Help me to decide if paying almost £1000 for a diesel hob in my van is a good (MSE) investment

GervisLooper

I am sure many will be shocked at that initial upfront cost however I have crunched the numbers and it appears that it would turn out as good as using gas between 2 to 3 years of use - 2 really with many benefits which make it more appealing over other cooking fuel sources.

Once the initial cost had been cleared it would then be saving money of about £214 in fuel costs.

Gas I worked out costs around £312 per year for using it to cook one hour per day average. I worked this out as I pay around £2 per 220g gas cartridge for a camping stove and they last me about 3 cooks at an hour a day. I also worked out that normal calor bottles costs about the same with a refill cost of around £40 per refill of a 6kg bottle. Even with the latter though you have to factor in £300 odd for gas cupboard making the diesel option pay for itself in 2 years rather than 3 with that. I do not see myself wanting to use the little catridges for any length of time because they are rubbish to work with (flame dies within about 10 minutes degrading more and more as bottle empties) not to mention the horrible amount of metal wastage.

EDIT - Ok my workings out for the diesel I think were initially coming out wrong due to having trouble with diving two decimals (1.62/.27). I think it is going to be even cheaper than I thought. I used a different calculator online and it said the above calculation is 0.166 which would mean 10 pence per hour of fuel cost x 365 = £60 per year.

Lpg is cheaper than normal gas at average 80p per litre going off memory however the install is the big cost there too with around £512 at least for an underslung tank kit. Also the drawback is hard to find places to refill it.

There are many positives to diesel though beyond just the money saving. I would want this if it were equal in price or even marginally more than the cost of gas.

I wont have to pay for or install a gas cupboard or have the wasted space it produces.

Also it is a combihob meaning heater and hob so I will be able to heat the space without have to add more devices thus saving space again.

Another is not having to mess about with gas bottles, their attainment compared to the ease of attaining diesel which I use for my van anyway.

The main thing I thought is the large upfront cost means I would not want it breaking and being left with a very expensive piece of junk. The company have told me though that there is a 2 year warranty. It is also apparently a long established company (eberspacher) trader since the late 1800s. So not like a fly by night company. Very good reviews for them on trustpilot.

So as long as the warranty was honored that means I should be ok to use for 2 years and by that time being up then I would be clear of the investment and into money saving right?

Just wanted to run this by other mses to see if it makes sense. The other options seem false economy and as I stated besides the money this is the much preferred option for above stated reasons.

Below are the warranty details that the customer services advisor sent to me which he said I would receive with the item.

Mnoee

GervisLooper said:

EDIT - Ok my workings out for the diesel I think were initially coming out wrong due to having trouble with diving two decimals (1.62/.27). I think it is going to be even cheaper than I thought. I used a different calculator online and it said the above calculation is 0.166 which would mean 10 pence per hour of fuel cost x 365 = £60 per year.

I have no idea about cooking in vans, but 1.62 divided by 0.27 is definitely 6. It's the same as doing 162/27.

0.27 divided by 1.62 is 0.1666, if that's the maths you intended to do. 

GervisLooper

Mnoee said:

GervisLooper said:

EDIT - Ok my workings out for the diesel I think were initially coming out wrong due to having trouble with diving two decimals (1.62/.27). I think it is going to be even cheaper than I thought. I used a different calculator online and it said the above calculation is 0.166 which would mean 10 pence per hour of fuel cost x 365 = £60 per year.

I have no idea about cooking in vans, but 1.62 divided by 0.27 is definitely 6. It's the same as doing 162/27.

0.27 divided by 1.62 is 0.1666, if that's the maths you intended to do. 

Thanks.

Van cooking knowledge not required I dont think just general confirmation on the numbers and if they seem good from an mse standpoint and general considerations when making such a sizeable initial purchase.

Indeed I am in rather a pickle as to what the calculation should be. Hopefully you can help.

£1.62 is the price of 1 litre of diesel.

The appliance states that it will consume, at maximum, 0.27 litres per hour of diesel during operation.

Now I am trying to figure out how much cost per hour of diesel that would be. I have been tying myself in mental knots trying to figure that out!

Once I have that I can x by 365 to get the average annual cost of using an hour per day.

EDIT by the way why do the lines end up double spaced when posting when they show up normally in the formatting in my post?

Flugelhorn

GervisLooper said:

£1.62 is the price of 1 litre of diesel.

The appliance states that it will consume, at maximum, 0.27 litres per hour of diesel during operation.

Now I am trying to figure out how much cost per hour of diesel that would be. I have been tying myself in mental knots trying to figure that out!

easiest way is to say that consumption of  0.27 is about a quarter of a litre per hour. 

so divide your cost per litre by 4

this gives approx 40p per hour 

GervisLooper

Flugelhorn said:

GervisLooper said:

£1.62 is the price of 1 litre of diesel.

The appliance states that it will consume, at maximum, 0.27 litres per hour of diesel during operation.

Now I am trying to figure out how much cost per hour of diesel that would be. I have been tying myself in mental knots trying to figure that out!

easiest way is to say that consumption of  0.27 is about a quarter of a litre per hour. 

so divide your cost per litre by 4

this gives approx 40p per hour 

Doh! Yea I couldnt see the forest for the trees.

So that makes it around £146 per year. About 1/2 the cost of gas but still the many benefits I listed above.

Mnoee

Yep, the maths you'd want is 0.27(litres) x 1.62 (cost of a litre) for 43.7p per hour. 

No idea about how to get rid of the double spacing, the forum seems to just do that for people on certain browsers/devices. I had the same issue on a desktop, but it's fine from a tablet. 

As long as the diesel hob has a similar performance, it seems like a good investment. I had a quick Google and it looks like they're ceramic hobs that run from diesel - they tend to take a long time to heat up and cool down compared to gas hobs, but they're OK once you're used to them. 

I found a big discussion on another forum that might give you some more pros and cons - https://www.t6forum.com/threads/diesel-hob-vs-gas-hob.13552/ (edit: Though I think I've just found your similar thread on the same forum, so you've probably read it already) 

For some reason I assumed it was a burger van or similar, not a camper van which I'm now thinking you're talking about! 

On-the-coast

So at least a 7 year payback period - ignoring the inevitable fuel price fluctuations. (£1000/146)…. And all other things being equal you might need to leave the job on for a few more minutes each cooking session.
doesnt sound like financial good sense (although better if you can remove the hob when you come to replace the vehicle)

daivid

Does the diesel hob use the same fuel tank as the van? If not would 'red' diesel be an option to reduce the fuel costs? 

I'd want to try a diesel hob first, you may have done already, what are they like to cook on? 

Nobbie1967

Gas costs £2 for three hour = 66.6p per hour

diesel uses 0.27l per hour, or 3.7 hours on one litre,
diesel Cost £1.62 for 3.7 hours = 43.7p per hour

Therefore diesel is 22.9p per hour cheaper

To recoup the £1000 installation cost would take £1000/0.229 = 4367 hours of use.
At 1 hour a day, payback would take 12 years.

ThisIsWeird

GervisLooper said:

There are many positives to diesel though beyond just the money saving. I would want this if it were equal in price or even marginally more than the cost of gas.

I wont have to pay for or install a gas cupboard or have the wasted space it produces.

Also it is a combihob meaning heater and hob so I will be able to heat the space without have to add more devices thus saving space again.

Another is not having to mess about with gas bottles, their attainment compared to the ease of attaining diesel which I use for my van anyway.

Three pretty good reasons there, espec the middle one, imo.

This is not just a 'running-cost' issue, but a 'will this make my 'van life better?'!

I didn't know such things existed :-)

With the provisos given by others - does it work well as a hob and heater, for example, and what do existing users say about reliability - then you are paying a premium, but for a premium service.

It'll also very likely add value to your 'van - looks like a desirable add-on.

Andy_L

To me burning fuel to heat up a ceramic hob to then heat pans of food seems very inefficient compared to just burning the fuel & using that flame directly to heat up the pans