case with conventional ovens, this style of cooking employs a powerful fan to evenly distribute the air in the oven for faster cooking.
7. Controls & Settings/ Ease of Use
Most of the modern wall ovens you will find in the store feature an LCD screen and a few buttons beside it to help you easily make settings and monitor the progress of activities inside the appliance.
Unfortunately, these controls are not the same across different models. The more intuitive these controls are, the easier it is to operate the appliance.
That’s why you need to choose an oven that only possesses the features you need – it can go a long way to level the learning curve.
Some settings remain the same across different models from different brands while others may sound different.
- Delayed Bake Setting: kicks at a preset time
- Warm & Hold Setting: as the name suggests, warms the form and keeps it at a specific temperature for a given period
- Variable broil Setting: provides a low setting for a less intense top-to-down heating
8. Installation
Contrary to what the name suggests, wall ovens are not installed in walls.
Rather, they are mounted in specially built cabinets that match the dimensions of the set.
If you already have a pantry-style cabinet in your kitchen, you can modify it slightly to accommodate your new appliance.
Otherwise, you will need to buy a new cabinet. Suppose you got your measurements right and chose the appliance that suits your needs, you will install your oven in one of four popular styles:
- Built-in
- With cooktop
- Side-By-Side
- Built-in Double
Built-in
The Built-in style of installation is great for Single Wall Ovens, but other types of this appliance can be installed this way as well.
A single wall oven is just installed in fitting cabinetry and that’s it!
With cooktop
You must not install a cooktop above the stove – it’s not by default. This style, however, entails adding a cooktop on top of your appliance and at eye level.
Side-By-Side
Here, two single wall ovens are positioned to stand on one side of each other. It is a convenient style of getting the most out of two small ovens.
Built-in Double
If you are remodeling your kitchen and you know the finished kitchen won’t have enough space for the equipment, it only makes sense you include the position and dimensions of the stove in the plan.
Related: Is It OK To Use Your Oven Or Range As A Heater?
Conclusion
Trying to buy the best wall oven that suits your needs is one of the hardest things you can ever try because of so many features and factors involved.
There are many different types of wall ovens based on features, fuel, etc.
However, with a small list of core considerations, your shopping experience can be easy.
Consider these factors when choosing a wall oven: type of the oven, cost of the appliance versus the budget, basic wall oven features, space in the kitchen, conventional v/s convection, controls & settings/ ease of use, and installation.