Daily Rental: $1.47 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $2.08 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $1.52 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $3.58 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $4.16 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $0.89 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $5.49 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $6.63 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $1.96 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $1.89 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $4.07 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $3.85 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $11.29 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $1.12 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $2.13 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $3.41 Inc GST
Daily Rental: $4.37 Inc GSTCommercial microwaves are classified light, medium or heavy duty, and that rating tells you how many times a day the unit is built to cycle rather than how fast it cooks. A light duty unit handles roughly 50 uses a day and suits a staff room, small cafe or aged care ward kitchen. Medium duty covers around 100 to 150 uses and fits most restaurants and pubs. Heavy duty is built for 200 plus and is what you want in quick service, hospital catering or anywhere the microwave runs constantly through service. Buying a light duty unit for a heavy duty job is the most common mistake here, and the magnetron burns out inside twelve months.
Beyond the duty rating, commercial units use metal cavity liners rather than painted or plastic, stainless housings, and magnetrons rated for continuous cycling. They also skip the turntable, which sounds minor until you're fitting a full size GN pan or a large plate that a rotating carousel can't take. Domestic units in a commercial kitchen void their own warranty and generally fail within months.
Output runs from around 1000W in light duty through to 2100W in heavy duty units. Higher wattage means faster heating, but it also means less forgiveness: delicate items and dense products can heat unevenly if the power is too high. Multiple power levels and multi-stage programming let you defrost then heat in one cycle without staff standing there changing settings. If you're regenerating plated meals, that programmability matters more than raw wattage.
Units with programmable memory pads let you set a cycle per menu item, so staff press a labelled button rather than guessing at times. In venues with high turnover or casual staff, this is the difference between consistent product and a lottery. Some models take a USB or card to copy programs across multiple units, which is worth having if you're running more than one machine or more than one site.
Stackable models let you double capacity in the same footprint, which is usually a better answer than one larger unit because you can run two products at once and you're not stopped when one goes down. Allow clearance at the vents, and don't sit a microwave hard against a wall or beside a fryer, because they pull cooling air and they don't like heat.
Most commercial microwaves run on standard 10 amp single phase, but heavy duty units above about 1800W often want a 15 amp outlet. Check what's at the bench before ordering, since a 15 amp plug won't fit a 10 amp socket and it's not a legal fix to change the plug.
We stock Menumaster commercial microwaves and Panasonic, both built for continuous commercial duty. If you need faster turnaround than a microwave gives you, our high speed ovens from MerryChef and TurboChef combine microwave energy with impingement air to toast and brown as well as heat. Everything is available on SilverChef Rent-Try-Buy, with servicing through our own technicians.