Electric 2-ring Cooker

[dawntreader]

We bought an inexpensive portable 2-ring electric cooker from Lidl whilst cruising in the Canary Islands as we were living aboard and using on average 1 bottle of Calor gas a month. This cooker cost €25 and was intended to be a 'trial' replacement for the gas hob only. We used it daily, only using gas when moving between marinas, and still have it 2 years later. Considering that you pay for electricity as part of your mooring costs then you are saving the cost of a gas bottle per month. In Spain we found the Calor gas refills cost between €15 - €22. That's a saving of between €240 - €352 for us in that period as we still used gas for the oven, using about 1 bottle over 3-months instead. I haven't had to buy a refill since returning to the UK - so don't know how much gas refils cost here yet  but they were much more expensive in France than Spain.

[Salty]

Camping Gaz 907 2.75kg bottles were about £35 earlier this year when I last bought, while a Calor Gas 4.5kg cost was about half the price of Gaz, but the Calor cylinder wouldn’t fit into the gas locker onboard. I believe that larger lockers are available for Bavaria’s, but as I only use one Gaz bottle per year or thereabouts, it’s barely worth the cost of changing, but the price difference does niggle.

[Yngmar]

It's criminally expensive in the UK. Here in Sicily you can usually find an Autogas station (for LPG fueled cars) that will refill a R907 bottle for under €5, and since marina electricity is metered, it's cheaper to cook with gas. A bottle lasts us around 3 months with two people living aboard and cooking 1-3 meals a day, plus espresso in the Bialetti Brikka of course 

In Greece it was €15 for a proper Camping Gas bottle swap (and they even took the silly Butsir bottle we got in Spain), or you can find Autogas fillers in some places too.

We have an electric kettle which we use during winter season where we stay in marinas, and a Microwave, which makes great porridge quickly.

Recently I've found out that larger 5.7kg R909 bottles are available here too, but they do not fit our standard Bavaria bottle locker (both too wide and too tall).

[geoff]

When we bought our ocean 40 in 2001 I didn't like the camping gaz set up at all . I removed the bottle holder and cast and laid up a larger one to fit a calor gas 4.5kg. It has now been in use for 19 years and refills are cheaper than gaz and nearly twice the size. With a spare bottle carried in a water tight drum in the anchor locker I have a whole summer and then some. Geoff