Lightest weight usable oven/stove?

[HHaase]

Doing some long-term planning here, for my '65 Safari. One concern is that I'm within weight for my tow vehicle, but would still like to reduce the overall empty weight of the trailer.

For most things it's easy to find smaller/lighter modern replacements.

What about the oven? Any way to drop a decent amount of pounds here?

Unfortunately, I'm currently separated by about 2,000 miles from the trailer, so can't measure or weight the original.

-Hans

[slowmover]

I looked online briefly for shipping weight of new ranges, but didn't see one. Even if 110-lbs s/w, what weight savings would be worthwhile? (I understand the concern). 15%, or 16-lbs? That's two gallons of water, roughly.

Short of highly expensive yacht ranges which may weigh less, the convenience of standard build, parts, and availability of same make the ordinary Magic Chef, etc, decent choices.

I'd also add in to my questions on this ones of how heavy usage may be (or, could be). My current concern is how long one will last under constant use.

In turn, I'd rather pay more, reinforce cabinetry for more weight, if I knew better performance and longer life could be achieved by a minor weight penalty.

If your search is fruitless, maybe a question of how and where it is to be mounted would be more effective where the COG is altered favorably.

.

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by HHaase

Doing some long-term planning here, for my '65 Safari. One concern is that I'm within weight for my tow vehicle, but would still like to reduce the overall empty weight of the trailer.

For most things it's easy to find smaller/lighter modern replacements.

What about the oven? Any way to drop a decent amount of pounds here?

Unfortunately, I'm currently separated by about 2,000 miles from the trailer, so can't measure or weight the original.

-Hans

There is no real way to drop "many" pounds from the trailer.

First of all, you should ALWAYS tow the trailer "FULL" of water. Between the water tank and water heater, you now have 320 pounds of added weight. Traveling with "FULL" water, lowers the center of gravity and helps to stabilize the trailer when making curves.

Lastly, if you reduced the amount of trailer weight by 1000 (one thousand) pounds, and traveled cross country, you would find that you saved MAYBE 1 to 2 percent on the mileage.

Save yourself headaches and back pains, leave the trailer weight as is. Other wise, you will spend a bunch of money and time, and really gain nothing.

Towing the empty shell, would add that 1 to 2 percent, but would be extremely unstable. Every little gust of wind would shove that trailer all over the road.

Andy

[HHaase]

Fair enough answers, no doubt about it.

I'm not really making the weight savings my primary focus, but the trailer is likely going to need a rebuild either way, and I figured if I was already replacing things I might as well modernize and take out un-necessary weight. Such as that 40-50lbs or so of the univolt

My main concern really is that my Safari is advertised around 3200lbs empty, and with a w/d hitch I'm only rated at towing 4,000lbs on my current tow vehicle. Wanted to give myself a bit more of a buffer zone for hauling cargo, water and such.

-Hans

[mutcth]

To go back to the original question, you could get rid of the oven and just use a two burner cooktop. Or, if you always camped where there was electric, you could bring a portable induction burner. But an oven doesn't weigh that much - 89 pounds for the high-end Seaward Princess ($1000!) that I was eyeballing earlier today.

I know the RV Weight Police have drummed into everyone that towing at or over the towing capacity of their tow vehicle will cause instant death. It won't. Andy's right - full water tanks and more tongue weight make for a more stable towing experience. And the relatively light tongue weight of your Safari (which increases with full tanks) means you're not going to really be taxing the tow vehicle's payload or axle ratings. Finally, aerodynamics will have more of an affect on fuel economy than weight.

It's laudable to take weight savings into account. But don't sweat it that much.

Tom