Wallas stove replacement options

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PNWNEWM

New member
Hey all. I am looking at a boat which has the stove missing. I don't have a lot of faith that it will be tracked down. I'm wondering what options are out there for a replacement that isn't $3,000 or if the Wallas Nordic DT is the end all stove and I just bite the bullet and buy that. Thanks in advance!

Ryan
 
I do a fair amount of cold weather boating, so I have a Webasto diesel heater, and it works great. As far as a cooking stove, we use a small portable one burner Butane stove. Does the job quite well. The boat came with a alcohol/electric KISS stove. I removed that and put a butcher block (7/8" solid oak board) in it's place. We can use the butane stove there, or anywhere we desire. The Webasto is going to run close to $2000 with everything. There are Chinese knockoffs for a lot less, but considering you have a flame inside the burner can, I decided to stick with the Webasto in this case. Colby
 
I know this opinion might get me kicked out of C-Brats: The Wallas stovetop and 1300 forced air heater that I had were both more hassle than they were worth. I spent more time trying to fix them than use them.

I shelled out some extra $$ for a "good" name brand Chinese diesel heater, and that also had several issues and got kicked off the boat.

I now use a camping style stove and a Dickinson Propane fireplace. There's not much that can go wrong with the Dickinson, and you can leave it for a month or a year without thinking about it, and it's still going to work. Old fuel is also not an issue. Also looks good!

Again, not going to make any friends here with this statement, but: I would consider the missing stove a blessing! :D
 
I totally agree that the Wallas stove is more trouble than it's worth. I have also spent more hours troubleshooting the thing over the years than I have generating any actual heat out of it. I was astounded to find out the thing is a $4500 option on new boats. Wow!

I was interested in this thread from 7 years ago http://www.c-brats.com/viewtopic.php?p= ... af370c3ede, timflan had a nice inexpensive idea to fill the counter cut out. I'm going to be researching heater replacements, will look into the Dickinson propane.
 
Coming up on six years with our Wallas Nordic DT stove. No problems ever with the unit and we are very satisfied with its use.

We operate the unit minimum once a month for 15 minutes and use red dye farm diesel.
 
We had a lot of problems with the original Wallas. A real love/hate relationship. It quit during several of our extended cruises, then on our 2012 extended SE Alaska cruise, I had to replace it or do without early in a three month cruise. Ended up replacing while on the cruise with a 85 model. That was 11 years ago & it’s been virtually trouble free since. 2012 was a very cold wet spring/summer in SE Alaska & we ended up running it for 784 hours in just the last 2 months of that cruise. That’s an average of running it for 13 hours a day for 60 days. I believe, from listening to others who have one, like Gary, the latest heater cooktop model, the Nordic DT is as good or better than any of the other options now, but the price like most everything else hard to take. One of my sons has one in his rvtrailer & his only complaint is with trailer being a small more for off road design, even on low heat it often overheats, the small inside trailer space.

Jay
 
My Nordic DT is a year older than Gary's and has been equally reliable. I love the thing, which I use about 10 months of the year for cooking and/or heating. Sometimes I use my one burner butane stove for quick stuff like steaming vegetables or boiling water. But the Wallas has been flawless.
 
I have the exact same setup as Colby. I love the flexibility of the butane stove. The forced air heat can't be beat (for one thing the heat exits the system at floor level). Removing the stove creates a lot more counter space in the galley.

Frankly, if a boat doesn't already have a stove & heat system, going portable stove and diesel heat is the only ( :wink: ) way to go....at least in cooler climates.

P.S. I offer one proviso. The butane stove uses those paint-can sized butane cylinders. If you want to boil a couple of quarts of water to cook crab or pasta etc, I find it wasteful to do that on the butane stove. So I have a relatively small inexpensive Coleman one burner 10,000 BTU burner head for that. It uses the ubiquitous 1 pound propane cylinders (which doubles as the stove's base) which I refill myself from a 5 gallon tank so fuel cost is ignorable. (I normally use the Coleman in the cockpit since usually there is a lot of steam involved.)
 
Hi Ryan,

Another FL resident bought the former Noro-Lim, removed the working undercounter Wallas heater and sold it to us for $200.

After our exploratory Sept 2022 cruise from Ketchikan to Bellingham on the David B, we decided we preferred the Inside Passage of BC over Alaska and wouldn’t want to give up the undercounter space as mostly warm-weather cruisers.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/ ... 4862437187
We like a two burner $25 Coleman propane stove in the cockpit when anchoring out.

You (or anyone else) can have the Wallas heater for $200 plus shipping. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I suspect this might be your best option even if it turns out you need help from Scan Marine. PM me if interested. We plan on leaving April 26 for an ‘all of FL coasts’ Loop Segment.

Cheers,

John
 
My boat came with Kenyon butane stove built into my galley. It worked fine until the seals went and it became unsafe to use. Since seal kits are no longer available for that stove, I removed it and made a hardwood top for the counter where it went. Now I use portable butane stoves. I have two, a large one and a small one. I can use one or the other or both as is suitable for the cooking job at hand. I can also use the stoves in the cockpit or ashore as desired.

It depends on what you are looking for. Are you cooking, heating the boat, or both? The best solution depends on how you answer that question.
 
When we bought our 27fter It had neither a heater or a cook top. We decided on a espar heater system and I installed it my self. Easy to do and works great. Now that you can get them on amazon for half of what I paid. My good friend alex but one in his 3oft bay liner and loves it. cost 200 buck and has a remote that mine does not.

For cook top my wife and i both love the Origo alcohol stove. Its simple it works and its stupid proof. It just works every time. You can get fuel at any hardware store or large grocery store. Kmart or walmart or any place like that. Susan cook a lot of food on it. CraB, shrimp, fish, pasta noodles. fried chicken etc.. we do not eat a lot of sandwiches or camping food. Its egg sausage and harsh browns for breakfast every day. All that on a two burner stove top. best thing we did was to NOT put another wallas in the boat. Had on in the 22 and it was a constant problem after the first year.
 
Thank you all. What are folks that are using propane, butane, alcohol stoves doing about ventilation? Do you just keep windows and/or door open when cooking?

As for the stand alone heaters, are those easy to attach to the current exhaust port on the boat? Thanks!
 
another great thing about the espar style heater is they remove moister from the cabin. There are two air intakes. One for air you will heat and one for the burner. If you draw the burner air from the floor of the cab and not from the out side as the instructions say to, You will pick up all the moisture in the cab and burn it off and exhaust it to the our side. This really helps lower the humitiy/moisture in the cabin of the boat. We can dry towels in front of the hot air outlet at the table by hanging then from the table. more then enough heat with just the one out let.
 
What are folks that are using propane, butane, alcohol stoves doing about ventilation? Do you just keep windows and/or door open when cooking?
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Like I said, if I'm going to create a lot of steam, I cook in the cockpit (I just set the stove up on top of my cooler). If I'm inside, I have lots open; unless it's cold, then I crack windows a few inches near the galley (I do this for steam, I have never worried about CO2 etc...although a CO monitor is a must but mostly for engine fumes not stove).

As for the stand alone heaters, are those easy to attach to the current exhaust port on the boat?
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What do you mean by "stand alone heater"? Something like a Heater Buddy? "Exhaust port"....what's that?
 
We use the single-burner propane camping stove outside the boat whenever possible, mostly for the smell and moisture. We do a lot of boat-in camping where there are docks, picnic tables and shelters. If inside the cabin, I crack a window.

It is important to understand the risks of propane and ignition sources. In addition to common sense and always sniff-testing the connections, I use a Propane and CO2 monitor/alarm. I also disconnect the disposable cans when not in use and keep them in a lazarette that I vented overboard.

For HEAT, I would be sure to use a system that takes combustion air from the outside and sends the exhaust outside.

The Chinese diesel heater that I had did not connect to the existing wallas exhaust fitting. The wallas fittings are both intake and exhaust where the knockoff stuff has separate intake and exhaust. A stainless swan-neck exhaust for the Chinese heaters are readily available and inexpensive, but mine was slightly smaller than the Wallas and required a plate to cover the old hole. One of many pains in going away from the Wallas stuff.

If you're not handy, a used or new Walls stovetop might be the easiest and fastest solution!
 
For HEAT, I would be sure to use a system that takes combustion air from the outside and sends the exhaust outside
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Why? I will tell you why all the instructions sa to do so. These units are built for car and trucks that have far better sealing then a boat. Its to not remove all the oxygen from an inclosed space. Our boats are far to porous for that to be a concern. You gain far more benefit of removing moisture then any Imagined risk.

As for the little buddy heaters. This is a long fought over and over again myth. They are rated for and can be use in side. Say so on the box and on thier web site. Still not sure why people are not informed of this still.

With the Oxygen Depletion Sensor (ODS) and accidental tip-over safety shut-off you can be sure that you will enjoy years of comfortable indoor safe heat.
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From thier web site.
 
I went out to the garage and took down the bin it’s been in since purchase. Turns out it’s not an undercounter only heater, it’s a Wallas Safeflame Kerosene Mini Cooker 800/220 combo stove and heater (with the top down). Looks like this except used:

https://www.nauticexpo.com/prod/wallas- ... 32549.html

The label says Scan Marine installed it 0506. The manual says “The combustion gases and water vapor are discharged overboard which keeps the boat interior dry and fresh.”

I took pictures of the components. If you want to see them, please email me at johnhighsmith9@gmail.com (I don’t need these pics in my album). I apologize for my confusion, but I’ll be 68 tomorrow and pray I’ll never face a quiz on what else is in the garage that I’ve forgotten about.

Cheers!

John
 
It seems that another option would be a cheap electric heater. May take up more space, since it has to be out, but they seem to heat very fast and they are obviously dry. Most folks seem to have an inverter onboard and the heater doesn't take much power. Then just add a butcher block over the hole in the counter and get a 2 burner propane stove to use with the windows and/or door open. Thoughts?
 
Tom,

You bring up a point I've always wondered about. I'd be interested in your opinion.

Clearly, one wants to take air from inside the boat, heat it up, and blow it back into the boat. This allows the re-heating of already heated air so as to produce even warmer air. On the combustion side obviously the combustion gases must vent outside. This leaves the combustion intake. My first thought was it's safest to get air from outside, but I tend to agree with you that any air extracted from inside is easily replaced in the very non air tight enclosure of a boat, so that's not an issue for me. My curiosity concerns what's best for both gaining temperature and eliminating humidity: getting combustion air from inside or from outside? Grabbing air from inside should lower humidity since in a cold climate the relative humidity of the air outside is going to be lower than the air inside given warmer temperature, breathing, cooking, clothes drying, etc. But you are also grabbing air warmed by the heater, throwing it outside and sucking in cold air from outside thru various cracks etc. I wonder which is more desirable?
 
Most folks seem to have an inverter onboard and the heater doesn't take much power.
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Are you kidding me? Nothing soaks up electricity more than attempting to heat something up. Using an inverter and batteries, you'd suck the batteries dry in no time. I use an electric heater when I have shore power; and as you suggest, it works great. I typically have it set at 500 watts, but if the setting existed, even 300 watts would do the trick I think. Taking even the lower 300 watts, that's about 30 amps (at 12v). So in 2 hours my 110 amp-hour battery bank (2 batteries) would be down to 50% SOC.....the lowest I allow my batteries to go. No workie.
 
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