We are we seeing electric stove tops on blue water cruisers?

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

In the UK, you use red diesel for everything including propulsion, but you have to declare which part you use for "domestic" purposes -- heating and generation -- and you don't pay duty on that part.

And then run in to trouble if they check your tank in Belgium...

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Fatalities per mile is not the only, and maybe not the best way to parse the data. But as a professional you will understand that the data is only meaningful if it's corrected in some reasonable way for the amount of use.

So if you're going to say that cars are more dangerous than boats, you have to divide the total number of fatalities (or serious injuries, or whatever) by something -- miles, or hours, trips, or days on board, or something. For you as a pro that will be kindergarten stuff. Without that, the numbers are meaningless. For example you could say that driving is far more dangerous than Russian Roulette, because only 10 people were killed that way last year, compared to 40,000 killed in car accidents.

You say "good data has been presented so far", but no relevant data, good or bad, has been presented. If I missed something, I'll be glad to be corrected.

As the old saying goes: Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

You clearly have made up your mind and no amount of facts will change it, no way to convince you against your will, so I'm done trying.

For new people to the discussion: Please read the links provided that show electrical fires are far more common. Either is reasonably safe if you use a modest amount of common sense. If you do stupid stuff, yes, you will likely have problems.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

I find the various risks interesting. I can't find a single LPG explosion death on a boat in the US in 2014 or 2015. Could be I'm not looking in the right places, but I've been through Coast Guard data, news, and insurance data. I actually believe it has happened, but not finding it....

A sail boat blew up in Stuart in 2014 or 2015 that killed a teen age boy. The other three family members were off the boat and he was on board alone when it blew up. The cause of the explosion was supposed to be from propane.

Later,
Dan

[a64pilot]

In the US, red Diesel is for everything not driven on the road.
But fuel cost is irrelevant, unless your one tight budget, cost of propane for cooking is next to nothing, and you'll never break even installing the systems that would make electric cooking viable.
So forget cost, you can't justify it that way.
I don't cook, she doesn't like to cook, it's something that has to be done, not something either of us enjoy, like doing laundry I guess.
So for us it would be more of a easy to clean, what she is used to cooking on, and no pilot light to light and no propane solenoid to remember to turn off, and probably biggest thing, is no propane to have to find.
I put a monster bid red LED in the panel as she never remembers to turn the thing off, but the big red light reminds us.

But we do every now and again talk about that micro / convection oven we used to have, that thing would cook a turkey in a couple of hours where a conventional oven took all day, and if you don't like cooking, getting it over with fast is nice.


So the big question to me is there a drop in replacement for my Seaward Princess stove? Cause having to custom build the Galley takes it out of the nice to have category and puts it in the too hard to do one.

[Fuss]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I think electric (induction and microwave) cooking is safer than propane. It is also a lot more convenient, especially with a large (preferably lithium) battery bank. Our current boat caries 40 kg (85 lbs) of propane (and their is room for more), but it still a pain swapping these bottles even though our large storage means that we can do this infrequently and when it is most convenient.

However, electric cooking on a yacht requires a working generator (or shore power) unless you are on a big cat with room for lots of solar. Unfortunately, generators seem to be one of the components that most frequently give trouble. In addition, they require specialist knowledge and parts to repair (ie they can take a long time to fix in out of the way places). Large yachts get over this problem by fitting two generators, but on our sized yachts this is not viable.

There is no ideal answer (unless you have room for lots of solar), but dependence on a functioning generator is a serious drawback that needs to factored into the pros and cons.

Our new yacht will have propane/butane cooking (with lots of vented bottle storage like our current yacht). With 1kw of solar on the new yacht, we will be able to use some electric cooking to extend the life and therefore reduce the inconvenience of replacing the propane bottles, but it will be a secondary system. Of course your ideal may be different.

To have no gas onboard and cook with electricity you need roughly the following
...
around 10000 watt hours of batteries
around 400w of solar
around 5kw generator
around 4000 watt main engine alternator, 5000 would be better.
around 3000 watt inverter that can handle some overload.
some form of electricity generation while sailing

a 2 element induction cooker
a combination microwave, grill and fan oven
a very efficient fridge and freezer
an energy efficient method of making hot water for coffee, tea or soups.
an electric egg cooker
a bbq

This setup would mean that you would not miss the gas at all and you would have multiple backups and 4 ways of generating electricity.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

And then run in to trouble if they check your tank in Belgium...

Indeed. Although I think a temporary peace agreement has been reached between UK and Belgian fiscal authorities.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by dannc

A sail boat blew up in Stuart in 2014 or 2015 that killed a teen age boy. The other three family members were off the boat and he was on board alone when it blew up. The cause of the explosion was supposed to be from propane.

Later,
Dan

It happens, no doubt about it but it is rare. It certainly doesn't happen enough to justify the paranoia of some posters.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

. . .
But fuel cost is irrelevant, unless your one tight budget, cost of propane for cooking is next to nothing, and you'll never break even installing the systems that would make electric cooking viable.
So forget cost, you can't justify it that way.. . .

Fair enough! But I don't think anyone was trying to justify installing electric cooking on the basis of cost.

I think it was brought up because at first glance electric cooking seems very inefficient, because you are making heat with electricity produced inefficiently out of heat, rather than using heat directly. As has been shown by a couple of people here, it's actually not that inefficient when you consider a number of other factors. And from an operating cost point of view you even come out ahead.

But I totally agree with you -- operating cost is not the issue here. Much more important pluses of electric cooking:

1. safety
2. reduced hassle load maintaining safety
3. convenience of a single universal fuel instead of multiple fuels
4. no combustion products in cabin air, including CO
5. no water vapor in cabin air
6. for people in hot climates, less heat into cabin


Downsides:

1. need high category electric power
2. need enough electric power
3. cooktop not as good to cook on (but oven is better)

[packeteer]

what about a diesel cooktop?

[cruisersfarm]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

It happens, no doubt about it but it is rare. It certainly doesn't happen enough to justify the paranoia of some posters.

Exactly.

Same as on land, really.

A few houses blow up every year. Yet, no paranoia. Paranoia only seems to be on here/boats.

My propane is always on, too. Propane refrigerator/freezer. Not in the least bit nervous becausethere is air blowing through there and I've been living with a propane refrigerator, full time, as my only refrigerator, for about 6-8 years now.

Edit: There is air blowing continually through the sealed combustion area, so if propane wasn't ignited, it would blow away.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

As the old saying goes: Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

You clearly have made up your mind and no amount of facts will change it, no way to convince you against your will, so I'm done trying.

For new people to the discussion: Please read the links provided that show electrical fires are far more common. Either is reasonably safe if you use a modest amount of common sense. If you do stupid stuff, yes, you will likely have problems.

"No amount of facts"

But not a single fact has been presented. Not one. My mind is open, and I love to be proven wrong in discussions like this, because I come away the winner, having increased my knowledge.

Number of electrical fires versus number of gas explosions is totally irrelevant to the discussion. Just like number of people drowned fishing in jon boats on lakes versus number of cruisers blown up in gas explosions -- totally irrelevant. As a professional dealing with statistics, you will understand that better than I do.

No facts are presented because there aren't any better than the ones I presented. I know because I looked pretty hard at one time.


No one argues that gas is reasonably safe if you're careful. I agree that it is "reasonably safe". But it takes more than a "a little common sense", or as many people think, "not do stupid stuff". Safety with something like gas takes a systematic approach using appropriate technology and procedures based not on "common sense", but on best practices. That's because gas explosions don't occur usually because someone "did stupid stuff"; they occur because something failed, which should have been replaced, a hose chafed, an alarm or solenoid was missing, a flame device failed, a gas locker was not gas tight (that's how the Lord Trenchard explosion happened). You don't have to be an idiot for things like this to happen -- just have an arrogant lack of respect for the risks.

[Ungvar]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Fair enough! But I don't think anyone was trying to justify installing electric cooking on the basis of cost.

I think it was brought up because at first glance electric cooking seems very inefficient, because you are making heat with electricity produced inefficiently out of heat, rather than using heat directly. As has been shown by a couple of people here, it's actually not that inefficient when you consider a number of other factors. And from an operating cost point of view you even come out ahead.

But I totally agree with you -- operating cost is not the issue here. Much more important pluses of electric cooking:

1. safety
2. reduced hassle load maintaining safety
3. convenience of a single universal fuel instead of multiple fuels
4. no combustion products in cabin air, including CO
5. no water vapor in cabin air
6. for people in hot climates, less heat into cabin


Downsides:

1. need high category electric power
2. need enough electric power
3. cooktop not as good to cook on (but oven is better)

Just to add a point under pros, although you mentioned elimination of fuel sources, you also eliminate an entire system that has to be maintained, operated and understood. Most boats already have an AC system of some description, so the addition of an electric cooker isn't an additional system, it's an auxillary device to an existing system.

The risk of electrical fires exists with or without an electric range, but eliminate the propane range and you have removed an entire risk category- explosion, from your galley.

Sent from my XP7700 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[a64pilot]

I found this one as a drop in replacement

Force 10 3-Burner Gimbaled Electric Range


But beware, if you turned everything on, and I doubt that would happen often, but if you did, it will pull 3.8KW all by itself.
I doubt it's inductive cook top, which I think requires special pots and pans? But a oven that isn't micro / convection is going to pull some power.

[exMaggieDrum]

I am enjoying this discussion about electric cooking. It is interesting.

One additional plus in have a propane/gas system is providing a way to cook when parts of the electrical support system go down, e.g. inverter, charging sources, etc. I think this was mentioned earlier. Of course this is offset by having one more system which is also a potential point of failure.

With the advent of LFP batteries, larger solar arrays, bigger alternators, etc. electric stoves are much more doable than a few years ago when these larger size systems were not as common.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

Maybe, but what about its combustion products? Have already pointed to the number of CO deaths from exhaust leaks. LPG can give you CO as well, but we burn much smaller amounts and for much shorter periods than diesel in the generator or engine.

All it takes is one poorly maintained system or accident and you all die with cherry lips. And that's really the point here, every single one of these proposed systems requires proper installation, operation, and maintenance. Absent those, you can be dead. With those, well you've mitigated your risks.

Diesel exhaust contains CO only a fraction compared to gasoline engines (0.04%vs1%), not saying that could be dangerous level too but long before that you'd be coughing out of oxygen..