Some of it depends on your cabinets and how they're finished. If they're veneered, you'd have more cause for concern. You might want to find out from your cabinetmaker.

I don't cook daily, but if you call my five years with a steam oven one year of heavy use, I'll say there's a little concern, but a kitchen is a living place and there will be some wear. Like door dings at the supermarket. :) The only place where the finish on my cabinets is damaged is on one of the doors under the cleanup sink. I always wipe up when there are drips, but I have some alligator tooth pale spots where someone obviously allowed it to stay wet for a long time. This is bamboo, btw, which is a laminated product where the surfaces are thick. The second greatest damage to the finish is on the fridge and freezer where hands tend to hold the doors rather than the handles. It's just a clear varnish type of finish, which is supposed to be very hardy, but that's a lot of friction.

Over the steam oven (Gaggenau)--I don't often use the reduce steam function which condenses it so plenty of plumes escape--if I feel carefully, the grain is raised slightly in the frame around the oven, but barely at all if any on the cabinet door an inch above the top of the oven. BTW, I also get plumes of steam from the regular oven.

My warming drawer is a simple mechanical one, but does have steam vents, which are usually in the open position. They let out the bottom, and all along the top of the inside of the front panel, where steam could get at the whole interior frame, plus out to the surrounding cabinets, but hasn't. I had one unfortunate incident though. I read that one could dehydrate in a warming drawer that was left slightly open. Not a good outcome, but the prolonged steam exposure from having it actually open and drying fruit did raise the grain on the drawer above.

Mind you, you can't see that the grain is raised on either side (ovens and WD on opposite sides of kitchen). You can feel it. And only by feeling how smooth the rest is, can you tell it's altered. There is absolutely no delamination, but that's factory done, etc., and a thin veneer heat glued to MDF or something will be more delicate.

My conclusion is that if you can afford a steam oven, you probably have good enough cabinets that they can survive it. :)

I was going to get an Advantium which does everything, until I read this Steam ruining cabinetry You may want to search for information on each item you are considering to see if there are complaints of steam damage.

pillog, thanks for taking the time for the detailed feedback.

12crumbles, thanks for pointing me to the other thread. I had not thought aout the problem of moisture on the bottom.

I've had a plumbed Gagganeu combi-steam and an Advantium in a stack for eight years now with white painted cabinets. No cabinet damage. (Other than what our lousy carpenter did initially by making the cutouts incorrectly despite having the correct specs month and months in advance ... But that's another rant.)

I use both multiple times a week and never vent the Gagg steam before opening and, for the last two years, have also had a warming drawer at the bottom of that stack. No issues with any of the above.

Resurrecting this conversation. Immersed in kitchen revitalization with new custom hickory and painted maple cabinetry. We are also planning to add a third oven with a steam convection unit and had decided to place it beneath a microwave in an oven stack cabinet. I thought it would be best to have steam rising over the microwave in order to save the cabinetry. However, the Gaggenau installation tips call for no appliances over the steam oven. This means we will have steam rising against the new wood. Do any of you steam oven users have them installed in wood oven cabinets and experience steam damage over the years of use? It looks like Wolf Steam Ovens can be mounted below a microwave, so for us maybe that would be a better choice for cabinetry survival? Or, maybe painted maple would survive better than the stained hickory in that location? Thanks for any advice!