Replacing oven on 53/54MY

[Bill Root]

We are going to sea trial and survey on a 54' MY this week. If all goes well closing will be 6/25. One of the things I promised the admiral is a galley re-model. The boat has the original Modern Maid wall oven and cook top over the dishwasher.

Replacing the countertops, cooktop and dishwasher seem to be pretty straightforward. My original idea had been to replace the Modern Maid wall oven with a new wall oven. However, in looking at photos on yachtworld of all the listed 53-58' galley down Hatterases I can't find any boats that have done this. All the boats with remodeled galleys have either a new countertop cook top with a combination microwave/convection oven above, or a drop-in oven/range with just a microwave above. None have replaced the old Modern maid unit with a new wall oven. The old unit is 30" wide, so simply taking out the old wall oven and putting in a new 30" unit would seem to make perfect sense, but I figure there must be some reason why no-one is doing that.

What am I missing here, folks? Thanks much.

 

[Fanfare]

You CAN do anything with these galleys, but sometimes it gets complicated. I replaced our original GE stove with a self-cleaning wall oven and cooktop when adding Corian countertops. Doing all together made it fit. It seems the manufacturers are constantly varying the dimensions of their products so nothing quite goes in the old spot. I have a great ship's carpenter, so instead of looking for some off-brand appliance which would fit my spot I had my guy rebuild to adjust drawers and cabinet doors to fit my new brand-name appliances. We cook a lot when on board (13 kids and grandkids for spring break) so our galley needs to be nice. Hatteras did a fine job of designing this space, and I did not want to radically change this. We originally had a tiny but water-efficient dishwasher, no longer made. And I can't fit even a half-sized dishwasher in without sacrificing too much cabinet storage. So there are sacrifices. But our larger refrigerator/freezer serves us well. If there are a lot of people we just use paper plates.

One thing to think about. Many home repair appliance companies do not insure their workers for work aboard boats. Jones act, I think, has huge payments for job related injuries. If you need a repairman, don't tell them it's a boat.

If you want a great carpenter for your galley and you are near Ft. Lauderdale, call Jerry Leddy (954) 581-8071. There was an article about him in Motorboating (?- I did read it) on a complete relocation replacement galley on a smaller Hatt YF a few years ago, so somebody was impressed!

Doing it right does cost more in the short run, but sure pays off in the end.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

The new wall oven can't be located that high due to the way it opens. The Modernmaid has a swinging door and most wall ovens have the hinge at the bottom. Also, if you still want the cooktop below, you need something with a vent fan above. This is why most people opt for the "spacesaver" microwave above the stovetop.

Here are some pics:

 

[SKYCHENEY]

A few more so you can see what's there once you remove the MM unit:

 

[Angela]

The galley makeover I am planning has a regular wall oven (27" size - not huge, but I'm not making Thanksgiving turkeys in it either) where the GM wall oven was, and a dishwasher directly under that, as in sitting on top of the dishwasher. The cooktop will be relocated to the other side of the galley. While that will work for me, I'm not seeing it in a galley down set up, but maybe some of you who actually have those layouts can. Here are some photos of a 58MY that has the galley I want - without the white cabinets, though - I'm keeping the teak.

 

[Bill Root]

Ang/Sky/Jim:

Thanks for the great information. Now I understand a little better. It's all about space, door height and venting. I thought there might be some electrical situation prohibiting the use of a regular built-in oven. The 54 MY is a good 2.5 ft wider than the 53, so I may be able to overcome some of those issues. Not sure about the oven door height problem, though. My wife is short, so at the end of the day I may have to go with the convection oven above the cooktop . Next step now is to get through the surveys and sea trials tomorrow and Wednesday.

 

[Walter P]

Looks good Ang, even in white. When are you doing this?

Walt

 

[Angela]

I don't know yet, Walter. Right now, I'm replacing the galley/salon air conditioning - hopefully the new units will be done this week and ready for install early next week. Before I do the galley remodel, I'm going to get rid of the off-white carpet and put in hardwood floor so I don't have to worry about what's being tracked on in shoes anymore. "Part No. 36-long" said she'd help me with that.

 

[Angela]

Bill, I'm short too. If you do the wall oven as shown in my exemplar photos, the oven is really just at the height of my chest as if it's sitting on top of the countertop. Now, if I were to try to raise it high enough to cram a cooktop underneath it, I'd be too vertically challenged to use it. For me, personally, those microwave/convection oven combo things are useless, but cooking is my passion and I need to have the real thing - a real oven.

I'm going to lose a couple of drawers to the cooktop on the other side of the galley and likely a cabinet overhead to a venting unit, but I'll gain a much needed dishwasher. I'll also be building a couple of overhead cabinets that are not there now, and when I put in the new AC next week or so, I'll gain another cabinet since I'm going to turn the air handler around to draw from the next void space over instead of the cabinet through which it currently draws. I think I'll gain a lot when I get mine finished. I saw another 58MY that had this remodel done, so I know it can work.

 

[SeaEric]

What Sky did correctly, many do wrong in the oven to microwave refit. There needs to be a cabinet, like Sky has, or a spacer at the top of the microwave. Many of the retrofit 53MY installs I see have the thing mounted up near the ceiling where the top of the oven was. To me, that looks ridiculous. Not to mention tough to reach.

 

[holtcl]

Bill,

When we got our 53 I thought about chucking the original appliances and going with new ones as well. However, once I got to using them, I realized that ours are clean, in good condition, well-performing and highly functional.

We have a tradition of Thanksgiving dinner on the boat and that even went off well- turkey and all. I did have to replace the lower bake unit on the oven and was finally able to track that down and we're back in business.

These original appliances are robust and you may want to think twice before you scrap them. However, I totally understand that the Admiral may prefer to have modernized/updated units, and I would too- I'm just waiting for mine to die 'of natural causes'; then we plan to replace with units from Viking, which I have picked out; I was surprised to find that they make a 30" electric cooktop. I had a 30" gas range in my land home and loved that, being an avid cook. Just something to consider.


Admiral Cheryl
Cinderella
53MY

 

[GJH]

Here is a redone lower galley on our 18'2" 56MY. As I recall the galley is "flipped" on the 54 but otherwise very similar. This set up allows all appliances to be full size. The advent of counter-depth refrigerators frees up space and maximizes capacity. My wife is a great cook, and any meal you can imagine, including full sized Thanksgiving dinners comes out of this galley; no reason not to. We much prefer the white cabinets for galley use; brighter and easier to find spills (we have lots) for cleaning.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

What Sky did correctly, many do wrong in the oven to microwave refit. There needs to be a cabinet, like Sky has, or a spacer at the top of the microwave. Many of the retrofit 53MY installs I see have the thing mounted up near the ceiling where the top of the oven was. To me, that looks ridiculous. Not to mention tough to reach.

Eric,
We felt the microwave/convection needed to be lower and added the cabinet above as you stated. Here is a pic of a similar install with an Advantium Oven that was mounted up high.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Bill,
I have seen Georges galley and it is very spacious and functional. As he stated, the 54 has more room in the galley than the 53 and you may be able to add the oven where the dishwasher is now and put a dishwasher elsewhere in the galley.

We opted for the F&P dishwasher drawer to free up some additional space. It works well and only uses 1 1/2 gallons of water per load. That's perfect for a boat.

 

[MikeP]

This is something we have just decided to undertake even though the original stove/range works fine. We did install a new dishwasher a couple of years ago in the oem location under the stove.

Our problem is that we want essentially the same thing we have now BUT with a microwave and conventional oven above the stove top, not a regular oven OR a microwave. We don't need a large conventional oven because there is no chance we would ever be interested in cooking a turkey onboard but we do broil steaks or make pizza quite often.

Any idea if there is some sort of setup that would allow a regular oven and a separate small microwave in the space above the cooktop? We would like to move the microwave from its present location, on the countertop to the left of the stove

 

[SKYCHENEY]

The only choices you have is a micro/convection spacesaver or the advantium oven. That is all that will fit there. No one makes a conventional oven that can be mounted above a range top.

 

[holtcl]

Mike,

When our oven goes for good, we plan to replace with a Viking convection microwave/oven combo, that would go over the cooktop. This is not what you are saying you are looking for; but when we had the land place, I was very pleased with my Viking range and think something like this might be a nice option, given the quality of their stuff. Would still keep our microwave in addition. Would put a 30" Viking electric cooktop below, where the cooktop is now.

Cheryl & Mike