Homemade not for home goods

I would like to add an addendum to my previous post dealing with the built in microwave that malfunctioned at home earlier in the week.

The repair guy, a nice guy that said he grew up in California, which I believe as he had no accent in his speech, showed up around 10:00 of the a.m. He promptly asked me what happened and did a quick inspection of the unit followed by looking on the overhead pantry where the microwave is plugged into an outlet. As soon as he reached in there I knew there was something off. First off, the outlet had been clearly installed after the house was built as the outlet and the outlet box were taped to the side of the cabinet. Secondly, as he reached in there with his electric reader we both noticed that there was no juice going into the box and almost immediately noticed a nickel-sized burn/plastic melt mark on the side of the box. Upon seeing this, he asked me to shut down the power to the house after which he removed the box and noticed that one of the screws on the side of the outlet was singed/burned to hell and sticking out a solid inch off the place where it should've been screwed on tightly.

The repair guy quickly pointed out that the problem had been that whomever installed the outlet did a poor job by leaving the screw so far out, thus leading to a short that caused all the burning and melting. Luckily the outlet box contained the problem and there was no fire as a result from this. Yes, we are very lucky that the thing didn't short out and burn the cook books that we have in the pantry and start a house fire. Lucky yet scary. The repair guy easily replaced the outlet for the correct outlet, non GPCI one, and bolted down the outlet box to the wall/cabinet so that it is actually installed properly. After I paid him the $100 fee, which is standard as we have a 1 year home warranty on many items in the house, the dude took off and I went off to work.

From all of this I concluded the following:

1. The person that installed the microwave is/was a moron. Not only was the outlet installed improperly, but the "built-in" microwave is about 6 inches too close to the stove according to the repair guy. This means that the underside of the microwave can get very hot if you use the stove, especially the back burners. Luckily the microwave is still high enough where it should be ok were it sits.

2. The inspector that looked at our house is also a moron. The repair guy immediately pointed out that the inspector should have noticed both the outlet and the proximity of the microwave to the stove. Unfortunately Tennessee has very weak and ever changing building codes and the inspectors don't even have to be licensed. This should be the equivalent of allowing anyone that has played with Legos to build highways and buildings.

3. We were very lucky that our house didn't burn down. I talked about this earlier, but this was a solid reminder that shitty work can lead to seriously bad results in the house, in particular to electric work.

4. While the jury is still out on the home warranty service, I have talked to another postdoc at work and he mentioned that they have renewed their and have been glad they did so as they have replaced the oven/stove, central air, water heater, refrigerator in the 1.5 years that they have been here. Although I am not sure if the $100 deductible was more than we would have paid someone to look at the microwave and fix it, I can't imagine it would have been that much cheaper. I would guess that if something like the water heater or something bigger goes it will be worth the money.