Energy Saving in the canal liveaboard galley

One big change when you leave dry land behind to live afloat is you have to become much more fuel efficient.

Even if you are on a mooring with mains power it will cost more than it did at home, and if you are cruising like us you are probably relying on firewood that you have found, sawn and huped back to the boat. So you don’t want to waste that energy!

So here are our Top Ten Tips about energy saving in the liveaboard galley!

1. We discovered Mr D’s Eco – Friendly Thermal Cooker

   at the Crick Show this year and are delighted with it! The main benefits of cooking thermally are 80% fuel cost savings as the thermal cooker will continue cooking without power after initial heating. It’s like a slow cooker without the plug. No need to have the oven on contributing to the sweltering summer heat in the metal tube which is your narrowboat! It also cooks rice, bread and scrummy cakes as well as your hard – earned dinner.

2. The Kuhn Rikon is the queen of pressure cookers and being stainless steel is not associated with the health risks of aluminium. It cooks our beans beautifully without enveloping our entire living space in steam like regular boiling which then clings to the windows in the winter like fog in a Hammer Horror. It cuts down on cooking time dramatically and therefore chisels away at fuel costs. It also doubles as another pan saving you cupboard space.
3. The Remoska: Hailing from Czechoslovakia pre -World War Two this is a mini oven. It looks like a saucepan sat on a cradle. The heating element is actually in the lid as is the on/off switch (on the handle). That’s it – no other heat regulation controls! Put food in: take cooked food out. Fab. So when gas is low you still have a baking option. It is very efficient at producing the best baked potatoes; it doesn’t exude as much heat as an the oven; it’s much smaller then an oven and therefore costs less to run.
4. The Two Flasks: Do not get these confused with The Two Ronnies. These everyday items conserve extra boiled water from the kettle for future beverages or washing up. Or washing you.
5. Ceramic Crock Pot: A delightful 1970s pottery one preferably to make you feel all Tom and Barbara. Essential for sitting on the stove in the dark depths of winter stuffed with the wood you have hunter-gathered, utilising the heat in the most earthy of ways. The closest experience to campfire cooking.
6. LED Lighting: Illuminate your onions in the best possible money conserving way. We have chosen the ‘Cool White’ glow for the galley as it’s a bit sharper and more like daylight than the relaxing lounge area ones where we relax in smoking jackets and checked slippers. Not really.
   
7. Two Stove-Top Kettles: Preferably one red as cherries and big as a panto dame’s bloomers and one coal coloured. But enough of my preferences – one can always be sitting on the wood burning stove accumulating heat free from exertion and one can live on the ring ready to jump into action at the spark of a flame. Or swap them over, pepping one up on the gas ring.
8. A High-Sided Sieve: A useful basic thing for sieving your soup. Make sure it looks like a metal dish with holes in the bottom – not all the way up the sides too. They get too messy and the mesh is teensy.
9. A microwave: I have never been a fan and can’t tell you anything about them apart from how to heat your baked beans which seems jolly sensible and speedy to me. We can only use ours when we’re plugged in at a marina as it’s 240v.
10. If you’re going to use the oven, fill it. Your gran wouldn’t have used hers to just heat through some oven chips: she would have been maximising the oven’s heat and capacity and then drying pans and wooden spoons in it. Go Gran!