Dual fuel stoves

Marty,

I've got a Coleman dual fuel cooker and lantern - they both work well on unleaded - there is actually less 'smell' from fuel when turned off when using ULP. I still run about 1:5 tanks of Coleman fuel vs ULP. The Coleman fuel has a rust inhibitor added - I'm led to believe this may be a small quantity of methylated spirits. I find the Coleman tin can good for transporting fuel when not using ULP in a 20l jerry. You may be able to modify or fit a jerry holder to your trailer to make carrying fuel easier.

If carrying your stove in a box outside your trailer you may want to think about some form of padding. The stoves do rattle around a bit. I had some heavy wear marks on my fuel tank due to it vibrating in the stove whilst driving on bush tracks and country gravel roads. I found a good solution to this was the young blokes pj's - I cut a leg off and this slides over the tank and prevents rubbing.

It also pays to follow the instructions - I have 'over-pumped' my stove a few times and instead of working better for longer it just burns with a dirty yellow flame - something to remember. I also release pressure by loosening the fill cap after use. I'm not sure if this will prolong seals etc but only takes a second.

Tim - Stratford.

We have the smaller 2-burner model you mention. Works fine, provided you get your head around working the pump to keep the pressure up.
2-burner + single sounds like a good setup. The stoves last forever, so you don't want to be lumbered with a 3-burner when the kids no longer want to go camping.
Coleman make a BBQ plate, but I don't think it fits the smaller 2-burner stove - worth checking. We used to find a steamer to be good for veges on a single burner when the 4 kids used to coma away with us.

We buy the Coleman fuel - is usually marginally cheaper than shellite - about $16 for 4 litres normally. Lasts a long time. I have friends who have always used ULP without any problems for many years. We store ours into a 5 litre Rheem fuel container.

Like Tim said, they can rattle around on corrugations. I put a couple of strips of sticky velcro on the tank to stop rubbing.

No need for shellite. Just use ulp. (much cheaper)

Thanks for the replies.
I will buy them & start practising.
Marty.

Marty

I have a two burner Coleman Dual Fuel stove fitted in my camper trailer>

I have a single burner which I keep in my vehicle.

I find them excellent. I would not go back to gas. I use the coleman steel fuel containers. I have found it difficult to buy shellite. If you want to save money you can run it on unleaded and occasionally use the coleman fuel. I however always use the coleman fuel / shellite.

I also have the Coleman Dual Fuel Lantern.

You will save a lot of space using Coleman Dual Fuel and you will no longer need gas bottles.

G'day mate,

re place to buy shellite...if you can find a petroleum distributor willing to accomodate a customer such as yourself, I believe their name for this stuff is Solvent 143 (i have incorrectly referred to it as Solvent 103 in the past I think) and you may be able to score a 20L drum to save some dosh.

anyway, they are a ripper I reckon, from one person to a mob of six and beyond, can use the camp oven :) on them also if weather is crook.

I bought a Coleman "multi fuel" single burner stove about 3 years ago. I still maintain its the best peice of camping gear I have ever bought. I don`t know if the dual burners were on the market then, but if I had seen one or known about them I would have bought one.

The multi fuel stove is the same as the dual fuel stoves in the way it operates (fill with fuel, pump up and light etc) but intstead of gas it runs on either Coleman fuel or Kerosene.

I choose to run it on a kero/ULP mix instead of the Coleman fuel because it was cheaper basically. I found straight kero wasn`t volitile enough to give a hot flame on its own and it took a while to boil the billy, so I mixed about a cup of ULP into 1 litre of kero and it works really well, boils the billy in no time.
Using the stove about 5 times a day for all cooking (used in conjuction with 2 butane gas stoves), boiling the billy and heating up water for doing dishes, 1 litre of the kero/ULP mix would last around 4 days.

Thanks for the replies.
One thing that stands out is every reply is positive, not one person saying they prefer gas. No one even said my idea of having double & single burners was a bad idea. So far the only fuel I have noticed is the shellite. I will look for the coleman fuel if only to get the container. I will also see what price I can buy a 20l of Solvent 143 for. I will probably only use ULP when I run out of the other fuels, handy backup.
I had thought of padding the box I am going to make but had not thought about padding the fuel tank so I’ll do that. Also I will check that I can get a BBQ plate for the model I am looking at, might have to go up to the next model.
I recently bought a dual fuel lantern which works well, that is what go me thinking on converting my cooking away from gas and removing the gas bottles from the camper.
Thanks
From Marty.

The duel fuel are simply excellent. Out of all the camping equipment I have the duel fuel stove and the lantern are the best .

I dont even bother using shellite and havent had a problem for years. When i do (have replaced light once)i will simply put a new generator in . Im no handy man and even i can do that its a sinch. By the time you need to spend 15 bucks on a new generator I figure you will have saved the cost by just using unleaded.

will never bother with gas again.

Hi Marty

All the time we cook toast and no different to cooking on gas . We dont have a proper toast thing we just put the bread straight ontop of the coleman bars. It would be better to have one of those toast holders as sometimes i loose a crumpet in the holes .

No taste of any fumes whatsoever it burns as clean as gas as far as i can tell. Infact it burns even hotter . You can boil the kettle in no time at all and at the other end of things turn it right down low to do your toast carefully. My experience is no different to gas just no bother with cylinder burns hotter and to start it you will have a yellow flame for 1 minute till it cranks up. Just follow the instructions . Otherwise it is great . Liked the coleman stuff so much just bought the coleman hot water on demand system for our last trip . Best toys for camping .

The stove we have is the powerhouse 414 you can get a smaller one too.

happy camping