My recent purchase of a Coleman Powerhouse 414 dual fuel stove from Great Escape Camping completes the elimination of LPG cylinders from my camping kit. I love the stove, but it does have a couple of quirks.

I started my transition to dual fuel gear by purchasing a Coleman Premium 285 dual fuel lantern — my review here. I was very happy with its performance, so decided to purchase the stove and a second lantern.

I am planning a camping trip soon where the stove will be put through a good workout. In the meantime, I have used the stove to boil the kettle at a family picnic and as a BBQ to pan fry some sausages on a recent 4WD day trip up Duck Creek Road to O’Reilly’s.

Coleman Powerhouse 414 dual fuel stove

The Coleman Powerhouse 414 dual fuel stove does have some quirks. For example, on lighting, expect a yellow flame to around the height of the open lid (about 1 foot high!) until the generator gets hot enough to vaporise the fuel, which usually takes about a minute. This is not an issue if you are expecting it, but casual onlookers can get a surprise. Also make sure that you are not leaning over the stove as you light it — you might scorch your eyebrows!

The other main quirk is that the left burner will always run slightly cooler than the right hand burner that feeds directly from the generator and fuel tank. The left burner also has limited adjust-ability from the toggle screw-in adjuster on the side of the case. In practice, this means that the cooking pot/pan requiring the least heat will always be placed on the left side burner. Note that the left burner will not operate unless the right hand burner is operating — again, in practice, this is not an issue.

Overall though, I love the Coleman Powerhouse 414 dual fuel stove. In particular, I much prefer to carry around some shellite than a couple of LPG gas bottles. It means that I am carrying less fuel and it is not pressurised in a bulky gas bottle. While unleaded petrol is a fuel option, I am going to reserve its use for emergencies. I think that the operation of the stove is also a lot safer than typical gas stoves — I never did like the sudden WOOF! during lighting gas stoves or lanterns. As always though, use care when dealing with highly flammable substances such as shellite, unleaded petrol, or LPG for that matter.

Coleman liquid fuel stoves have their roots in stoves of a recognisably similar configuration dating back to the late 1930s. If they did not work, the stoves would not still be around.