Electric Cookers

[lustyd]

@Kelpie as hit the nail on the head . Nothing going to convince you and most of us who are happy with electric couldn't give a monkeys one way or the other what you think , it just a shame your posting could put people off from trying .

By the way We been living on our hook for the last 13 years for 9 at times 10 months every years,
Not a couple of nights as you keep suggest.

Your post literally read like a list of excuses and I responded to that. If it's a truly suitable replacement then I shouldn't need to move to the med, spend £10k on upgrades with all the ecological damage that hardware entails, be careful with the weather and when I plug in etc. It should be as easy and flexible as the perfectly adequate gas system being replaced which has only one problem of availability in certain areas and certain suppliers.

 

[geem]

I'm not sure anything is ever going to convince you, as you've obviously made your mind up. I'm not on commission trying to sell lithium batteries so I don't really care. But what you're saying is a willful misrepresentation.

Lots of solar, big battery- correct.
Don't cook much, only stay out for a couple of nights- incorrect.
Warmer latitudes- probably! Funnily enough lots of people do sail in these places so it seems valid to discuss it.

As I have said before. I am working on a liquid cooled lithium project. I have some knowledge of these systems. For my energy usage using a gas cooker, electric cooking doesn't stack up even with lithium batteries. We use the vast majority of our solar output during the day. There isn't anything left for cooking with electric. We do live at anchor. Since we heat all our hot water via solar, our gas lasts longer as we don't need to boil a kettle for washing up. We also make ice with an ice maker runnijg off solar. We simply choose to use our solar power in a different way. Electric cooking is just one way to use the solar energy.

 

[NormanS]

For most of the very poor summer that we've had this year on the West Coast, solar has been very disappointing. With a theoretical 180 watts, we've been at times struggling to get more than an average of one amp hour per hour. And that's even with the long hours of daylight that we get. For us, cooking with electricity is pie in the sky. Haven't had any problems getting 7kg Calor butane.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Your post literally read like a list of excuses and I responded to that. If it's a truly suitable replacement then I shouldn't need to move to the med, spend £10k on upgrades with all the ecological damage that hardware entails, be careful with the weather and when I plug in etc. It should be as easy and flexible as the perfectly adequate gas system being replaced which has only one problem of availability in certain areas and certain suppliers.

Actually we now in northern Europe Netherlands on a much smaller boat 36 foot with LA batteries and it's like going back to the dark ages .
First job this winter lithium, solar, and a inverter

 

[sailaboutvic]

For most of the very poor summer that we've had this year on the West Coast, solar has been very disappointing. With a theoretical 180 watts, we've been at times struggling to get more than an average of one amp hour per hour. And that's even with the long hours of daylight that we get. For us, cooking with electricity is pie in the sky. Haven't had any problems getting 7kg Calor butane.

Norman may I suggest you check your system.
On this boat which we brought in April since sell our other boat in March ,
we only got a 150w flex panel which we move around and we had no problems getting our LA 350ah bank to float each day ,
The fridge been running 24/7 .
there only been a few days this as not happen since April .
One amp per hour is very poor for a 180A panel ,
We seeing one Amp at 8am and going up to 6amp
The panel only out while at anchor .

 

[Kelpie]

As I have said before. I am working on a liquid cooled lithium project. I have some knowledge of these systems. For my energy usage using a gas cooker, electric cooking doesn't stack up even with lithium batteries. We use the vast majority of our solar output during the day. There isn't anything left for cooking with electric. We do live at anchor. Since we heat all our hot water via solar, our gas lasts longer as we don't need to boil a kettle for washing up. We also make ice with an ice maker runnijg off solar. We simply choose to use our solar power in a different way. Electric cooking is just one way to use the solar energy.

You'll probably think we live like savages, since we don't have a watermaker and we do all the washing up in saltwater. We don't have a calorifier so no hot water storage.

Most days we have spare power available so I've been looking in to watermakers. Long term project though.

As you say we all use our solar power (and, indeeed, our boats) in different ways. My solar, lithium, induction, inverter installation was about £1k, so it's not as though I could have bought a watermaker instead for the same money. I also only got down to that price through some good luck and secondhand panels.

Anyway this thread seems a bit heated, I just like to share what I've done on a limited budget in case it's of interest to others. I'm not suggesting other people should do the same, but I do like to challenge assumptions when they are not based on actual experience.

 

[sailaboutvic]

As most of us know it's all about managing the power .
When there excess power on go stuff when there bad charging days we limit what to use .

@geem Tim I know your up to spec with batteries as a full time liveaboard , I think if you go over to lithium you see a big difference.
For a start you get more AH , they charge quicker and take what ever charge you can throw at them , plus unlike LA you turn on a large load and they drop to 12.1v/12.3v but stay up there at 13.2v but then I don't need to tell you this as I'm sure you already know .

 

[NormanS]

Norman may I suggest you check your system.
On this boat which we brought in April since sell our other boat in March ,
we only got a 150w flex panel which we move around and we had no problems getting our LA 350ah bank to float each day ,
The fridge been running 24/7 .
there only been a few days this as not happen since April .
One amp per hour is very poor for a 180A panel ,
We seeing one Amp at 8am and going up to 6amp
The panel only out while at anchor .

The panels are working fine. It's just that this summer's weather has been b..... awful. You can't get more than 24 amp hours a day, when there's no sun, but plenty of mist and drizzle.

 

[geem]

As most of us know it's all about managing the power .
When there excess power on go stuff when there bad charging days we limit what to use .

@geem Tim I know your up to spec with batteries as a full time liveaboard , I think if you go over to lithium you see a big difference.
For a start you get more AH , they charge quicker and take what ever charge you can throw at them , plus unlike LA you turn on a large load and they drop to 12.1v/12.3v but stay up there at 13.2v but then I don't need to tell you this as I'm sure you already know .

Vic. We don't have large loads. Our lead batteries never drop below 80% charged even with two fridges running over night. We don't need the batteries to charge more quickly They get to float every day before lunch. If we need to run large loads we turn the generator on. Large loads are the death of leas batteries so we simply don't do it. We run the large vacuum cleaner and watermaker from the generator. We often do this simultaneously.
Our lead Trojan T105s are dirt cheap by comparison to turning our whole system over to Lifepo4. We really don't have a problem with our lead installation so I see no benefit to going lithium. I am not ruling it out in the future but at the moment we don't have a problem to fix

 

[sailaboutvic]

Vic. We don't have large loads. Our lead batteries never drop below 80% charged even with two fridges running over night. We don't need the batteries to charge more quickly They get to float every day before lunch. If we need to run large loads we turn the generator on. Large loads are the death of leas batteries so we simply don't do it. We run the large vacuum cleaner and watermaker from the generator. We often do this simultaneously.
Our lead Trojan T105s are dirt cheap by comparison to turning our whole system over to Lifepo4. We really don't have a problem with our lead installation so I see no benefit to going lithium. I am not ruling it out in the future but at the moment we don't have a problem to fix

Morning Tim
I don't disagree with what you say , your LA doing the job you want them to do with the help of the Gen .
If you didn't have the Gen you may thing differently.
We replace the Gen on the Moody 6 years ago cost 5K , if I knew then what I know now I would had just removed it and replace with a bigger lithium bank .
The only thing we used it for after going to lithium was the 240v water maker and with a bigger bank that too could had been run off the batteries.
Of course this thead isn't about lithium ,
but if cooking on electric is possible and even when we was using LA we used the induction hob without problems .
As you say gas where you are if cheap , it also was in the Med most places but in northern Europe a 907 is €42 so what ever you can safe using electric is well worth it if like you we full time liveaboard.

 

[geem]

You'll probably think we live like savages, since we don't have a watermaker and we do all the washing up in saltwater. We don't have a calorifier so no hot water storage.

Most days we have spare power available so I've been looking in to watermakers. Long term project though.

As you say we all use our solar power (and, indeeed, our boats) in different ways. My solar, lithium, induction, inverter installation was about £1k, so it's not as though I could have bought a watermaker instead for the same money. I also only got down to that price through some good luck and secondhand panels.

Anyway this thread seems a bit heated, I just like to share what I've done on a limited budget in case it's of interest to others. I'm not suggesting other people should do the same, but I do like to challenge assumptions when they are not based on actual experience.

We certainly do live a different life on-board. We have copious amounts of water. As much as we want really. Home built watermaker cost we £1500 originally. It now makes 200 l/hr. I built it 10 years ago. For me, the watermaker is a far bigger game changer than electric cooking as a liveaboard. We don't need to manage power simply because we cook with gas. We use as much water as we want and we don't have to haul it by dinghy or go to the dock to buy water that is sometimes of dubious quality. Since we started kitesurfing we use more water rinsing everything.
Apart from running the fridges, we are not asking much of our power set up. Because of this it looks after itself pretty much. Once batteries hit float I turn on the hot water heating system for 1 hr of 300w load on a timer. If its sunny this load doesn't pull the batteries off float. I normally do this twice in the afternoon so we use 600w of solar. Sometimes 900w of solar. We wash clothes with fresh hot water and use a White Knight spinner to spin the soap out of the clothes. I stsrt the generator as the spinner is a 500w load. We used to have a washing machine but we ditched that. Hand washing in two builders buckets doesn't seem a chore that I thought it might be when the weather is great and you do it all in the cockpit every two weeks.
If you make it to the Caribbean your priorities may be different. Cooking gas isn't expensive. Water is typically 5 US cents a gallon. Its never going to break the bank but for me the hassle of getting water is a pain and being rationed because you can't make it is a bigger pain. If you go to places like Barbuda where there is no water to be had then you can't stay too long. Most cruisers have a watermaker on the Caribean. Gas lasts months. Water doesnt

 

[sailaboutvic]

@geem don't know if you remember some years back when the likes of you and me build our water maker the decision then about how they wasn't needed to cruise, water cheap , it can be found anywhere so on and so on ,
since then some of them same people have also fitted them , realising them days have gone never mind the damage to our back carring waters at times .
You might find in time if the Gen gets to the stage that needs replacing it be more cost efficient to use lithium plus having a cat the weight you would lost.

I understand clearly where @ Lustyd is coming from and in his case if they want to cook roast on a boat thats not equipped unless he want to spend a deal of money he not going to be able to,
I also except for a boat used for week ends and the odd long holiday the expenses isn't going to be worth while for him.
But that doesn't mean it not possible and for us who are liveaboard full time or for just the summer months and don't use marinas , and the cost of gas now it becoming more cost affordable.
Although even thos who boats that not equipped a cheap induction hob to use when in Marinas just as many have electric kettle will cut the gas uses quite a bit.

Sadly as I think you know we sold our moody 42 and now living on a much smaller boat 36 since April ,
we have no water maker , no lithium, small 150W panel , we still using the induction hob but not as much as we use to because of our low AH batteries Bank, its really like going back in time,
Once the winter set in and we are base some where we be ordering lithium cells and building a much bigger bank then we would need,
As we not able to put a big solar array on this boat
From next year we probably become part time liveaboard from April to Oct in northern Europe because of personal circumstance ,
but we feel the investment is still worth it to make life easy,
Like some here we not getting any younger.

 

[Pete7]

Don't tell Lusty, but I used one of these this morning to make toast using sunshine

 

[geem]

@geem don't know if you remember some years back when the likes of you and me build our water maker the decision then about how they wasn't needed to cruise, water cheap , it can be found anywhere so on and so on ,
since then some of them same people have also fitted them , realising them days have gone never mind the damage to our back carring waters at times .
You might find in time if the Gen gets to the stage that needs replacing it be more cost efficient to use lithium plus having a cat the weight you would lost.

I understand clearly where @ Lustyd is coming from and in his case if they want to cook roast on a boat thats not equipped unless he want to spend a deal of money he not going to be able to,
I also except for a boat used for week ends and the odd long holiday the expenses isn't going to be worth while for him.
But that doesn't mean it not possible and for us who are liveaboard full time or for just the summer months and don't use marinas , and the cost of gas now it becoming more cost affordable.
Although even thos who boats that not equipped a cheap induction hob to use when in Marinas just as many have electric kettle will cut the gas uses quite a bit.

Sadly as I think you know we sold our moody 42 and now living on a much smaller boat 36 since April ,
we have no water maker , no lithium, small 150W panel , we still using the induction hob but not as much as we use to because of our low AH batteries Bank, its really like going back in time,
Once the winter set in and we are base some where we be ordering lithium cells and building a much bigger bank then we would need,
As we not able to put a big solar array on this boat
From next year we probably become part time liveaboard from April to Oct in northern Europe because of personal circumstance ,
but we feel the investment is still worth it to make life easy,
Like some here we not getting any younger.

We do have an electric induction hob and electric kettle. When in the boatyard, we do make use of them. having LA batteries, we won't use the induction hob at anchor unless we run the generator. Not something we would do unless we ran out of gas. That's never happened though.
We did a major overhaul on the generator this year. Its 27 years old so thats all good. As a back up I am installing a huge alternator off a bus. This will allow me to run the engine and inverter to make water if the generator should ever fail. Its just a back up and the bus alternator was dirt cheap. Being a 24v boat has some benefits

 

[Kelpie]

We didn't go electric cooking instead of watermaker.
The decision making process went something like this:
- bought boat with 220Ah FLA domestic bank.
- priced up a battery upgrade. 4x T-105 would have cost me £790 delivered to my home in NW Scotland.
- built a 271Ah lithium bank instead, cost £407
- also bought some MPPTs and solar panels.
- the*only* costs directly attributable to the electric galley project are the inverter (£375) and the actual appliances (c.£100)

Even costing the inverter entirely to the galley project is a bit unfair, as we need it for other things too.

I would like a watermaker, but so far rain collection is working quite well. I will probably go down the Karcher route although I know it has several disadvantages.

 

[lustyd]

Don't tell Lusty, but I used one of these this morning to make toast using sunshine

Making a slice of toast is very different to completely replacing a gas cooking solution and having it work day after day away from shore power. I'm not opposed to electric cooking, it just makes no sense for cruising away from reliable power when compared to gas. Change for the sake of change isn't progress and it's certainly not sustainable living as many are dressing this up as.

 

[Kelpie]

Change for the sake of change isn't progress and it's certainly not sustainable living as many are dressing this up as.

I think you may be ascribing motives to people when they are not there.
I can only speak for my own decisions and experiences but, given I needed to upgrade my battery bank anyway, lithium was *cheaper* in initial outlay. And all being well it will be much, much cheaper in total life cycle costs.
The marginal cost difference between my solar and lithium upgrade and adding the capability to also cook off grid was not very big at all. In fact it has probably already paid for itself in its first year.

Environmentally, I don't see any reason not to go lithium. The battery may last 20yrs. I could have got through three or four sets of Trojans in that time. And both types can be recycled anyway.

 

[RupertW]

Making a slice of toast is very different to completely replacing a gas cooking solution and having it work day after day away from shore power. I'm not opposed to electric cooking, it just makes no sense for cruising away from reliable power when compared to gas. Change for the sake of change isn't progress and it's certainly not sustainable living as many are dressing this up as.

You may be somewhere where it’s always easy and quick to get your cylinder refilled or even the unimaginable luxury of them accepting your empty cylinder as a swap to a full one but many of us don’t sail so close to home so have to ferret out gas refills in one new port or country after another.

In those circumstances there is a huge benefit to electric cooking whenever possible, and it’s nice to have things like hot water too without running a generator or engine. We are not as far along as some of the posters here but use induction whenever we are on mains and find the gas lasts a lot longer that way - and I’ve just bought a new inverter so that we can use it now and again whenever there is spare power. We will also probably add to our solar this year and cook suitable stuff during the afternoon ready for a quick reheat later. Adding to our battery capacity would be far more expensive and inconvenient.

I’m not yet convinced of the lithium solution for us being cost effective as you get about 50-100% range of charge for FLA for long life and the lithium manufacturers seem to often quote 20-80% range so only a marginal improvement. Having the ability to absorb a lot more charge more quickly isn’t something that will help a lot given we mainly charge solar but I can see that those who charge by alternator or generator would see a benefit. Charging by mains, not so much as that can typically be done over a full night.

 

[Kelpie]

I’m not yet convinced of the lithium solution for us being cost effective as you get about 50-100% range of charge for FLA for long life and the lithium manufacturers seem to often quote 20-80% range so only a marginal improvement.

You're not really comparing like for like there.
It's virtually impossible to use FLA without degrading them. Everything you do shortens their life, by varying degrees. The data sheets for deep cycle batteries tend to show a direct correlation between DOD and cycles. But there is no usage pattern that is sustainable indefinitely.

For LFP, you can use the whole 0-100% range and you will still get hundreds of cycles. There is absolutely no need to stop charging at 80%, you just don't want to leave them sitting at 100% for a long time. If you're using the system daily them obviously that won't be able to happen.
Going below 20% will affect the number of cycles you can get, but it's still going to be several thousand, and way, way more than even the most pampered lead acid.

 

[sailaboutvic]

What's clear is there other ways to cook be it gas , diesel or electric and to poo poo them and put people off because your own boat isn't fitted to use what ever out there is wrong.
Time have moved in since we had one battery just to start the engine and in time there be much more boat using electric for all sorts of stuff.

I lay money the time come when you be able to buy sails with solar attached.