Confusion over electricity supply
We put a deposit on our first caravan today. We were told by the salesman that we need to buy low wattage televisions. We looked in the shop and they were pricey. Can I use electrical items such as television, kettle and slow cooker from home. I would value some advice on this. Looks very confusing and expensive.
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Care between low Wattage (i.e. Watts, Power) and low voltage (i.e. 240V or 12V)
Caravan has 12V providing you have a leisure battery (recommended, usually not included in price?) and if you are connected to mains on site, 240V as well.
If site supply is 16A then domestic appliances including kettle (say 8A) etc can be used up to that current loading.
Anything heating uses a lot of power e.g. 2kW, 240V hairdryer would need 8A.
TV's are low power anyway and lots are natively 12V but have a power pack like a laptop to plug into 240V. So either standard (cheap) mains TVs can be used or more expensive custom "travel" TVs can also be bought (I wouldn't bother)
I'm sure other questions will be able to be answered also.
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we bought a non brand combined Tv/DVD from Asda and its works fine, about £100. A low wattage kettle is useful and your local caravan dealer will have plenty on sale. On club sites which have 16A I always keep below 3Kw at all times. Easy to do as once warmed up your electric heater can run quite happily at 1kw and keep the van very warm even in winter.
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You can buy from e-Bay (and similar) for less than a tenner a small LED display that will show how many of these "Amperes" you are using at any one time, then all you need to know on each site is what the maximum you can use will be. The wardens will tell you if it's not in the bumph. Caravan Club is usually 16 Amperes.
Keep a look out for Aldi/Lidl having their usual spring caravan and camping offers which usually includes low wattage (i.e. uses less amperes) kettles, toasters,TVs, etc. Dont waste money on things like 12v hairdryers or irons as they can never get hot enough to be any use, but the 12v TVs are fine.
Enjoy!
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Christine
I am not sure I have heard of a "low wattage" television unless the salesman was referring to one capable of being run off the 12v system? If you are always going to use campsites with electric hook-ups an ordinary TV will be fine. It's only if you intend to use sites/CL's without a hook-up that you need to think about dual 230/12 voltage. One thing I would seriously suggest you buy is a low wattage kettle, around the 1000 watts. Some domestic kettles are getting on for 3000 watts which doesn't give much leeway for the use of other electrical items. Not so much an issue in summer but if you intend to use the van in the winter months and want to use the electric heating in the van you could be overloading the circuit. Don't worry about the Slow Cooker as they are usually only as powerful as a single light bulb. I know it all seems complicated to start with but it soon becomes clear and its fun learning. Enjoy your caravan.
David
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Some of it will depend on what type of sites you prefer. Ordinary appliances will be fine on most Club Sites, as long as you don't use them all together. If you like small, older type CL sites, then some low power stuff could help. The TV's are very expensive relatively speaking, we have toured for last thirty years on all kinds of sites without a low power version and always been ok.
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You'll find lots of info in the Advice and Training tab at the top of the page, Christine, and other posters have given good advice.
Enjoy your van.
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If you are using club sites you will get 16 amps and that is generally fine providing you do not abuse it and run everything at once. The thing to watch is the combination of water heating and room heating which on ours can draw 9 Amps. At that point you do need to make sure that you are not running too many other high wattage things like toasters, microwaves and kettles. If you use non club sites then check what power you are getting and reduce consumption. 10 amps is common and needs you to watch the heating levels and if you get 6 then low power options for a kettle are worth while and we find it is better to run water heating on gas. At that level toasters and the like are out.
You will find the clubs advice on the subject at https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/advice-and-training/technical-advice/mains-electrical-installation/
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I hope you have lots of lovely times in your new caravan.
As everyone has already said there's no need for a specific "low wattage" TV as all new TVs are pretty low wattage anyway and as you'll probably want a 19" or similar they're not going to be using much power. Obviously if you go over the top with a 50" TV in a caravan then you might have to move the walls a bit and probably not have the heating on at the same time 🙂
I tend to use relatively cheap ASDA (Polaroid) TV's as some of them are able to be run from 12 volt batteries with an adapter rather than just the mains electricity, handy if you like camping away from electrical hookup (EHU). Sometimes you can get an ex-display one for even less money.
Something to keep in mind is to protect the screen if you're storing the TV in a cabinet when driving as they're sensitive to scratches or impacts.
You can pick up "low wattage" kettles and toasters from ASDA as well, they're in the "Smart price" range for students.
The general rule for being on mains electrical hookup is to only use one high power item at a time, so if you want to use the microwave - switch off the fan heater, if you want to boil a kettle - wait for the microwave to finish etc.
All the very best with your adventures.
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Hello and welcome to CT and our hobby.
Good advice on here so far. We have cheap domestic TV with built in DVD worked well for 10 years. We always use a travel kettle and have a gas one for 'mobile' cuppas or when we are on low amp or non EHU, goi8d thread running on here on the latter.
You can buy low wattage items cheaper from non caravan shops 😉.
Best advice is take yourselves off fairly close to home for a couple of nights to familiarise yourselves, close to home so if you've forgotten something you can nip back for it if you can't live without it 😃. Don't buy too much too soon we all have shelves of things that looked brilliantly useful but weren't necessary 😂😂😂. Plenty of advice on here, often different proving that there isn't one method of doing things.
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Thank you everyone for your advice. We shall be using ordinary televisions (small ones) and buying a whistle kettle. I shall just be careful how many things I use at once. I suppose I will learn as I go along, just try not to trip the electric too many times. I am sure that I will be soon asking something else. Seems that you have a lovely community on here.
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Thanks for coming back Christine, it doesn't always happen
If you're on a club site the wardens and fellow campers are always happy to help I've found
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Just be aware that your water/space heater/fridge all work in the background on thermostats and can, on occasions all automatically click in at the same time. Now if you have you're TV on and then fancy a cuppa this may, according to the supply, be enough to 'trip that switch'! We always keep the heating on lowest output setting to help this.
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Just one thing, Christine56 -- when you go to pick up
Your Caravan try talking the Salesperson ( !!) into adding
a Deal Clinching Gift, of E H U Cable, Caravan entry step
and / or anything else -- remember If You Don't Ask You
Won't Get ,, ,, ,, ,, ,,
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He gave us quite a lot with the van including a 10% discount in the shop. The step and the cable are with it. He even gave us a 50% discount on the groundsheet for the awning. I like a bargain. I think that is why I didn't want to go and get all new when I have it at home.
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Hi Christine,
You talked about getting a whistling kettle - presumably gas? I personally wouldn't bother unless you are going away from mains elec. We have two electric kettles (which in some ways is pointless) - one UK domestic and one low wattage for EU use - when/if the UK one packs up we'll use the low wattage only. Just takes a little longer to boil.
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I would second that. If you are always on EHU, as we are, the gas kettle is a bit of a waste. We bought one 12 years ago when we started caravaning, in case of power cuts, and have used it about twice in hundreds and hundreds of site nights. Would stop taking it, but as we have it that might be tempting fate.😂
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Advice from long time caravanners is carry both! Yes it may take up a tiny bit more space, but if there is an electrical problem on sites of any kind, you will not be without a hot drink. A small gas kettle is also useful when travelling, as you can brew up if stopping for a break. At this stage, you won't perhaps know what kind of sites, big Club type, or smaller Certificated Locations (CLs) you like best, but a gas kettle is always useful.
Have a lovely time with your new caravan!
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We too carry a gas kettle with the hope that it will never be required.
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Ha ha, you are right of course, you can use a saucepan!
Good luck filling a hot water bottle with it though, when your electric heating goes off with your kettle. I keep forgetting, some of you are new to "adventure holidays".
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If push came to that much shove and I was the user of an electric kettle and had to use a saucepan to heat water to fill a hottie - I would simply fill the electric kettle from the saucepan and then the hot water bottle from the kettle.
It is even too much for me the queen of clutter to have an electric kettle though so filling the hottie is easy. 1
