Ovens in van yes or no

Hi Kay,

Don't have a van so can't offer a direct answer. But maybe ask yourself the following questions to find your answer.
Do you use your oven at home much?
What foods would you normally cook in an oven at home that you cant do without while you are travelling?
How long will you be travelling in your van - you may use an oven more on long trips, especially if they are done when the weather is cooler.
Do you do campfire cooking where you can make damper, camp roasts, stews etc?
Do you want your van full of cooking smells, vapours?

When we travel (in a much more basic rig than a van) and for up to 4 months at a time, we take some pre-prepared meals, vac packed and frozen, and use a camp oven for roasts, stews and damper.

Hope that helps a bit!

Cheers,
Val.

We have one. Rarely use it. Occasional roast.
We also have a bread maker. Use it lots.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Our gets used on almost every trip. Works on gas. Have roof mounted fan so no odours in van. Jim

We included one in our van build in 2007, used it twice. Just updated vans and this one has no oven by choice.

We carry a Weber BabyQ on which most cooking is done.

If something too large to go in the Baby needs cooking I carry a Turbo Oven which operates on a table under the awning.

No smells inside.

We opted not to have an oven in our van. It seems a bit like cooking in the bedroom.

Skull

Van dealer in Adelaide said lots of traded vans come in with oven manual still in ithe oven.Never been used.

Hi kay
I use our oven a lot no problem with smells
Our last van had no oven so we carried a small snack oven but it is no good away from mains a good gas oven is the way to go we had a bread maker waist of time to noisy and slow wraps are the way to go when bread is hard to get
Steve

Our van's Smev oven gets used a lot, both in caravan parks and while free camping - we find that after having camper trailers for 10 years, our travel diet is much improved because the oven opens up more convenient cooking possibilities. We always fry/grill/roast outdoors in the Cobb or on a portable griller etc. (to avoid lingering cooking smells in the van) but the oven is great for scones, vegetable slices, casseroles, puddings etc. As mentioned above, your preferred cooking habits at home can transfer to the van if you have an oven. Oh.... as for the microwave..... we've carted that all over Oz and hardly used it.... pretty much useless for us.

As others have said...Personal choice.

If it helps, there is almost nothing that needs an oven that cannot be done with a BBQ or a wok...I have even made bread rolls and damper in my wok...The main thing to watch is the temp. You don't have precise control with a wok or BBQ, it is either "hot", "very hot" or "bloody hot mate" ;)

An oven will, of course, give much better heat control for things like cakes and deserts etc.

I do quite a lot of roasting and baking...in fact, I am about to bake a loaf of bread for dinner tonight...and I cannot honestly remember the last time I used an oven.

We ordered our current van 3 years ago without an oven and have no regrets. An oven takes a lot of space so you would need to use it a lot to justify it - we find a large pot drawer more valuable and we use that all the time.
For roasting, baking and bread the Baby Q is great and economical to run. A thermal cooker does wonderful soups and casseroles while we are out and about and uses almost no gas at all. Even at home I never use the oven for casseroles now.
Caravanning is supposed to be fun and relaxing - no way do I want to even think of cleaning an oven! We use the Baby Q all the time for roasts at home now too!
Even on really long trips we have never wished for an oven. Lynne

Hi Kay,

As Val said in her reply, firstly ask yourself whether you use an oven at home very frequently.

Cooking is one of my great interests, along with eating!
I have one in my current van and had one in the previous van, and love it. I use it quite often when we are travelling for roasting vegetables for salads, baking healthy cakes and slices, oven steaming fish in foil/baking paper parcels amongst other things.
If we are powered and can run the aircon, I can still use it without heating up the van inside too much.
Not sure why people don't cook inside their vans. Our exhaust fan helps get rid of odours (most of them smell delicious anyway) and unless the weather is very hot, I always use the cooktop and/or oven.
I believe for better resale value, a van needs an oven. I would not consider buying one without.

When we are able, we use a campfire and camp oven to cook on/in. When its very hot, I cook outside on a single butane powered gas burner.

This works for us.

regards,
Heather

WE have had 4 vans, two with ovens and two without. When we were looking for another van SWMBO demanded that we get a van with a full oven.
Her reason was that some times when the weather or fire restrictions does not permit
the use of fires so that we cannot use the camp oven she could still cook cakes and a roast if warranted. Our current van has said oven and I have found that the oven is used regularly. We love our pies and baked meals.
Yet I still use the camp oven regularly. So the van oven gives us another choice when cooking.
I upgraded the range hood in the van by adding an additional fan in the exhaust system to help vent the stove. Specially when cooking toast. Helps stop the smoke alarm going off.

It often amuses me that people will not cook in their van yet skite about their kitchen, why have one when you don't use it.
Same goes for the onsuite.

Kay,

Back in the '80's, we lived in a van, with wall oven, for nearly 6 years. As most of the time was spent on the Barkly Tablelands, firewood was a scarce commodity, so we rarely had a camp fire. And being on cattle stations, there was plenty of beef available so we had lots of roasts, casseroles and baked steak, as well as usual cakes and biscuits.

Asked this morning if she would have an oven in a van again, Linda replied "yes, if we were staying in one spot a lot". At the moment we don't use the oven much at home, usually use the microwave and fry pan. Do have a Turbo Oven, and they're the "bee knees".Cook a beautiful roast, chicken kiev etc, and easy to clean.

So think we would have an oven in the van.....if we had a van :-)

Bob.

we have one in our van and love it, use it alot..
keith

Kay
It probably depends on how much time you spend in you van, we spend six months at a time in our van fitted with an oven and we wouldn't be without it, we carry a Baby Q as well, sure you can cook cakes and biscuits in the Q but it is much easier in the oven. Don't know what the fuss is about regarding smell.

Thanks everyone for all your comments. By your answers I think we definitely need to get a BabyQ and have until late Feb. to decide on the oven. Kay

We have an oven in the Bushtracker. It was unused when we bought the van (11yrs old). I have used it once. We use the gas cooktop sometimes to boil.
I prefer to cook outside with the Webber baby Q, butane cookers or campfire.
Cooking inside is for home..though even there most of the cooking is done on the Webber family BBQ.
I used to have a Windsor caravan with an oven, never used the oven, just the cooktop.

We paid extra in our new van to upgrade stove to one with an oven. The 2 features my wife likes the most in our van (in terms of usefulness & convenience) is the washing machine and oven. When travelling she uses it for baking cakes mainly (once or twice a week) and occasionally a roast dinner. No fumes at all just have the exhaust fan on. There is nothing like home made cakes especially ones with lemon icing (from bush lemons found along the way) and a fresh cup of tea. Is there anything better than the smell of freshly baked cakes and anzac biscuits? For us an oven is essential. Just depends on what your cooking/baking agenda is.

The only thing I cook at home in an oven is a nice roast.
If I want one when travelling, I go to the nearest pub/club

When we are touring, we are on holidays and I want to get meals quickly and easily, so the oven is not used often, however I would not be without it. I use it to make bread rolls, a 'damper' loaf, brown cheese topping on easy meals, and make a cheat's roast by browning vegetables while reheating a purchased roast chicken. I am not much of a cakes and biscuits cook at the best of times. With limited travelling time, we are on the move or away on day trips most days.

I carry no electric appliances for cooking - bulky, heavy and I can still cook on gas even if we go to a powered site.

Motherhen