Appliances
The small inconvenience of the slower and often smaller appliances is easily overlooked on a ship where power is a constant priority and these devices use less than half of their North American counterparts. This efficiency costs more at the outset as we found European prices about 40% higher than in Canada, but again the energy savings is an important factor when you may be running off battery power for days.
We selected a stove or hob that is not only separated from the oven but which can have the power sourced differently from the higher consuming unit. The oven needs the generator for operation, which would satisfy about 10% of all the cooking requirements. The other 90% is met by the stove and this operates from shore power or inverter as long as we don't use more than three medium heat burners at once. We chose to use electric power for cooking rather than gas in part as a safety issue and in part because when it is set up correctly the ship's electrical system meets the cooking needs very effectively at very low cost or inconvenience.
We installed a combination microwave and fume hood above the stove. This is a bit pricey compared to two separate units but space is always a premium and the combination really does save space.
Of all our appliances, the only item that might be considered pure luxury, and not necessarily a good trade-off against space utilization, and I am choosing my words carefully here, is the dishwasher. With, for the most part, only two people's dishes to be washed up the dishwasher does tend to be a bit of an inventory location with rather slow moving stock. But we can always remove it and put in a cupboard, and so far we haven't been tempted to do so.
