Cooking with diesel & insulation

[Abigail]

We are actively working towards living aboard our 40' ketch, a 25yo Maxi 120, and thoroughly enjoying it. We are wrestling with two questions and would welcome any experience:

a) the thorny question of cooking with diesel. We love the idea of not having gas on board, but do not like the smell and meths business with kerosene. We have seen some v nice (though pricey!) diesel stoves, but hear things like they smell, or they are very slow. Has anyone out there got experience of using one - and if so how was it?

b) insulation. Like everyone we suffer from condensation (improving now we've got the heater working - but it was a very cold delivery trip) and we're exploring insultation. The boat is GRP. Reading across bulletin boards, people suggest closed cell foam, thinsulate, underlay, therma rests etc. Presumably it has to cover through hull fittings (shroud supports and similarly key items), so how do you deal with any water that comes through behind the insulation? And what is a good glue to use to stick these things on with?

Any help would be very welcome, so thanks in advance for your thoughts



Sarah&Pip

 

[summerwind]

Have had some experience with diesel heating. You still need meths to start it up. That was not too much of a problem. The biggest problem was the smell, even though we had a proper flue, properly installed, the thing still smelled out the boat.

Good luck with the fitout. It seems to be taking me forever. I am getting things done but am way behind my timetable now.

 

[HaraldS]

Also quite interested in any experience with modern diesel ovens.
I had a close look at the Wallas unit, from Finland. It seems to work with an internal burner and a separate exhaust, much like the Ebersbaecher or Webasto heaters. So I wouldn't expect any smell in the boat.
But I'm not sure how fast they would respond and it looks like the whole square range is heated, not two or three separate burners. Also the heating surface of the model I looked at was recessed and hence wouldn't make contact with a larger pan or the like. The oven-part seemed straight forward.
The unit was quite expensive, like €2500, but when you think about beeing able to get rid of all Propane or Butane on the boat, it seems worth a consideration. Also diesel you carry anyway, and you can get it anywhere.

www.taniwani.de

 

[bluet36]

We live aboard a GRP boat and find condensation to be a nightmare. We've been using the bedroll foam used by campers to line the inside of our lockers and exposed areas of hull. We have also used rubber backed carpet in certain areas which also works well and we use contact adhesive to stick it all down. The smell takes a while to disappear though.

We are in the process of sticking the bedroll foam to the locker lids under the bunk as twice this winter our bunk cushions have frozen to the hull. Not nice!!

Good heating helps loads too. We use a Taylors paraffin heater, which pumps out loads of heat although we have had some problems with the burner caps. The smell is not bad, and you can use a small portable blow torch to preheat the burner instead of meths. You could probably use this same methold to preheat the burners of a paraffin or diesel cooker.

 

[timevans2000]

Re: boat insulation

you are on the right lines with the foam you are using. The one I remember was called Karrimat.
We have insulated our boat with 2 layers of 6mm closed cell foam and then covered with either foam backed lining carpet or foam backed vinyl. We used Evo stick trade adhesive to bond to the hull but you must remove all traces of old glue. We dont have any condensation problems on the hull now.
You mention dealing with water coming in behind insulation. You wont have any water behind the insulation if you have closed cell foam unless you have a leak. These would need fixing first. We found a couple when we were lining the aft cabins. Ours were from leaking deck fittings

 

[cp99]

Couldn´t recommend a diesel cooker unless you won´t be spending much time in hot places, since they take a while to warm up and will heat the entire boat - a nightmare in a hot country, unless you switch to a barbecue and maybe a camping cooker in the cockpit while there. Can thoroughly recommend a Dickinson drip-feed diesel stove - no smell and plenty of heat. The little Taylors is probably OK for UK use, weekends and so on. I used a portable paraffin cooker in the cockpit while in Africa, plus the braai (barbie) - worked magic - too hot to cook below.