force 10

[witchcraft]

When we bought Witchcraft she came with a force 10 cozy cabin heater. This fall we installed the heater. There were no instructions on the boat regarding clearances and so forth. I emailed force 10 to ask a couple of questions.
Although Force 10 advised me they had sold the cozy cabin heater line to another company, they forwarded all the information we required and more.
This was in my opinion excellent customer service particularily given all the circumstances.
sales@kuumaproducts.com is the email address I used to contact them.
Fair Winds
Witchcraft

[tdw]

Originally Posted by witchcraft

When we bought Witchcraft she came with a force 10 cozy cabin heater. This fall we installed the heater. There were no instructions on the boat regarding clearances and so forth. I emailed force 10 to ask a couple of questions.
Although Force 10 advised me they had sold the cozy cabin heater line to another company, they forwarded all the information we required and more.
This was in my opinion excellent customer service particularily given all the circumstances.
sales@kuumaproducts.com is the email address I used to contact them.
Fair Winds
Witchcraft

We've just purchased a Force 10 stove and I was highly impressed with the service, particularly from their Australian distributor. Stove isn't installed as yet but I hope the product is as good as the service, it's certainly a great looking piece of kit.

[seafox]

I have a new force 10 stove in Seafox. It cost a small fortune compared to the competition in NZ. The competition looked cheap though.

It cooks well but we had been having trouble with one of the igniters on one of the burners not clicking and creating a spark. They look a bit complicated when pulled to bits so I stopped half way and put it back together. All goes good again.

Cool lookin oventhough.

[tdw]

Somewhat off the exact topic, I know and for that I apologise to Witchcraft.

Sadly the Cozy Heater is no longer produced. To my mind it was a good relatively low cost way to heat a cabin. Dickinson and Sigmar are now the main players in the heating market (other than built in blower type systems) I believe. Great looking stuff but jaysus it's expensive, particularly when you have to ship the stuff to the other side of the planet. We'll probably put in a Sigmar before winter comes around again, I doubt I could the noise of a whirring fan even though probably a more efficient type of heater.

Andrew

[tdw]

Originally Posted by seafox

I have a new force 10 stove in Seafox. It cost a small fortune compared to the competition in NZ. The competition looked cheap though.

It cooks well but we had been having trouble with one of the igniters on one of the burners not clicking and creating a spark. They look a bit complicated when pulled to bits so I stopped half way and put it back together. All goes good again.

Cool lookin oventhough.

Darryl,

It seems an immutable law that the first things to go on any stove are the igniters. We bought the F10 because of the foldaway oven door and grill inside the oven. Advantage being , of course that you end up with a bigger oven when grill not being used. I confess the only time we use a grill is to make toast or grilled cheese and the like. Grilled dead stuff we do on the BBQ cos madam hates the lingering odours. Love roast dinners and casseroles on a boat.

Andrew

[seafox]

Yeah, they went in the first month though .
The folding door is pretty neat.
They tried to sell me a separate deflector for grilling. It bolts onto the gimbal locks. Apparently the heat was melting a few switches. Wanted $50 for a bit of aluminium!
Not as much room inside the oven as you first think though. The bottom burner has a plate above it and takes up a third of the oven. Some of the competition have the burner flush mounted in the bottom. They say that they have done this as the air flows better.
Overall a much more solid oven than anything else I looked at. Cost nearly $3000 here for the small compact (I think it was called Euro style) one.

[PBzeer]

Put the 2 burner model Force 10 in my boat and am quite happy with it. Also have the cabin heater, though it isn't hooked up at present. Still haven't decided if I will or not. PO had all the propane connections with hose clamps instead of fittings and had the heater running to a T valve under the stove (inside the boat!) So when I redid the propane, I eliminated the T valve. To hook up the heater would require 20+ feet of hose, plus another hole in the propane locker, hence my reluctance to hook it up. Am considering a 1lb bottle with a regulator though for infrequent use.

[tdw]

Originally Posted by seafox

Yeah, they went in the first month though .
The folding door is pretty neat.
They tried to sell me a separate deflector for grilling. It bolts onto the gimbal locks. Apparently the heat was melting a few switches. Wanted $50 for a bit of aluminium!
Not as much room inside the oven as you first think though. The bottom burner has a plate above it and takes up a third of the oven. Some of the competition have the burner flush mounted in the bottom. They say that they have done this as the air flows better.
Overall a much more solid oven than anything else I looked at. Cost nearly $3000 here for the small compact (I think it was called Euro style) one.

Fookin' 'ell mate. I don't want to make you feel bad or nuffink but we got ours for half that. (Exchange rate might have been an infuence though). Interesting point about the oven, the thing is still living in the boot of my car but hopefully I'll get it on board this week. I'll report back on the oven. Don't want to unpack it until ready to install. We went with the European Standard which is a bit larger than the Compact top to bottom.

[seafox]

I think it was around $2,750. Burnsco had some cheap ones for around $1,200 at the time but they looked cheap.

Got it from the guys who are the force 10 dealers here. Marine 121 or something like that they are called.

Not as bad as this:
http://www.discount-marine.co.nz/cat...t.php?cPath=16

$3,168 at bartons in wellington

[tdw]

Originally Posted by PBzeer

Put the 2 burner model Force 10 in my boat and am quite happy with it. Also have the cabin heater, though it isn't hooked up at present. Still haven't decided if I will or not. PO had all the propane connections with hose clamps instead of fittings and had the heater running to a T valve under the stove (inside the boat!) So when I redid the propane, I eliminated the T valve. To hook up the heater would require 20+ feet of hose, plus another hole in the propane locker, hence my reluctance to hook it up. Am considering a 1lb bottle with a regulator though for infrequent use.

I'd reckon that would be the go for the heater. Personally I'm not overly impressed with the idea of gas heaters be they water or air but maybe I'm just out of date. I'd rather have a kero or diesel heater and either heat water as I go (that's called the kettle system I believe) or run off the engine to a tank. You certainly did the right thing getting rid of that T-Valve.

I have had a couple of the heaters. They work great, but are hogs on propane. We have the 3 burner stove. I won't tell you the price because I hate to see grown men cry, but the igniters went out in the first month. I have since disassembled the burner controls a few times, and they usually work for a couple of days, then fail again. For awhile, we were able to use the oven igniter to light all burners, but that has failed as well. It worked one day last week I have not contacted Force 10 on this, but I suspect they would take care of the issue. They were very helpful when the thermal couple on the heater failed.

[seafox]

We sure get ripped off in NZ when it comes to boats. Miles from where most things are made and a pretty crappy dollar $. On top of that the dealers know we expect things are going to be dear so add their chunk onto the price.

[seafox]

I just paid $40 for a micro switch that goes inside my Lewmar foot switch. It is a small $1 part that comes from UK where we need $3 to buy a pound. I needed some nylon washers for the winch, around $4 each and a rubber switch cover $14. The seal for the winch was $32.
It all looked like a sad collection of rubbish and not the proceeds of over $100.

The wire on the overpriced switch is not even tinned!!

The cost of paradise

[yotphix]

If it's any consolation Seafox, Canadians get kinda jammed too for just about anything with a specific market like marine supplies. I think in Canada it is often a double markup from American distributors that have exclusive rights to North America beneath the Canadian distributor's markup. Then retailers catering to a smaller (30M pop., 6month sailing season) market take a 100% markup to adequately cover their costs.

When West Marine opened stores in Canada they actually started raising some prices from their initial stickers once they realized that everyone else was getting more.

Oddly enough, 7 or 8 years ago when some Canadian friends were in NZ they replaced their Volvo Penta motor and saved CA$3000 over doing it at home before factoring exchange and labour savings.