Propane stoves

Thinking of installing one of these:
http://dickinsonmarine.com/product/mediterranean-three-burner-gas-stove/

I was going to go diesel, but really don't want to deal with the flew through my saloon roof.

Against the advice of our boat's manufacturer and contrary to conventional wisdom, we commissioned our boat with a gas range and have no regrets.

dhmeissner said:

Thinking of installing one of these:
Mediterranean Three Burner Gas Stove - Dickinson Marine | Dickinson Marine

I was going to go diesel, but really don't want to deal with the flew through my saloon roof.

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Another good brand is Force 10. We had one installed within weeks of our buying the boat in 1998 to replace the original, failing Magic Chef. The Force 10 has given us flawless performance to date.

Marin said:

Another good brand is Force 10. We had one installed within weeks of our buying the boat in 1998 to replace the original, failing Magic Chef. The Force 10 has given us flawless performance to date.

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We agree, our Force 10 - 4 burner has been great!...

Another Force 10.

I plumbed it so there was only one hose connection inside the boat. Feel fairly comfortable w that. Wife Christine loves the stove. One should resist the temptation to use the oven handle moving around in the boat as it easily flips down and one may get dumped on the salon floor .. fast. Only problem we've had is the little battery holder corroded to the point of being disfunctional. I need to fix that. Would buy again definitely.

Dave go look at them at Sure Marine jut east of the govmt locks in Ballard.

dhmeissner said:

Thinking of installing one of these:
Mediterranean Three Burner Gas Stove - Dickinson Marine | Dickinson Marine

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Can you fit a residential unit? Even high end units are half the price of the marine versions. Very nice stainless RV stoves are priced a half to a quarter the marine versions and are very small also.

Eric, we looked at a Force 10 today and it appeared there is a safety catch now so that won't happen.

I will go to Sure Marine this week, I need a new water heater.

I have a Force 10 four burner and I would really like to yank it out and replace it with that Dickinson three burner stove. The Force 10 has absolutely anemic burners and they are so closely spaced that only three of them are usable anyway. Just look at the Force 10 output (one 8200 and three 3400 BTU's). Those three small burners are simmer burners at best. The Dickinson has output of 11,000 on the big burner and 7000 on the other two). The only dumb thing about it is that the big burner is in the back and not in the front.

I have also found the Force 10 ignition system to be picky and rather constantly in the need of maintenance. The oven takes forever to heat up and its thermostat is far from accurate. If anyone wants a nice used one, I will make you a deal <g>.

Steve, I noticed that about the big burner at the back. You'd think with all the experience these folks have.....?

Mako, I can't fit a house unit, the RV units I'm seeing don't look very robust either.

WE have a household stove/cooktop and would not have anything else. I fancy myself a pretty good cook and will not cook on electric. Our propane locker holds 2 20lb tanks and is on the bridge deck. We have had no problems whatever.

Our Force 10 is a three-burner and the burners put out all kinds of heat. As do the oven and broiler. It was my wife's favorite thing to cook on until we plumbed our kirchen at home for gas and installed a dual fuel range in place of the original electric range. We don't inow anything about Force 10's four-burner units.

Have the Force 10, 3 burner cooktop for 2 years and very happy.

Igniter no issues and no issues with lack of btus...then again cooking for 2 to 4 with smaller amounts of food than homestyle.

IF you are going to install a real marine range , take the extra effort to install it with its gimbol system working.

If the range is lined up with the hull, half the time a pot departing will scald the hull, half the time the cook.

Purchase the unit with the fiddle rails and pot holders , even if the range has a better location thwart ships on a bulkhead .

Scalding is FOREVER!

FF said:

IF you are going to install a real marine range , take the extra effort to install it with its gimbol system working.

If the range is lined up with the hull, half the time a pot departing will scald the hull, half the time the cook.

Purchase the unit with the fiddle rails and pot holders , even if the range has a better location thwart ships on a bulkhead .

Scalding is FOREVER!

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I've been considering that and agree, my "good old boat" does have a bit of roll at times (albeit, a slow roll)

You can't beat the quality of the Dickinson. Force ten comes close. RV units nowhere near. Household down with RV quality.
I have a Force 10 propane 2 burner drop in cooktop, now almost 20 yrs old and I am very happy with it. I also have a SigMar (now Dickinson) Diesel stove, now 21 yrs old, and am very happy with it.
In a previous boat I had RV propane stove, that was near the end of its life after 10 years, lots of inside bits made of unprotected steel, lots of rust.

SteveD said:

I have a Force 10 four burner and I would really like to yank it out and replace it with that Dickinson three burner stove. The Force 10 has absolutely anemic burners and they are so closely spaced that only three of them are usable anyway. Just look at the Force 10 output (one 8200 and three 3400 BTU's). Those three small burners are simmer burners at best. The Dickinson has output of 11,000 on the big burner and 7000 on the other two). The only dumb thing about it is that the big burner is in the back and not in the front.

I have also found the Force 10 ignition system to be picky and rather constantly in the need of maintenance. The oven takes forever to heat up and its thermostat is far from accurate. If anyone wants a nice used one, I will make you a deal <g>.

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I couldn't agree more. I have a circa 2007 4 burner Force 10 and hate it. The surface area isn't big enough for four pots/pans, three of the burners are incredibly weak, the oven takes forever to preheat, and the ceramic broiler has broken several times.

On the other hand, Sure Marine has been helpful. They drilled out the orifice for the oven burner so it now heats a bit better. And they replaced one of the failed broiler elements without any hassle or cost.

No experience with Dickinson, but I wouldn't buy another Force 10.

20 years with Force 10 and I'm very pleased with the two I have owned. Lots of heat, oven no problem. the only compliant I have is that the bars that you place your pots on do not support very small pots due to the way they angle the bars around the burners.

If you are installing it yourself, this may help Safe Propane Installations on Boats

Somewhat like politics these days, facts don't seem to matter. A BTU is a measure that is directly related to the amount of time it will take you to boil a pot of water. Therefore, as long as the burner is capable of also putting out low heat for simmering, more BTU's are definitely better than fewer. So, statements to the effect that my wife loves the thing do not really trump measurements of the energy output of a stove.

So, unless you prefer a stove that will take longer to boil the water for your morning tea or coffee, you should pick one with higher BTU output over one with less.

Good point Steve. While I don't know the BTU output of the Force 10 three-burner range we put in our boat back in 1998 we did time how long it took to boil water for the coffee maker and it was about the same time it took friends with gas ranges in their homes to do the same thing back then.

We have not timed our Force 10 against the new Electrolux dual-fuel range we recently installed in our kitchen at home. But regardless we have never experienced the slow heating others here have talked about and guests who've made coffee or done other cooking on it when they were on the boat have never remarked that it was slow to heat things up.

The people on this thread who experience slow heating on a Force 10 seem to have be mostly talking about the four-burner model and we've had no experience with that one. We bought the model we got largely on the recommendation of the large Grand Banks charter fleet operator in our harbor who at the time told us that the three-burner Force 10 was stove most preferred by them and the folks who owned the boats in their fleet.

Just for the record, the three burner Force 10 is identical in output to the four burner one except that one small burner is not there (one 8200 plus two 3200). I think it is a preferable model, not because its output is any greater, but because three burners are really all that can be fit in that area. I never use the smaller front burner on my four burner range, because there is simply no room to put a pot there if you are using the larger burner.

SteveD said:

Somewhat like politics these days, facts don't seem to matter. A BTU is a measure that is directly related to the amount of time it will take you to boil a pot of water. Therefore, as long as the burner is capable of also putting out low heat for simmering, more BTU's are definitely better than fewer. So, statements to the effect that my wife loves the thing do not really trump measurements of the energy output of a stove.

So, unless you prefer a stove that will take longer to boil the water for your morning tea or coffee, you should pick one with higher BTU output over one with less.

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Guess I will never get that pot of peanut oil to boil on my Force 10 so I can throw my 20 pound turkey in this Thanksgiving....

Sure more is better...but only if you need it. Heck some boaters never even use their stoves...so btus are meaningless to them.

The 8000 or so btu burner on a Force 10 will get a decent pot of water boiling for pasta or lobsters in the amount of time it takes to prepare the rest of the meal and enjoy my wine.

BTW, I am not suggesting a Force 10 is preferable to a Dickinson. We have a Dickinson BBQ and we have friends with Dickinson heating systems on their boats. Dickenson equipment is first rate in our experience and observation.

I have a three burner Force 10. The cooktop is good although I would prefer a second large burner instead of two simmer burners. The broiler is also fine. Where I think it sucks is the oven - the burner is simply a simmer burner installed in the bottom of the oven cavity. This means that the oven is slow to heat, will not get above 350 and if you open the door to peruse the contents, the temperature collapses and takes forever to re warm. I should also mention my version does not feature a thermostat (yes, that was actually an option. A lot like buying a car and having the starter optional.) so the oven is hit and miss or at best a plate warmer. I hope the company pulled it's head out and rethought this part of its product...

I have the Dickinson Med in my boat and I am very happy with it. Of note, the large burner puts out SO much heat that you are unlikely to ever use it unless you are boiling water. I use the two small burners every time I have need for two burners to be running.

My total propane use for 3 months of the summer, cooking daily with it was 3.2 gallons. I have a horizontal 7 gallon aluminum tank on the roof.

In hindsight, let me quantify the burners.

I boil water for coffee daily in a 3 quart pot, the large burner even on low puts out a flame pattern larger than the bottom of the pot and soots the sides. When I said good for boiling water I mean as in a stock pot for boiling crab or making large quantities of pasta. The large burner is too hot to cook eggs and sausage in a 10" cast iron pan on the lowest setting for the burner. The small burners use less than 20% of the knob's control range to make the 10" pan hot enough to cook breakfast.

Xsbank said:

I have a three burner Force 10..... Where I think it sucks is the oven -

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Hmmm.... that's not been our experience. My wife has made complete Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners on board--- turkey for the Thanksgiving meal and a big prime rib for Christmas. She's baked stuff in the oven from brownies to salmon and halibut very successfully. The oven burner in ours is rated at a bit over 5,000 BTU.

Where the oven is less than ideal is in its lack of insulation which is pretty much the nature of the beat with these smaller units. For example the prime rib cooking method she uses at home or on the boat is to get the oven as hot as it will go, put the prime rib in, cook it for 15 minutes at full blast and then turn the oven off and let it sit for an hour. Anyone who opens the oven door is summarily executed. This process and timing works perfectly regardless of the size of the prime rib.

Everything about this process works in the Force 10 except for the sitting for an hour part. The oven loses heat too fast for this to work properly. So she has to turn the over back on periodically. The end result is still great, just the process is a bit different.

One thing she discovered early on is that the removable heat distribution plate that comes with the unit must be in place near the bottom of the oven for the oven to work properly. Otherwise it cooks very unevenly and the temperature inside the oven is not consistent. This is particularly troublesome for baking.

THD said:

WE have a household stove/cooktop and would not have anything else. I fancy myself a pretty good cook and will not cook on electric. Our propane locker holds 2 20lb tanks and is on the bridge deck. We have had no problems whatever.

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Previously my boat had a household electric unit. I like residential units, if they fit. I'm planning now to install a residential gas unit. The electric one worked fine - when underway it ran off the 3kw inverter. At anchor I could use it until the batteries ran down, thus minimizing genset time.

"I'm planning now to install a residential gas unit."

Even with an automatic gas shut off and a propane sensor in the bilge there is a danger in a non marine range.

A proper marine burner assembly will require a PUSH to allow the burner to turn on.

This is needed so someone brushing by the knobs wont accidentally turn the gas on.

The second difference is the low flame size will be limited to a certain flow that will not blow out with an errant breeze .An adjustment is made at the valve, for this.

Sadly in most cases the flame ,to not blow out, is too high to simmer , so a pot spacer is required under the pot.

Propane is quite safe , but the lessons of a century of use need to be observed.

Another vote for the Force 10 three burner. No issues with ours, just follow the installation and owners instructions.

We had a Force 10 three burner for 9 years. We cooked turkeys and roasts in the oven. Also baked chocolate chip cookies for the guys at the Ballard Locks. The last year we had it the electronic igniter died. The people at Sure Marine helped me diagnose it and had the part in stock. Great stove.