Pros and Cons of Diesel Cooktops

We've had one in our Oka for nearly ten years, along with diesel hot water and central heating, we have no LPG but do have lots of electricity for a jug, toaster etc from a solar and battery system.
The diesel cooktop is slow to heat up and retains heat for quite a while especially in hot weather. The heat is good in cool weather as it keeps the cabin warm.
Useless for making a cuppa as it takes too long hence the electric jug.
The cooktop is usually turned on before starting meal preparation and by the time it is prepared then the cooktop is usually hot enough to cook on. Great for slow cooking as it will run for extended periods with very little diesel use, we often use the camp oven on it to cook a roast if no fire is available.
With plenty of electricity we can use a single induction cooktop if we want to cook outside or avoid heating the interior in hot weather.

HOT plate I've had one, they suit some, I personally was not a fan very slow & limits how you cook just forget about boiling anything unless you have a lot of time, The diesel heater great item highly recommend one I’ve had the expensive brand & the cheap e bay special & the eBay special has given no trouble the expensive one nothing but trouble & 5 times the cost. The diesel water heater would not have one again, I am running LPG, The best water heater I’ve had was a marine one that was was plumbed in to the trucks cooling system so it pre-heated or heated the water so very little gas was needed
I now run LPG for stove, BBQ & hot water it surprises me how many traveller's who have Diesel everything still carry a LPG BBQ
Good luck Gas can be safe if you do it wright & it takes a while to get thru a bottle

Hi Kate

We have both LPG and diesel cooking in our van. Diesel(Webasto) inside LPG outside. We have used the diesel a few times when the weather has made it too difficult to cook outside. So that means we are not experienced diesel stove cooks.

We would prefer gas over diesel every time. Diesel is slow to heat up and difficult to regulate the heat. You end up constantly moving pots and pans around on the stove top depending on what is in each pot and the heat it requires. You can turn the heat up and down but there is long delay between turning the knob and the effect on the hot plate. More so when turning the heat down. They are expensive when compared to gas and require specialised maintenance to the fire box and igniters, diesel pump and fuel filter.

If we had to choose only one stove it would be gas. If we never use the diesel heater again I will be happy.

Cheers John

Hi Kate,

You haven’t said what your previous problems were with gas, not sure what they might have been. However, before you make your final decision, consider the following:

1. Diesel can be over $2:00 per Ltr in remote locations. LPG bottle gas is around $0:90 per Ltr.

2. LPG bottle gas is a more efficient and cleaner burning fuel.

3. The quality of the fuel is never really in doubt with LPG bottle gas, whereas Diesel in remote locations can at times be contaminated by the seller’s poor quality tanks, which in turn can lead to problems with your cooktop.

4. A 9 kg or 8.5 kg LPG gas bottle will last far longer than a 5 or 10 Ltr diesel tank.

Just some things you may not have considered.

Macca.

Take care in your selection. We had one on a boat. Unless they have dramatically redevised their design-avoid. We used it as one would in a home. Made a cuppa, etc..
1. Glow plugs kept burning out. In a diesel vehicle, the plugs are used probably once, then the vehicle is run-so the mechanism doesn't need glowing again. In a boat and i assume a caravan/van, this is not the case.
2. For some reason, and it wasn't boat movement, the glass top cracked. Fumes were horrendous. We were told it wasn't covered by W........... but the maker of the glass top. Probably could have persued a claim but by that time, I was well and truely over it. We sent the whole cabbudle from the west coast of WA to Sydney 3 times. Not fun.

Katie
Glad everybody could give you info so you could decide what suits your needs just one last thing on safety watch & educate the kids, the diesel cook tops take a long time to cool down

Hi Katie,

I am also preparing a MB Sprinter AWD as a motorhome and labouring through all the options.
When it comes to energy provision things get complicated.
OK when plugged into 230vac in a caravan park but much more of an issue when needing to provide your own power. Supplying a fridge, water pump and a few lights is easy enough, but power for cooking and water heating for wash-up and shower consumes a lot of energy. Add environmental heating and cooling and it becomes near impossible.

Induction cooking is great. It's what we have at home. But producing heat with electricity is not very efficient regardless if it is a resistive element or induction. Both use lots of power which goes un-noticed in the home but very costly when you need to generate it yourself.
If your travels will always find you overnighting in a powered caravan site then it would be OK to use electric cooking but much more difficult at an unpowered campsite.

Without going into all the mathematics, it would be something like this....... A solar-powered battery system capable of serving a small induction cooktop, plus refrigeration etc. would set you back at least $7000. Even then there may be periods of low solar radiation where you would run out of power unless you ran the engine or used a generator.
The above system would only be capable of supporting a single-pot induction cooktop so managing the cooking is limited. A two-pot cooktop would require even more electrical provision than $7000.
There is still the need for a HWS for showering but that could be diesel. As has been said, diesel cooktops are pretty hopeless. And maybe diesel water heaters are little better!

I tried to avoid the need of accomodating LPG bottles but could not find an acceptable alternative so two 4kg bottles are being used with LPG for both cooktop and HWS. I am not providing for space heating..... we will "chase the sun" but there will be 12v fans.

Katie, what is your concern about LPG? There are fully safe ways to manage it. If you have a concern about gas leaking out of an unlit burner then provide a shutoff valve convenient to the cooktop but out of children's access. And always have an operative gas alarm installed and routinely tested.