About the Advantium, I wouldn’t recommend it at all. While it works it is great; works is the operative word. We built a showcase home and used a lot of GE appliances (trash compactors and Advantium). They work fine for a while; just about the length of the initial waranty period, then bust. Calling GE does little good except to schedule an expensive service call. They have NO real support on phone or online.

Stick with Kenmore or a more reliable product. Also, we have two GE dishwashers in this home (in addition to two trash compactors and the advantium). Neither dishwasher cleans dishes worth a darn; expensive but lousy doing thier job. Stick with Kenmore, KitchenAid or others.

Above Skip Stein said to avoid the GE and get the Kenmore. I don’t agree. I have had the Kenmore Elite with the Advantium 120 Speed cook feature and after 3 years it has died, and almost took my house with it. I was using the speedcook feature, and the relay got stuck ($400 to repair), so the heating element stayed on, while the rest of the oven turned off. Smoke was coming out of the rear of the unit and we turned off the curcuit breaker before it caught the cabinets on fire. The exterior of the unit was too hot to touch, so I watched the cabinets for a while to make sure nothing was burning behind the unit. I loved the speed cook, and was researching the GE, thinking it might be better. I have a dedicated plug for the unit, would I need something special if I went with the 240 version?

I am thinking about putting an advantium in our new house we are building. Would I still need a microwave for anything? or does the advantium do it all? I would appreciate your help. Carol

I appreciate the posts. I have a 120V Avantium and really enjoy it. I have started a group on face book and would encourage all to join, as the GE factory site doesn’t allow open discussion. It is our only Microwave, and after being installed (over the stove style) my spouse has even begun to use the convection oven feature. I still am the only one who uses speed cook (microwave and quartz light cooking). But I have adapted several baking recipes. It fun to decide to make brownie from scratch and have them hot ant ready to eat from the Avantium in less then 20 minutes (actually around 17 min. and no preheating).

My wife and I have had a 240V Advantium since April of 2000. During the warranty period we noticed that the display began to show signs of “less bright” areas. The display was replaced under warranty.

The oven had worked flawlessly for 8 more years at which point the microwave magnetron died. At the time we bought the Advantium the magnetron tube was warrantied for 10 years (part only – labor extra), so a call to GE was made to just get the part. I am rather proficient at elaborate repairs, so I knew I could replace the tube myself. The job was rather tedious, but most successful. I also learned a lot about the system, the construction of the oven, and why there have been complaints about service costs for simple things like replacing the oven light.

I’d be pleased to answer any questions. For now, I’ll mention a couple things that have been brought up in this thread and others…

The inside metal surface on the 240V OTR (over-the-range) ovens is stainless steel, not aluminum. I know this to be the case on new and old SCA2000XXX/2001XXX versions, regardless of outer surface color. It is unknown to me whether the 120V versions of the Advantium have an aluminum inner surface, but I’d be surprised by that selection of metal unless it was specifically to reduce weight.

All the SCA2000XXX/SCA2001XXX were built the same – at least for the first several years of manufacturing. All parts are interchangeable. And the only difference between the various outside color versions are the visible outer wrappings. Some GE literature stipulates the oven cavity to be 1.2 or alternatively 1.4 Cu Ft. I cannot see any internal difference between any of the 240V OTR ovens. The method of determining the oven volume must have changed (e.g., with or without trays)

The 950 Watt microwave can be used alone or in combination with the high intensity lights. (Some literature says the microwave is 900 Watts. But all the parts are the same, so the rating method may have changed.) When the microwave is used alone, there are a couple buttons on the front panel that make usage easy. One button simply makes the microwave run for 30 seconds/button push. The oven starts immediately. The other button gives you a menu of common microwave heating applications (frozen vegetables, popcorn, bacon, etc.), control of the heating time, and power level (10% increments).

The high intensity halogen light heating elements are above (2 elements) and below (1 element) the food. The oven requires no preheat because the light radiates directly onto and into the surface of the food (or, in the case of the lower element, onto the rotating metal tray so the lower surface of the foods is seared or baked like in a conventional oven). The intense light enters the food just like sunlight penetrates your skin. This differs a bit from the infrared energy that is used to cook in a conventional oven. That energy does not penetrate the food as deeply, so most of the heat must penetrate by conduction only, which is much slower than radiation (NOT radioactive!) heating.

It is unnecessary to worry about the “safety” of the high intensity light “leaking out” (as everyone rightfully should be concerned in regard to microwave energy). The heating cause by the light is the same as the heating that burned all those little insects when most boys and their magnifying glass were “experimenting”. (Yes, I’m guilty of this, too.)

The Advantium 240 Volt ovens do not have a convection system…they don’t need it because the energy is direct radiation. Convection oven systems are used to move air around when conduction is the primary method of heating. (The air is heated, and the hot air is then constantly applied to the surface of the food so that the food always has hot air at its surface.) It does appear that the 120 Volt Advantiums have a convection system simply because they do not have the intensity of light available as is in the 240 Volt Advantiums. (It may be that the 240 Volt wall mount/cabinet installed Advantiums also have a convection system. I simply do not know.)

Reliability of the Advantium has been great as far as I’m concerned. Yes, the display went south, but that was fixed at no charge. And yes the magnetron died. The fix for me was about four hours in time. Someone who cannot do the magnetron replacement themselves (probably 99% of users), would likely be charges several hundred dollars in labor.

But it is worth noting: We use this oven EVERY DAY. We cook whole chickens, salmon, vegetables, sausages, potatoes (yum!), muffins, bacon, etc.

Most of our cooking is with the standard combination of the light and microwave heating. (You can select (in 10% increments) the amount of upper and lower light heating in combination with the microwave heating (also in 10% increments.) The “Speedcook” menu system has dozens of preset heating combinations for most foods, but you can modify these settings as you wish should your experience dictate.

The only problem we have is splatter of food that bubbles. You cannot place a paper towel over items when the light oven is being used, but you can do so when the microwave is being used alone. You can place the food in a glass covered casserole dish.

It is possible such splattering eventually caused the magnetron in our oven to die. We cooked many, many chickens in the Advantium, and the small splattering from each cooking cycle did eventually work its way into the cooling system for the magnetron. When disassembling the oven to get to the magnetron, there was a light to medium coating of sticky deposits on many items, including the cooling fan blades and the magnetron itself.

Exhausting the oven heat and the vapors from the stove below is via a built-in fan(s). The exhaust air is generally pushed through duct work built into the home specifically for this purpose, so some planning is needed for the installation. A 240 Volt receptacle must be designed into the cabinetry above the oven.

If you don’t have the ability to add exhaust duct work to your home, the Advantium can re-circulate the stove and self-generated vapors through a charcoal filter. I have no experience with this.

The fans in the Advantium are noisy. But there is a sneaking solution to some of this noise. I realized that the fan noise is mostly transmitted where the charcoal filter would be placed were the oven to be installed without the exhaust duct work. The location in the oven where the filter would be placed can hold a piece of sound deadening material. So I placed a couple pieces of such insulation behind the upper grill and… Voila! the sound intensity was cut in half!

I’ve also read about door handle breakage (how, I do not know…it’s a very sturdy design) and door interlock switches/bracket failures. The interlock system is the similar to other microwaves…probably exactly the same as on the LG microwave (LG makes the Advantium for GE, BTW). I suspect that the physical positioning of the oven above a stove might have something to do with these problems. I wonder if slamming the door while also pulling downward on it has contributed to such problems. I’m rather tall so such a downward pull never occurs.

All in all, we are very pleased with our 9 year old Advantium. We’ll replace it with another should it totally die.

OK…enough for now…just let me know if you have any questions.

Have had the Advantium for 7 years and have loved it. Until this week!Micro features do not work G.E. repair tells me it is a 2 man job to replace the circuit board.
Estimate labor $300 plus parts. This is ludacrous!!!!

Yeah…it’s the oven’s removal from the wall that’s the problem. A smart serviceman can do the job by himself, But it requires some planning. I doubt most servicemen will understand what needs to be done in preparation to remove and reinstall the oven.

Actually it’s the re-installation onto the wall bracket that is hard.

I will bet you the problem is not the circuit board but the actual magnetron. And as mentioned previously, replacement of that item is definitely a multi-hour job. You should try to get a fixed repair price before they begin.

found you by googling Advantium. We are unique in that we bought a 240 over the range, for our new FL cottage, and then shortley thereafter a NIB 2005 120V over the range for our CT home…..it’s been interesting cooking with both. For sure if we ever remodel the kitchen in CT, we are getting a 240. I’ve joined the Advantium group at yahoogroups, and tried to find info and recipies….
I’ve been a gadget guy since birth. Had dad buy my mom (while she was away visiting her sister) an new kitchen, circa 1976,,,,,,new Fridgidaire Touch ‘N Cook glass panel touchpad range…….over a grand in ‘76, Fridgidaire Jet Cone Washer and top freezer “refreshment center’ refer.
dragged home a friends broken Corning Counterrange, the year before, as we were building our new rec room with kitchenette,,,,,complete with Corning Cookmates…..the only stuff you could use on the cooktop.
I’d like to see some more discussion of reciepes and maybe a cookbook? for Advantium owners?
This appliance has long been neglected at GE. Me being an appliance geek, knew all about it, but the stores have not a clue.
in closing I’ll tell you that tonight we decided to cook steaks in the 120, and found out it takes LONGER than conventional cooking……!!!
Dan

You can use anything you want — as long as you’re careful with the Microwave feature. Because of that, we almost always use the types you’re referring to as using the microwave as one of the cooking types usually decreases the overall cooking times quite measurably.