Decision to Install an Oven
Eight years ago, Justin and I converted an old FedEx Sprinter van into the first home we ever owned. We did it to cut bills and pay off school loans before van conversions were super trendy and there were tons of resources for building them out. Since we knew we’d be living in our van full time, we really thought about what we’d need to cook and decided that an oven range combo would be super helpful. We couldn’t find any information at that time about installing an oven in a van, but my very safety conscious father, who’s a certified airframe and powerplant mechanic, helped us evaluate and mitigate risks during the installation. We ended up going with the Camp Chef deluxe outdoor oven and wrote an article about our installation process and the steps one can take to manage the risk of having an oven in a van here. The installation was a success and we ended up living in the van full time for 3 years and using it for trips for the remaining 5 years. Needless to say, we’ve used our oven/range a lot during these last 8 years and thought an honest review of our experience might be helpful to those of you considering putting an oven in your van!
Baking mini cobblers in our Camp Chef van oven
Ease of Use
After installing our oven we started using it right away for both cooking and baking and found it very easy to use. There’s just three knobs on the front - two for igniting and controlling the temperature for the burners on the range and one to ignite and control the oven. Lighting instructions are printed on the front of the stove to prevent any confusion, and we really like that there’s a built in igniter so you don’t have to use a separate lighter. The flames on the range are pretty big on high so you can really cook food fast, and it’s nice that it can be turned to low as well. The top of the range lifts off so you can clean around the burners, which is very handy if you happen to spill something or it boils over. The oven heats up fairly quickly (maybe 10 minutes to get to around 350F) and can definitely do legitimate baking.
Quality
The entire oven, aside from the fronts of the knobs, is made of metal and feels nice and solid. The only thing that doesn’t work perfectly on it still after 8 years is the igniter for the oven is sometimes a little hit and miss and requires a few tries to actually light. Everything else still works perfectly.
Size
A lot of people have asked us what size of pan can fit in this oven and we’re happy to report that a regular 9x13 pan fits!
What’s It Like to Bake In?
As mentioned above, the oven heats up pretty quickly and fits a regularly sized pan, which is awesome. What’s less awesome is the fact that you can’t set it to a certain temperature and then walk away. Since this is just meant to be an outdoor camp oven, it simply has a knob that you can turn to high or low for the oven and then you just have to watch the temperature on the temperature gauge. This means that you can’t really get a good bake on things that require a steady temperature. We often find that the temp shoots right passed 350F and then the only way to effectively cool it down seems to be to crack the door open until it reaches the desired temperature. Obviously not great if you’re baking something like a cake and it requires frequent monitoring! However, if you’re going to bake something less fussy it works great. We’ve had good success with things like cookies, cobblers, biscuits, lasagna etc and it’s perfect for anything that just needs to crisp or melt like tater tots or pizza. We’ve also used it many times to just heat things up since our van doesn’t have a microwave.
Knobs and temperature gauge on the front of the stove. Note that the oven control simply has "Hi, Ignite, and Lo"
Things We Like
Good quality product
Range and oven have built in ignitors
Cooking on gas is awesome for controlling temp and cooking things fast and like that it has two burners
Oven fits a standard 9x13 pan
Top of the range can be lifted off for easy cleaning around the burners
Oven comes with two racks that can be adjusted to different heights so you can bake in the middle of the oven or put in two pans
Temperature gauge marked in both Celsius and Fahrenheit
Things We Don’t Like
The burners rattle a lot even just from the normal vibrations from the engine. It can drive you kind of crazy, so we always end up wrapping something around them to wedge the burners in place and tone down the rattling.
Can’t set a temperature for the oven, so you really have to just sit there and watch the thermometer and make adjustments if you need a steady temperature. Sometimes you have to open the door for a moment to bring it back to the temperature you need, which obviously doesn’t work for some kinds of baking.
Burners wrapped to reduce rattling
So Is It Worth Having An Oven In Your Van?
Honestly, probably not unless baking is a huge part of your life. While it’s been nice having an oven in our van and we’ve definitely used it many times, we find ourselves using just the range way more and can’t think of any staples we eat that we couldn’t cook without the oven. Since installing an oven comes with inherent risks and you need to build in insulation to keep your cupboards from getting hot, it’s a bit of a process to install. As such, we’d probably skip the oven if we ever did another build. That said, as mentioned above, if baking is really important to you this Camp Chef oven is a great option!
Do you have experience with a van oven? This one or a different one? We and our readers would love to hear about it! Leave us a comment below.