Gas free boat

[magpie patrick]

11 hours ago, MtB said:

 

But more seriously, a cooker is an unvented appliance, not designed for space heating. Intended for supervised use only. 50% of the products of combustion are water vapour which stays inside the boat. When you do as you describe on a cold morning, I bet the walls run with condensation....

 

The only time I've been cruising on Juno in November it rained.... 

 

... inside the cabin!

 

Juno is unheated save for the cooker, but a blown air heater is on order and ceiling insulation is on the to-do list

[IanD]

11 hours ago, MtB said:

 

But more seriously, a cooker is an unvented appliance, not designed for space heating. Intended for supervised use only. 50% of the products of combustion are water vapour which stays inside the boat. When you do as you describe on a cold morning, I bet the walls run with condensation....

 

 

That happens anyway when it's cold outside -- get up to make tea and go into kitchen, all windows are clear. Boil kettle or cook breakfast (on gas hob), they're all covered with condensation. Double glazing and thermal break windows help but don't eliminate the problem. All-electric cooking solves this problem but the total cost (including power generation) is mahoosive... 😞

Edited June 14, 2023 by IanD

[Francis Herne]

I've been considering going gas-free, partly because Calor's stupidity over 3.9kg bottles (and a gas locker in a location that can't easily be expanded) means I'll be spending money on alterations either way.

 

Living on board already I have a reasonable estimate of the numbers involved but some of the information in this thread is useful, thanks.

 

In the winter I did a lot of cooking (and near continuous kettle-boiling!) on top of my ordinary solid-fuel stove, works alright. A proper range would be nice but they're certainly not cheap.

 

I think it could be reasonably made to work with a solid-fuel range w/ back boiler through the winter and electric in the summer. The periods of insufficient solar and needing the stove lit pretty much coincide. It probably needs more than the 800W of solar I've got space for on the roof of a small boat though - or a generator as backup, but a petrol generator is just trading one hazard and logistical issue for another.

[IanD]

39 minutes ago, Francis Herne said:

I've been considering going gas-free, partly because Calor's stupidity over 3.9kg bottles (and a gas locker in a location that can't easily be expanded) means I'll be spending money on alterations either way.

 

Living on board already I have a reasonable estimate of the numbers involved but some of the information in this thread is useful, thanks.

 

In the winter I did a lot of cooking (and near continuous kettle-boiling!) on top of my ordinary solid-fuel stove, works alright. A proper range would be nice but they're certainly not cheap.

 

I think it could be reasonably made to work with a solid-fuel range w/ back boiler through the winter and electric in the summer. The periods of insufficient solar and needing the stove lit pretty much coincide. It probably needs more than the 800W of solar I've got space for on the roof of a small boat though - or a generator as backup, but a petrol generator is just trading one hazard and logistical issue for another.

As soon as you start adding heavy electrical loads like cooking, 800W of solar is unlikely to be enough even in summer, that'll give you less than 3kWh/day typical, not all of which will be usable even with a big battery bank.

 

You can go here and try out different sizes for everything (select the "off-grid" option) -- this takes into account solar power variation and typical power use variation over each day and day-to-day:

 

https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.html#api_5.2

 

With 800W of solar and a 3kWH LFP battery (250AH/12V) you'd be able to support maybe 1.5kWh/day of electrical load during summer months without running a generator, which is unlikely to be enough for all-electric cooking.

Edited June 14, 2023 by IanD

[booke23]

My boat is gas free, and for cooking I have a Wallas 87 diesel stove/oven. It is excellent....the oven is fan assisted and is much better than a gas oven. 

 

However it's pricey, but it does avoid a battery bank/charging system upgrade which you would need if you went down the induction hob route, where you'd certainly need a decent lithium setup at the very least.  

 

 

[MtB]

No grill!! 

 

 

[system 4-50]

Minor Detail:   If you allow the flame from your Origo Meths stove to creep around the sides of your pot/pan you will be liable to get fumes.  Keep the flame within the base area and you should not get fumes.  This was my experience and was the recommendation in the Origo manual.

[booke23]

43 minutes ago, MtB said:

No grill!! 

 

 

 

True, neither does an induction hob! But as I only use the grill for toast I got a small 500w two slice toaster that runs off the inverter.

Edited June 14, 2023 by booke23

[IanD]

21 minutes ago, booke23 said:

 

True, neither does an induction hob! But as I only use the grill for toast I got a small 500w two slice toaster that runs off the inverter.

Most people who want to go gas-free with an induction hob will also go for an electric oven, which invariably includes a grill...

 

The fundamental problem is that generating significant electrical power on a boat all year round is difficult and expensive, and gets more so as you increase the electrical load with things like electric hobs and cookers and toasters and kettles and microwaves and washers and PCs and TVs and -- well, all the things that people take for granted in houses.

 

I think you either need to minimise electrical power use to avoid such power-guzzlers -- the traditional route with diesel engine, solid fuel/diesel stove, gas cooking, some solar -- or have a mindset change and go the whole (expensive!) hog by fully embracing electricity including propulsion, solar, inverter, generator, big solar -- but you still need diesel (or HVO?) to run the generator and heating when solar isn't enough.

 

Anything in between like trying to bolt gas-free electric cooking onto a traditional boat is neither fish nor fowl, it seems an expensive and unsatisfactory path to go down... 😉

Edited June 14, 2023 by IanD

[Stroudwater1]

5 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

How easy/expensive is meths to find these days? I do like meths stoves. Use a Trangia for camping.

<pedant>CO alarm, not CO2</pedant>

 

Back to meths, the purple additive makes it smell pretty awful, if you can get clear industrial grade meths(IDA)  it’s much better. 
 

A way to obtain is if you are doing certain work, I’m fairly sure French Polishers can get it purple less as well as some scientific uses. A Google search suggests it’s easy to order now though. 

[Francis Herne]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

As soon as you start adding heavy electrical loads like cooking, 800W of solar is unlikely to be enough even in summer, that'll give you less than 3kWh/day typical, not all of which will be usable even with a big battery bank.

 

You can go here and try out different sizes for everything (select the "off-grid" option) -- this takes into account solar power variation and typical power use variation over each day and day-to-day:

 

https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.html#api_5.2

 

With 800W of solar and a 3kWH LFP battery (250AH/12V) you'd be able to support maybe 1.5kWh/day of electrical load during summer months without running a generator, which is unlikely to be enough for all-electric cooking.

That's a very interesting site to play with, thanks. I'd previously been basing my estimates on John Harrison's solar data here https://jaharrison.me.uk/Misc/Solar/index.html#Top with various factors scaled to suit a boat. It got me slightly more optimistic results but without allowing for losses due to storage being full at the time.

 

I was planning on rather more storage than that - I already have a 300Ah LFP battery, but it doesn't support the continuous discharge current I'd need for a large inverter, so would want to parallel to 600 or even 900Ah.

 

As you say, it suggests I could fairly reliably cover 1.5-2kWh per day through April-September or so. Since I'm not quite a "continuous moorer" I can add perhaps 500Wh/day on average from engine running in the course of cruising.

 

For the extent of cooking I tend to do as a single person, usually boiled veg/pasta and fried <whatever>, that's probably sufficient. I agree that for guaranteed "do what you want when you like" it's not really enough. It also doesn't quite overlap enough with the "cold season" to go gas-free without a backup.

 

On a longer narrowboat you could get at least 1600W of panels on the roof, and that would provide at least 2kWh March-October and 3.5kWh through summer, which would be a lot more reasonable.

[IanD]

10 minutes ago, Francis Herne said:

That's a very interesting site to play with, thanks. I'd previously been basing my estimates on John Harrison's solar data here https://jaharrison.me.uk/Misc/Solar/index.html#Top with various factors scaled to suit a boat. It got me slightly more optimistic results but without allowing for losses due to storage being full at the time.

 

I was planning on rather more storage than that - I already have a 300Ah LFP battery, but it doesn't support the continuous discharge current I'd need for a large inverter, so would want to parallel to 600 or even 900Ah.

 

As you say, it suggests I could fairly reliably cover 1.5-2kWh per day through April-September or so. Since I'm not quite a "continuous moorer" I can add perhaps 500Wh/day on average from engine running in the course of cruising.

 

For the extent of cooking I tend to do as a single person, usually boiled veg/pasta and fried <whatever>, that's probably sufficient. I agree that for guaranteed "do what you want when you like" it's not really enough. It also doesn't quite overlap enough with the "cold season" to go gas-free without a backup.

 

On a longer narrowboat you could get at least 1600W of panels on the roof, and that would provide at least 2kWh March-October and 3.5kWh through summer, which would be a lot more reasonable.

 

Glad you found it helpful -- it also models things like what times of day typically have peak power use, which don't coincide with peak solar generation, and day-to-day solar variation not just a fixed average -- which is why bigger batteries help, they tide over dull days when solar power is lower than normal. The graph showing number of days where the batteries are full/empty vs. month are interesting and not what you'd expect without these variations...

 

I've got 2100W of panels (flat-mounted semi-flexible) on my 60' boat, but they cover most of the roof -- no dogboxes or rooflights to break them up -- which should average about 7.5kWh/day in summer. Plenty for onboard electrics, but not for all-day every-day electric-only cruising, I expect to need to run the genny maybe an hour a day in summer when doing this, maybe up to two hours in winter. But then it's *very* well silenced and it also provides hot water without using the boiler so that's not such a bad thing...

Edited June 14, 2023 by IanD

[Jen-in-Wellies]

23 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:

 

Back to meths, the purple additive makes it smell pretty awful, if you can get clear industrial grade meths(IDA)  it’s much better. 
 

A way to obtain is if you are doing certain work, I’m fairly sure French Polishers can get it purple less as well as some scientific uses. A Google search suggests it’s easy to order now though. 

The nicest smelling meths can be got in France at pretty much any supermarket very cheaply. Made from wine, with no purple additives. I'm still using some from my last visit to run the Trangia when camping.

[ditchcrawler]

15 hours ago, Andyaero said:

Thanks, maybe I should have asked.....

Is fully electric cooking, feasible on a diesel powered boat? 

I guess I'd replace the energy used by the fact I'd be continually cruising and using a lot of the traditional directional solar panels (not the pretty flexi things) and using batteries that let me use 80% capacity. I accept this isn't a year round solution. Alternatives....run the engine or sit on shore power for a couple of months?

Yes if you have a built in , cocooned diesel generator , @bottle who use to be here had a gas free boat with electric cooking

[roland elsdon]

You can do it.

But think of of  this way.

Bottle of gas Fuel heats food. End

 

Electric cooking. Diesel runs engine Heats air and pollutes environment.

Alternator turns heats air pollutes environment (belts wear)

Batteries heat up 

Inverter heats up

Finally cooker heats food.

 

Lots of losses and pollutants.

 

Diesel hob and oven with heating coil far more elegant and if you must microwave.

 

[Andyaero]

5 hours ago, IanD said:

 

I looked into all this in depth when deciding which way to go, and rapidly rejected a gas-free diesel boat as a bad idea. Other ideas like lead-carbon batteries, massive alternators and parallel hybrid also fell by the wayside due to significant disadvantages. With all of these things that look attractive at first sight to a newcomer, it's often only when you really dig down into the details that the disadvantages become apparent... 😉

All true, was just considering all options. The Mrs prefers her gas cooker anyway, so it was always a long shot, I was using the increased storage space as a selling point to her. Probably too much hassle, not being able to afford a Rolls Royce, I'll keep it simple. 🙂

[cheesegas]

7 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

You can do it.

But think of of  this way.

Bottle of gas Fuel heats food. End

 

Electric cooking. Diesel runs engine Heats air and pollutes environment.

Alternator turns heats air pollutes environment (belts wear)

Batteries heat up 

Inverter heats up

Finally cooker heats food.

 

Lots of losses and pollutants.

 

Diesel hob and oven with heating coil far more elegant and if you must microwave.

 

Perfectly fine in summer though; all your comments refer to winter. As I mentioned in my earlier comment, for most cc’rs I think the way forwards is a split kitchen with a gas ring, induction ring, gas oven and air fryer. 
 

1kw of solar, lithium batteries and you can cook almost entirely from electricity harvested from solar panels (no need to run the engine/generator) for 8 months of the year. 

[IanD]

46 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

You can do it.

But think of of  this way.

Bottle of gas Fuel heats food. End

 

Electric cooking. Diesel runs engine Heats air and pollutes environment.

Alternator turns heats air pollutes environment (belts wear)

Batteries heat up 

Inverter heats up

Finally cooker heats food.

 

Lots of losses and pollutants.

 

Diesel hob and oven with heating coil far more elegant and if you must microwave.

 

 

Alternatively instead of making handwaving statements you can look at the actual costs and efficiencies involved, including the fact that part or all of the power (in summer) can come from solar (and the rest from a generator in winter, which also provides hot water), and come to the conclusion that electric cooking is actually greener than gas. And cheaper in running costs, so long as you ignore the installation costs -- which you can in an electric boat with a generator, but not in a gas-free diesel -- which is a terrible way to provide power anyway, typical engine/alternator efficiency is about 10% compared to 25% for a generator.

 

36 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

Perfectly fine in summer though; all your comments refer to winter. As I mentioned in my earlier comment, for most cc’rs I think the way forwards is a split kitchen with a gas ring, induction ring, gas oven and air fryer. 
 

1kw of solar, lithium batteries and you can cook almost entirely from electricity harvested from solar panels (no need to run the engine/generator) for 8 months of the year. 

 

Agreed with your "for most CCers" comment, meaning conventional diesel boats with alternator charging and no diesel generator.

 

If you do a proper power audit using real usage/generation patterns (like the link I posted above) then I think you'll find that 1kW of solar is probably not enough to run an electric kitchen (induction hob/electric oven/kettle/toaster/microwave) together with other domestic loads (fridge, washer/dryer, PC, TV, router...) even in summer (6 months) without running a generator some of the time, unless you hardly do any cooking.

Edited June 14, 2023 by IanD

[ditchcrawler]

We are gas free and winter is easier as the Dickinson is on 24/7 the kettle is always simmering, the hob and oven are both hot. In the summer we cook stuff in the slow cooker while traveling, use an electric kettle and a two element 800 watt induction hob. But for that with the LifePo battery I have to travel for a minimum of an hour and a half per day. When I say have to, we do more than that anyway. We also have an electric bread maker.

[Dinz]

if cost is issue i use gas for kettle several times a day. Grill or oven most days circa 15-25 mins + pots. Cylinder lasts circa 7-8 months. This works out about£1 a week at current prices.

Diesel at £1 /lt will go thru your engine/genset at a litre an hour. Just to put things in perspective.

[IanD]

13 minutes ago, Dinz said:

if cost is issue i use gas for kettle several times a day. Grill or oven most days circa 15-25 mins + pots. Cylinder lasts circa 7-8 months. This works out about£1 a week at current prices.

Diesel at £1 /lt will go thru your engine/genset at a litre an hour. Just to put things in perspective.

Which is why using the propulsion diesel and alternators is a lousy way to generate electrical power, typical efficiency (fuel in to power out) is at best 10% even with big alternators -- worse with standard ones. A diesel generator with LFP batteries/inverter is typically about 25% efficient.

 

So if only half the power comes from solar (reasonable over the year?), the effective efficiency to power an induction hob (>90% efficient) from a generator is about 45% from fuel to pan.  In comparison with a gas hob less than half the heat (40%-50%) from the gas gets into the pan, the rest goes into the kitchen, so the efficiency is similar.

 

On top of this you get hot water from the generator, assuming the calorifier has a coil for it, which raises the overall efficiency. And if more than half the power comes from solar, gas loses out even more.

 

Last time I looked the cost per MWh of energy was similar for Calor gas than diesel, which means the diesel generator/induction hob is cheaper to run than Calor/gas hob.

 

But this is only true with a generator/LFP and solar, if you use the propulsion engine and alternators for charging then gas is cheaper and more eco-friendly -- even more so if you use LA batteries.

Edited June 14, 2023 by IanD

[cheesegas]

Amen. A lot of people responding to this thread seem to be thinking about electric cooking on a boat with little or no solar, and lead batteries; it’s a terrible idea if that’s the case. 
 

However, 0% of the electricity needed to cook will comes from diesel if it’s summer and you have a decent amount of solar and lithium batteries. All sun power, no diesel or petrol. 

[booke23]

I fear this thread is all getting a bit technically heavy with details. To summarise to the newby OP, to go gas free you can go down the all electric route, or go down the diesel range/cooker route.

 

I wouldn't say it's a bad idea to have a gas free diesel boat, nor is it a bad idea to have an all electric boat. Ultimately it's horses for courses and personal preference/budget. 

[Tony Brooks]

41 minutes ago, booke23 said:

I wouldn't say it's a bad idea to have a gas free diesel boat, nor is it a bad idea to have an all electric boat. Ultimately it's horses for courses and personal preference/budget. 

 

But on no account try to do it on the cheap, because there is a good chance that if you do it will cause problems later.

[IanD]

20 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

But on no account try to do it on the cheap, because there is a good chance that if you do it will cause problems later.

 

A gas free (electric cooking) diesel boat which relies on the propulsion engine/alternator for charging is a bad idea -- and is an example of doing it on the cheap.

 

One with a generator which needs it to run for cooking (no big LFP battery bank/inverter) is not a great idea, it's again trying to do it on the cheap.

 

Any boat with a lot of reliance on electric power should not use LA batteries -- which is trying to do it on the cheap.

 

All of which backs up what @Tony Brooks said -- if you want to go gas-free with electric, this and cheap are incompatible... 😉

 

(a diesel range/cooker is cheaper, but also less convenient -- and still not cheap...)

Edited June 14, 2023 by IanD