Dickinson or Force 10 Stove ?

It's hard to shake my sailing roots so I am going to replace my Princess electric stove with a propane unit. I am considering the Force 10 3 burner NA Standard or a Dickinson 3 burner Mediterranean. The Dickinson has a slightly larger oven and higher BTU top burners, The Force 10 is pretty.

Any insight out there on how these units compare quality wise ?

BT, I can't compare them quality-wise but I installed a Force 10 3-burner with oven, 110 volt, a couple years ago as a replacement to a Princess. I've been very happy with it. Sure Marine in Seattle is a good source of info on these.

Some complain about heat loss in the Force 10 oven when the door is opened, big door and small space, so logically heat is lost. The solution - a pizza stone.

Some complain the Force 10 oven is slow to heat up, the solution - put both the broiler element on first, then the oven. The warm up will be very quick.

Here is something I found which is helpful, I did not write it:

Hi All.

As a 40 year vet of gas appliances of all kinds......... I would like to give you all a few tips on your Force ten oven problems. Or any oven problems come to that.

1st. All regulators on your gas bottles have a vent to atmosphere. This vent is usually a fine gauze filter to stop ingress of dust and dirt in a normal environment. Being out in an often damp or even worse, wet locker in a salt laden atmosphere is just begging for that little vent to get blocked with salt crystals. If it is blocked the regulator cannot work properly and in some cases will lock up at a low gas rate. therefore not suppling enough gas pressure at the oven. Clean it with warm soapy water and a nail brush.

2nd When we cook in the dinky little ovens (especially at sea) sometimes the cooking spills over and on to the burner. As these burners are quite small any amount of holes blocked can result in a considerable loss of heat output, so put your head in the oven....... Turn it off though Elmer......... and take a look at the burner, if any holes are blocked clean them out.

3rd and final.... No 1 suspect THE JET. During the process of producing LPG/Propane there is quite a bit of oily residue left over. This is mostly filtered out but often, and I do mean OFTEN, some gets through into your refill bottle and either gums up the regulator or makes its way through to the jets on your appliances. Several years ago in Brisbane I had a spate of these where over 60% of all the bottles in Wynnum Manly marina were affected.

If your hotplate burners are all working correctly and there is no visible drop in flame hight when they are all turned on, then chances are this is whats causing your oven problem.

It can also be the oven thermostat being out of calibration but this a lot less likely than the above.

If you can manage to get the jet out DO NOT CLEAN IT OUT WITH A HARD PIN OR NEEDLE OF ANY SHAPE SIZE OR DESIGN! Use a single strand of SOFT copper wire from a spare piece of flex or even a hair from a suitable paint brush. Leave it to soak for an hour in ........... Coke a Cola and it will be very clean. The tolerance on these jets is critical and you would not believe how soft they are and what damage your pin can do!

Once the hole is enlarged the jet is useless and can cause serious damage to your burner and the oven itself.

Hope this helps someone along the way someday.

Happy Cruising all.

Ozznightman.

And this video is helpful:

I purchased a 3-burner Seaward (Princess) propane stove about 20-years ago. At the time, Force 10 had some issues but I can't remember what they were. The Seaward works fine, and I will likely have it for another 20-years, but I would probably go with the Force 10 based on:

1. Broiler. From the Chuck Hawley/WM video, I see there the Force 10 has nice sear-broiler. My Seaward only has a space beneath the burner - I cannot tell what the Dickinson has

2. Stainless Steel grate. My Princess has a porcelain grate, the Dickinson appears to have some sort of cast grate - difficult to tell the material. I like the lift-up grate on the Force 10.

3. Burner BTU - the Dickinson has higher output burners, but I have to say that having at least one low-output burner is really nice for cooking rice.

In my opinion, all three are workable, though despite the fact I am relatively happy with my Seaward, I would chose either the Dickinson or Force 10 if I were buying new today. I would lean towards the Force 10 mostly due to easy cleanup and the lower-BTU output burner for simmering rice and the Broiler looks nice in the Force 10 (can't tell on the Dickinson). But I do like Dickinson products. Tough call - doubt you will go wrong with either.

" No 1 suspect THE JET. During the process of producing LPG/Propane there is quite a bit of oily residue left over. This is mostly filtered out but often, and I do mean OFTEN, some gets through into your refill bottle and either gums up the regulator or makes its way through to the jets on your appliances"

This is a common problem with an easy solution.

Install a T fitting in the supply line and install a short nipple and cap that aims down.

The T works as a dirt and oil trap .Propane is not very clean , this solves the problem.

I have the Dickinson Mediterranean. It’s great. One huge burner for crabs etc, two smaller ones. Good temp control. We love it.

BigTime said:

It's hard to shake my sailing roots so I am going to replace my Princess electric stove with a propane unit. I am considering the Force 10 3 burner NA Standard or a Dickinson 3 burner Mediterranean. The Dickinson has a slightly larger oven and higher BTU top burners, The Force 10 is pretty.

Any insight out there on how these units compare quality wise ?

Click to expand...

I have a force 10 3-burner. It works well, though it's lacking a few BTUs (could be hotter).

My biggest recommendation is to get a 4-burner, not a 3. Not that you'll use all 4 burners ever, but the way the burners are spaced for a 3-burner, if you have a single 10-inch pan, you can only fit 6-inch pans on the back burners because the 10-inch gets in the way. Alternatively, with the 4 burner, I suspect you can fit two 10-inch pans diagonally - a much better design.

From a quality perspective, we've used our Force 10 most days for the last 2.5 years - no problems. The grate not only lifts up, it can be completely detached which is helpful for cleaning.

Just listed on Cruisers Forum (sail focused sister to TF). Force 10 range used $350. I have no connection whatsoever so if interested, contact OP on CF.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=225073

Dickinson. I replaced my Force 10 with it. The oven in a F10 is pretty much useless except to warm plates. 5400 btu burner is tiny. It takes ages to heat to 375 and then when you open the door it plummets. Turning on the broiler will heat the oven but burn your food. 4 burners are only useful for tiny pots, you can only simmer with 3 of them. The Dickinson gets hotter but it doesn’t heat uniformly, baking requires moving your dish about or it will not cook evenly. The F10 is prettier but so it should be as that is its principle virtue!

Xs I too had problems with burning the biscuit bottoms in my Princess electric oven.
In desperation, I replaced the Princess with a Force 10. Some on this site recommended getting some baking sheet that are a sandwich with air between the sheets of aluminum. Works pretty good if I remember to set the oven temp about 25 degrees less than suggested.
The broiler, I have not tried it.
Yes, takes a while to heat the oven, I have accepted it and call it 'prior planning'.
I agree, I too sometimes turn on the broiler to speed up heating the oven.

I think Force 10 bought out the Princess line.

After reading the comments on F10 and even the Dickenson, I guess it means I'll keep my old Seaward/Princess propane stove. Burners are hot enough. Oven works fine. Broiler could be a bit better but I only use it for toast anyway.

mvweebles said:

Broiler could be a bit better but I only use it for toast anyway.

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Wouldn't it be better to use a toaster??
Using the broiler to make toast is a mighty big heat source and unless it is winter, why heat up the boat?

Re: toaster. Small 36-foot boat and toast is not a huge priority. Small appliances and single purpose stuff rarely makes it aboard. As a matter of fact, not even sure we'll keep the microwave when we cast off next year. We've lived aboard on/off for years, and done thousands of sea miles. For us, a toaster didn't make the cut. Still noodling over coffee maker though.

mvweebles said:

Re: toaster. Small 36-foot boat and toast is not a huge priority. Small appliances and single purpose stuff rarely makes it aboard. As a matter of fact, not even sure we'll keep the microwave when we cast off next year. We've lived aboard on/off for years, and done thousands of sea miles. For us, a toaster didn't make the cut. Still noodling over coffee maker though.

Click to expand...

For me, a coffee maker is a 'must have'.

I have added a 210 Efoy to my Firefly battery bank. With it I can use appliances short term without worry of electrical depletion. So you can get a cheap 750 watt toaster, and yes it might take longer than a more powerful toaster but I personally believe heat is wasted on higher wattage units often. A hair blower used on medium with blower fan unit on low for five minutes works well.

As for the boiler, my suggestion early on in this thread was you use the broiler with the oven to heat up the oven, then you are suppose to turn the broiler off. The pizza stone will hold the heat.