Smev/dometic Woes

[Polly]

We got a welcome call today from George at LBBY. 

The long saga of our SMEV Moonlight 3 looks to be heading to a happy ending.

Briefly, the burner in the oven was burning yellow at one end. This means CO emissions and a BSSC fail come April 2017.

Gas fitter 1 couldn't get access to the burner and associated breather thingies, the whole lot is pot rivetted to save the makers time and money. 

[Polly]

To save time and costs, he took it away to do it for a fixed price in his own workshop, a great offer from a lovely bloke. Unfortunately a family issue meant that this fell through so it came back to LBBY. 

Heads were scratched, four engineers at one time or another, and even Griff pondered over it. Norfolk Marine advised. Air was jetted through repeatedly fuel was changed and a brand new burner fitted. The air mix is a sealed unit....grrrr.

Same flame pattern......argh.

So. Having had its fun, the cooker gave up being a £400 heap of trouble (before repair costs) and has started co-operating, probably the last air jetting finally cured it??

LBBY have gone the extra mile here. Now they are making sure the reinstallation, on propane this time, will be squeaky clean to avoid any more misbehaviour.  

Why oh why did the flipping manufacturers pot rivet it in the first place? None of this would have been half the trouble with a screw secured build. These things aren't cheap.

When it works, it's lovely btw and most of these cookers are absolutely trouble free. Saudde's Law in operation.

[BroadScot]

Hi Polly.

In all my years repairing electric cookers access was by removal of self taper screws. Pot Rivets is crazy to me! A deffo no no.

Iain

[Polly]

Absolutely! 

If anyone is thinking of buying one of these...I think on reflection that using Propane from the outset would have avoided all the issues. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

[Vaughan]

SMEV cookers are very nice little appliances, which work well in a small boat galley.

BUT -

We had the same problem in France with the flames having a white tip (incomplete combustion). I did several tests, as in our case this involved almost 100 cookers. SMEV insisted that this was quite normal and unfortunately, my new management did not back me up. Eventually I proved, however, that although they are supposed to be "dual fuel" they only actually work efficiently on LPG Propane, not Butane.

If you convert to propane on your boat, this may not be as difficult as you think, if you have a modern regulator, which will also be "dual fuel". Propane is less efficient in calorific value but has the advantage of still operating in very cold off-season conditions.

Another point to watch is that the SMEV burners take their "primary air" from little vents around the base of the burner, rather than through adjustable vent holes in the piping, as in old fashioned cookers. Make sure the burner assemblies are kept clean and never use foam type oven cleaning sprays as these will block the little airways in the burner. All this will cause the flame to burn with a white tip.

If in doubt, remove the burners and give them a good blast of compressed air.

[Polly]

Converting is fine for us, we have only the cooker to worry about, so new gas bottle and new regulator, is easy. LBBY is also replacing the  short run of gas pipe to the cooker as a 'belt and braces' move to avoid any lingering butane grot left behind. 

They had another customer who just needed a swap to propane, but ours was more affected.

[Poppy]

We will have to replace our cooker before next spring. Guess what I won't be buying.......

[BroadScot]

2 minutes ago, Poppy said:

We will have to replace our cooker before next spring. Guess what I won't be buying.......

One with pot rivets ! 

[Vaughan]

40 minutes ago, Poppy said:

We will have to replace our cooker before next spring. Guess what I won't be buying.......

Don't lose heart.

These are very good cookers, especially in the confined space of a small boat galley. They have a good oven and grill, electric ignition and give a good cooking heat.

Actually you can dismantle them without disturbing the pop rivets but you have to remove the whole unit from its housing and then you will find that there are cross-head screws which allow you to remove the whole exterior shell. your likelihood of actually having to do this, in a private boat, is minimal.

Despite what we have all said above, I can well recommend them.

[Islander]

Hi Vaughan, glad to hear what you said having recently install £600 smev cooker on Lady Linda. It will only ever be run on propane so hopefully will never be a problem. I must admit I found it hard to believe that a service item would be secured with pop rivets. When we bought the Green Lady she came with a smev cooker (4 burner) which was excellent. We had to replace it a few years back and at the time thought the smev were too expensive. You get what you pay for. The replacement has had to have jets cleaned on a regular basis the worst being the grill which fell to pieces and the oven jet impossible to undo and had to be done by feel with micro drill bits (the blunt end). Any more trouble and I think I will buy another smev.

When you live on your boat you want something that will do the job.

Colin

[BroadAmbition]

Now that Brilliant has a brilliant cooker,  all it needs is a decent galley slave to operate it!

Griff

[Vaughan]

Something I forgot is that the SMEV is one of the few small marine cookers that conform to EC regs by having thermocouples on all burners and an accessible fitted pressure testing point. On the right front is a small round plastic plug. if you remove this you will find the test point.

Another tip is that the screws which hold on the burner caps can rust and seize in. Always leave the screws loose by a turn, so that you can undo them again next spring. If this means that gas escapes around the screw holes, with a little blue flame, so what? It is a burner, after all.

Micro drills are not expensive, from model shops or internet. All jets have a number on the side, which indicates the size of the aperture in millimetres. Number 60, for instance (for ovens) means the hole is 0.6 mm. Older cookers are marked in SWG, but you will probably not see them any more on a boat as they have no thermocouples.

This is not officially recommended and be very careful - if you make the aperture a little bigger with the wrong size drill, then you really will get a white flame!

If you still have a gas fridge you must NEVER attempt to clean the jet. Always buy a new one.

I find that the biggest problem with cookers is the way that people clean them. Don't use fancy spray products and dry them thoroughly afterwards.

Ideally, you should get your boatyard every spring to pressure test the gas system and service the cooker. This would not take more than an hour but is well worth the peace of mind.

[Mowjo]

Same issue as I had with my Moonlight, always some yellow flame at one end, but it still worked very well and did everything better than the other cookers I've had and the only one that did good toast, but as I'm not a fan of butane I changed over to propane, nice easy job and Stalham did a straight swap on the cylinders, never gave it a thought until Judi said what have you done to the cooker? nothing I said just changed the gas why? Judi said it's cooking better and the yellow bit has gone, when I looked no yellow just nice blue flame, so put the kettle on there was definatly more gas pressure and the kettle boiled in half the time it did on butane, my daughter who has a different cooker on her boat was so impressed she asked me to change hers to propane, I did and she got the same results, My guess is Vaughan is right and they should really be run on Propane for the best results, I definatly get another Smev Moonlight best cooker I've had on all seven of the boats I've owned,,  for anyone thinking of replacing their cooker, look online and find the cheapest price and Norfolk Marine will normally price match it if you ask and have proof of the price,

[JawsOrca]

Dometics supply chain management are an absolute nightmate. I waited months for stuff on Orca.. And I'm having the repeated trouble with this boat.. 

I've paid more for an item in stock.. 2 weeks later it was due last friday which came and went with no update. My chandlers here get emails from them demanding they do not call them as they are too busy but to email them!!! But I'm making my chandlers call them daily for an update.

They are good products but seriously bad service and supply chain management.  

Looking forward to meeting them at a show one day.. 

[ZimbiIV]

Alan, good luck with the delivery.

I have been looking at the caravan suppliers for a 311GT ( it's the only one that fits in for us) and all are showing July earliest delivery.

Have a look for 1 in stock locally and cancel your order.

paul

[JawsOrca]

Thanks Paul.. that's the one I'm waiting on but they showed stock of the one with a spinner (I got a good deal  lol). Dometic do have stock they just got to get there heads out and put it on a lorry. They are a dreadful company though.

I don't really want to look about as I suspect every other dealer will be in the same position (Most show local stock but it's a lie, they mean dometic stock which is the problem). My chandlers will get through to them soon   I've kinda sad I want a delivery date this week otherwise I will rethink.. probably won't be dometic though. 

 

[ranworthbreeze]

I see that there is some on Ebay for £575 or there is this supplier at £459

https://cooltechleisure.co.uk/shop/dometic-smev-fo311gt-oven-with-grill/

Regards

Alan

[Polly]

Screws underneath Vaughan?    Argh!!  I do wish that had been picked up at the very first .... I had a quick look yesterday and it wasn't obvious.

Griff, I know where you live....  

Would I buy the same again? Possibly, it's the nicest looking one out there, I think; easy to clean, and hob and grill have been fine. I don't like the grill heat shield that pulls out, it's tinny and doesn't keep the controls cool as intended,also the oven racks have poor support, you can't pull them part way out to check the cooking, without the risk of everything falling down into  the back of the oven. Very few give trouble apparently and the spares are cheap.

Now that ours is working properly, I am quite happy.

I would look at Norfolk Marine as supplier, price was very competitive and they have been very helpful. 

 

[Islander]

We bought ours through Norfolk Marine. They didn't stock the model we wanted but ordered one direct from Italy. It took six weeks to come as I was refitting the galley but well worth the wait. With out checking I think ours was a 313. This has 3 burners and the controls are on the front right hand side. Much easier to keep clean. We had the 4burner model (old) on the Green Lady but this had the controls on the top and was a nightmare to keep clean.

Colin

 

p.s. Work in progress.

[Islander]

Hi Paul and Alan, is this the one you are looking for?

http://www.norfolkmarine.co.uk/shop-online/smev-built-oven-with-grill-ignition-p-6740.html

They are well worth a ring.

Colin

[JawsOrca]

Thanks Colin.. I just reserved one