Do you really need an oven?

13

Comments

  • ABM
    ABM Forum Participant Posts: 14,578
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    edited February 2018 #62

    I  may  be  very  flexible  in  some  respects,  Young  Feller-me-lad,  but  should  I  ever  manage  in  the  future  to  do  such  things,  you'll  know  I've  done  it  from  the  ear-splitting  screams  from  my  direction  !!

  • Whittakerr
    Whittakerr Club Member Posts: 3,472 ✭✭✭✭
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    edited February 2018 #63

    I use the oven in my caravan regularly and wouldn’t buy a caravan without one. I use the microwave on every trip. To store bread in!

  • Arrivakids
    Arrivakids Forum Participant Posts: 214
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    edited February 2018 #64

    We have a Halogen Oven which we use , as our Motorhome only has  a small  grill and oven combined it works fine for us .

  • bobadoodle
    bobadoodle Forum Participant Posts: 6
    edited March 2018 #65

    It really depends where you travel.   We recently swapped our Adria Twin SP, without an oven for an Autosleeper Kingham which does have one.       We hate barbeques and use the oven a lot.     In a PVC with the big door open you are almost outside anyway.

    When we did a big trip to Norway, Sweden and Finland, mostly wildcamping inside the Arctic circle we used the oven a lot including cooking partbaked bread and rolls.   It also helped to keep us warm.

    We tent-camped for years without an oven but are very pleased to have one again.

     

  • dawlishpete
    dawlishpete Forum Participant Posts: 16
    edited March 2018 #66

    Microwave in ours, and a cadac bbq for outside and the option to plug in a slo-cooker externally. Dont miss the conventional oven one bit.

  • young thomas
    young thomas Forum Participant Posts: 11,356
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    edited March 2018 #67

    Pete, nice one, hadnt even considered using the slow cooker outside...

    generally, when we are cooking outside, it's in a hot place....our slow cooker tends to do casseroles etc, perhaps we can widen the menu?

    secondly, it's also something we put on inside when out for a winter walk or cycle. if it were outdoors, I would have thought it might get nicked, especially if a much nicer one than our cheap, small one lolwink

  • wye
    wye Forum Participant Posts: 241
    edited March 2018 #68

    We camp off grid as much as possible , we use the cadac weather permitting or onboard cooker including the oven .

    When on hookup love to usebthe slow cooker too.

  • ABM
    ABM Forum Participant Posts: 14,578
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    edited March 2018 #69

    And  afterwards  you  could  re-proof  your  wax  socks  innocent

  • SuttonColdfield
    SuttonColdfield Forum Participant Posts: 7
    edited March 2018 #70

    We gave up on an oven many years ago despite the 'van at the time having one. Too much work involved so we took our combination microwave along so that we could bake the part baked bread we take with us. Our 'van we last had, a Burstner, being continental make did not have an oven and having just changed to a motorhome without one but to us this was no loss. However, the problem with our MH is where to put the microwave as it is too large for any where to sensibly place it. The MH is a short 6.0metres in length (to fit on our drive). I will just have to be inventive!

  • Qashqai66
    Qashqai66 Forum Participant Posts: 551
    edited March 2018 #71

    We have used the slow cooker outside a great deal in previous years.  A while back we had to spend a month near Edinburgh early in the year for medical treatment.  We found that the slow cooker worked astonishingly well outside on the ground even through there was settling snow.  Why outside?  My wife dislikes cooking smells and the slow cooker takes up space.

    Thank you to all of you for help and advice on this issue.  We are now working towards a motorhome with no microwave - not a good idea with a pacemaker anyway - and no oven.  We will use the gas burner hob and our Remoska outside.

  • Cajun Duo
    Cajun Duo Forum Participant Posts: 48
    edited March 2018 #72

    Travel year round both wild and site camping and use the cooker year round as well, must say a lot more in winter. As somebody said cooking part baked bread when far from a bakery is a fantastic use of the oven so is cooking something in it at night when its freezing cold like it has been this winter. Hot food and warm van. You cannot realy cook outside in the rain snow etc.cool

  • Qashqai66
    Qashqai66 Forum Participant Posts: 551
    edited July 2018 #73

    My wife and I are pleased that we have had an enforced delay in choosing a motorhome which is a big decision after caravanning for forty years.  We are now seriously considering a Swift Escape 622.  This year there is a dealer special called Spirit, available from a dealer local to us, which we like.  The only factor we don't like is the oven which we would never use.  I do wish that the manufacturers would give us a choice.  A two or three burner hob and no microwave is what we would choose and that would enable more storage.  I don't know if it is realistic to ask the dealer to remove both oven and microwave but I suspect that the cost might outweigh the advantage.  

    Has anyone done this conversion?

  • EmilysDad
    EmilysDad Forum Participant Posts: 8,973
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    edited July 2018 #74

    The trouble with giving Joe Bloggs a choice of options is that you end up where Mercedes are now .... every second hand vehicle you look at is different from the last ... some have this, some have that but very rarely do they have both this & that.

     

  • Qashqai66
    Qashqai66 Forum Participant Posts: 551
    edited July 2018 #75

    Point taken and a valid one at that.  Looking at the photo of the interior once again I can see that it could be argued that the oven is quite useable as storage and is there should we ever choose to use it.  I cannot imagine so doing but ideas undergo change.

  • cyberyacht
    cyberyacht Forum Participant Posts: 10,218
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    edited July 2018 #76

    If all you want is a three burner hob instead of a full kitchen then your best bet is to buy a continental MH. They seldom have a proper kitchen. That was why my OH vetoed the s/h Carthago that I was quite taken with.

  • Unknown
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    edited July 2018 #77
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  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,195 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2018 #78

    Oh course you need an oven far more than a microwave IMHO 😉. Nothing stopping you using it in the way that suits you - so long as you don't accidently turn it on 😂

  • Unknown
    Unknown Forum Participant
    edited July 2018 #79
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  • EmilysDad
    EmilysDad Forum Participant Posts: 8,973
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    edited July 2018 #80

    I know they're made to order .... if you watched James May a year or 2 back when he was at the Mini factory in the Midlands, he showed the assembly card that each car carries that shows colour & interior colour etc, the data card isn't unique to Mercedes. 

    IMHO the real reason is to make more money. Try 'building' a car on their website. Set off with a not-so-cheap car & then add the things you'd like and you very quickly add £thousands to the original price. 

    My last car, when bought new, had just 2 boxes to tick on the options list .... NOT leather & 3 pedals for those that 'want to be in control' .... everything else was standard.

  • Unknown
    Unknown Forum Participant
    edited July 2018 #81
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  • EmilysDad
    EmilysDad Forum Participant Posts: 8,973
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    edited July 2018 #82

    Most Mercs seem to be black or silver wink

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2018 #83

    I think it really depends on where you stay and what your meal preferences are. In Southern European stays we tend not to use that onboard oven whilst back home in the usual northern climes we do! The choice is yours, just as it should be in my opinion.

  • BrianJosie
    BrianJosie Forum Participant Posts: 391
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    edited July 2018 #84

    Well for us ,a Motorhome without an oven would just be incomplete,Jo does a lot of cooking when we are away so she uses the oven a lot.Some people have said to us why do a lot of cooking when you are on holiday? The answer is because we enjoy it.

    Brian & Jo

  • Chrystal
    Chrystal Forum Participant Posts: 231
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    edited July 2018 #85

    Cannot live without an oven. How would I warm up the Shepherds Pie or scouse I always take with us for our first meals. Cannot stand “ping” meals. (Microwave).

    I can cook an whole meal of meat, veg and spuds in an oven.

  • Qashqai66
    Qashqai66 Forum Participant Posts: 551
    edited July 2018 #86

    Yes but none of the continental motorhomes have a parallel lounge layout; the only one which suits our needs.

  • bandgirl
    bandgirl Forum Participant Posts: 440
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    edited July 2018 #87

    I use the oven and grill in our caravan all the time, and the microwave occasionally.  If we go away in the winter I take our small slow cooker.  We don’t BBQ.

  • InaD
    InaD Club Member Posts: 1,701 ✭✭
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    edited July 2018 #88

    Not quite true: we had a Hymer 584 with twin settees for a number of years, with a kitchen at the back, in common with many UK built vans.

    Not up to date with more modern models, so perhaps they are no longer made.

     

  • Tigi
    Tigi Forum Participant Posts: 1,038
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    edited July 2018 #89

    We need something to dust out every now and then -  never use it 

  • hitchglitch
    hitchglitch Forum Participant Posts: 3,007
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    edited July 2018 #90

    I suspect that the “oven/no oven” division partly depends on where you holiday. If you go in search of good weather (like us) then to use an oven when it’s 30 degrees would be unthinkable and to eat the kind of food that you cook in an oven equally so.

  • Hudds
    Hudds Forum Participant Posts: 1
    edited July 2018 #91

    We have no oven or grill in our van but find a Remoska invaluable for use in the UK and when touring abroad. With a bit of imagination, we can cook almost anything in it.