How to thrive on a non 240v site!
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I used a cheap solar charger at one time to keep the battery topped up which it did well and it fitted inside the van window. Just be aware if you are a complete novice that you need to be careful with chargers and attaching them. Don't let the two wires touch each other and I believe best practise is to detach the red positive wire first. Not wanting to teach you to suck eggs but doing it wrong can be shocking!
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Thanks again folks.
You are right Boff, we will eventually replace my broken panel but probably with another portable as I was quite happy with the one we had (half will do for now
). I don't want to get a fixed one as it's a fairly new caravan so don't want to effect waranty etc and we have managed fine with portable. I shall also keep an eye out in Aldi/Lidl for a thing to check my battery charge.I tihnk I am going to try a cheap small panel just to keep the battery topped up in storage and see how it goes. I'm quite a small girl and getting the battery in an out on a regular basis in the winter would be quite a chew as I find it quite heavy. Even in winter we are normally out every 3-4 weeks and go on EHU in winter so hopefully a little panel will do for in between times. I shall measure my battery during the coming winter and not let it get so low.
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Certainly removes any fears of driving over it boff! Batteries will get 'tired' eventually. We are out on site at the moment in amazingly hot and sunny Dorset so there is no issue with power, however, I know that when I bought my Elecsol batteries, they were not a great product as the idiot who ran it had lost so many customers through rudeness that he was struggling and was cutting corners - they have lasted 3-4 years. They are getting tired now and are certainly not holding the charge they could when they were new. Toast was no problem through the toaster- we could certainly do 6 rounds or so but now the inverter starts to alarm through low voltage when it has almost done the first two so it's a battery change for us! Problem is- what type??
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Well as of last week I got my sp installed on the roof, went for 150 wat in the end I did go with a standard controller (10 amp) but after reading this and other articulate from this thread I'm going to invest in a 20 amp MPPT controller from Photonic as it seems a little more intelligent.
got two full calorie light bottles at the moment so will wait till they drain down before I look at something else.
Not gone off grid yet first cl without ehu in a couple of weeks, still looking at sites with toilets as wife not yet keen on "fully" using the onboard wc yet😱
After getting a new(ish) van I want to start using it more but don't want to be paying through the nose for nights away.
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Nice one Karl - 150w is a nice panel. Yes, a 20w controller would be much better! You'll have no difficulties going non EHU with that- as long as you have the batteries to store all that lovely free power! Good that you are thinking of alternatives to cylinder gas from Calor- it's just a ripoff. We are on site at the moment and are 11 days into a 21 day stay. 4 adults, 2 grandkids, - no shortage of power- or gas for that matter- £5 a night and so far a brilliant holiday. Tell the wife that she will be fine using the caravan loo- it's emptying it that's the fun part! Bio pods from Aldi or Lidl can cut your costs even more against expensive blue and use Aldi or Lidl fabric conditioner in the flush water and the jobs a good'un! Best of luck- let us know how it went as you are a non EHU virgin.
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Well I bit the bullet and ordered the 20amp MPPT controller from Photonic (thanks CC for the 10% off) I did look at the cheaper Chinese ones on eBay but I have had bad experiences with cheaper Chinese rubbish and as its power I decided to go with one I can trust.
Thanks for the tip about the fabric conditioner will also give that a go when Im out of pink.
I had changed the battery out a couple of weeks ago to the Platinum AGMLB6110L cant go for an Aux as I have some issues with weight at moment, with everything loaded (awning, mover solar panel ext the weighbridge showed 1580kg so 80kg over weight, I know the awning goes in the car but that's not 80KG worth so I have to have a look around and see what I can do but I guess the one battery with a 150 SP should be fine for up to a week away.
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This time of year you shouldn't have any problem with a 150W panel and a single battery. I would check to make sure that your caravan has led lights and if it still has halogens, that's where I would invest in changing those out.
Using your own facilities really isn't a problem, but my preference is for old fashioned blue toilet fluid because it is poisonous and I want it to kill stuff.
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We're planning on taking our own first EHU-free w/e with a solar panel, also from Photonic who seemed to have excellent feedback. Will report back!
When you say you want to kill stuff.... the poisonous blue does just that, yes, but is it also worth considering what it does further downstream in the water recycling system, when it goes on killing stuff which didn't need killing? Some of the "green" loo chemicals are every bit as good, and fast, as rendering the contents of the loo safe and breaking down the bacteria, and killing the smell too - and I'm reasonably good at detecting and objecting to pongs - as the old blue stuff. They also break it down in such a way that it can even go down a normal loo rather than needing chemical hazard treatment. To my mind it smells less unpleasant than the old blue chemical even before it starts. Incidentally the "green" one we use is also blue coloured,'cos they reckon people prefer it that way!
While we're saving energy for the money, I'd like to think we're also doing our bit for the environment as well.
We used to go tent camping with a group, when a hole was dug in the farmer's field for the contents of the primitive loo bucket afterwards. The trouble is, that bit of underground would then have been very polluted for a long time. If the green stuff we now use had been available then, we could have poured the contents of the same bucket into the hole & covered it up, when it would have been usefully breaking down in the soil.
Best wishes,Richard
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HH, we have just moved, this morning, to our 2nd THS site this week, now at Chichester (sun strarting to come out) and the batteries were full before we left at 10:30 and this was after watching the tennis (brilliant performance Jo) in the late afternoon and some other stuff till 10 (it did chuck it down in Fordingbridge yesterday but we strolled into town for lunch.......earned a sit down for the tennis.....)
due to the constraints of our smaller roof (and other kit up there) oir 120w panel wouldnt fit, so we had a 100w one instead, this has been (to us) just as effective as the 120w one, we have wven charged our bike batteries from the leisure batteries (via inverter) and havent noticed any real drop in battery levels.
there is space for a 2nd 100w panel which i am considering, though the larger panel wouldnt fit in either of the two spaces....
also try and use USB charging for phone and tablets if you can.
good luck
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So I bit the bullet and bought a new 120Watt portable panel. Whilst we can probably get away with our broken half panel in the summer, we do go non ehu in Spring/autumn as well, so I thought I may as well buy now rather than later
. We know with this size panel we can pretty much use what we want in the warm weather. I'm still considering a really small panel to keep the battery topped up in storage.0 -
While I agree that LED bulbs are a good saving I think we need to assess how many lights we actually turn on at this time of year. It would be a real waste of my money to go all LED so I just have the two reading ones and above the sink. I seldom turn on the bathroom light so haven't changed them. I do keep a rechargeable torch handy for searching cupboards though!
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I don't disagree with you. I would merely say that there are in my mind three aspect to having 12v electricity, these are generation, storage and use I think that they need to be kept in balance The temptation is to go for ever greater generation, but sometimes it might make sense rather than getting an ever bigger panel to look at ways of reducing usage Of course in the summer you use very little lighting and if you are going away just for a weekend probably all you need is a charged battery nothing else. No solar panel no LED's. In December and January the situation might be different
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We've just swapped ours, but not the bathroom, largely because we couldn't work out a way of getting the possibly now brittle 17 yr old plastic cover off - we just hope that the bulb it arrived with never never goes!
And we're on an 80W folding panel at present, as we don't have a lot of things other than lights and pumps to draw from the battery.
Richard
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just filled Gaslow (large size 11kg/22ltr) after 11 days (5 a fortnight ago and 6 this week) on non ehu THS sites.
guage showing almost empty, but am very skeptical of these so a top up is always the best way to check usage.
tank took 11ltr (so only half empty) at the frightening cost of £6.40...around 60p a day for cooking, hot water and fridge.
a calor refill of the same volume would be around £25.
even at calor prices this is only around £2.30 a day which is significantly less than the approx £4 charge made by CCC for an EHU pitch (probably mirrored by other organisations to recoup leccy/bollard costs).
so, either a huge saving on gas in its own right, or a decent saving on site fees should you choose a non-ehu option (even using Calor) or even more on a specific non-ehu event like a rally/THS etc..
..or all these benefits with cheap gas on a cheap THS site.
lovely jubbly, lol
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I've just re-learned the importance of checking and re-checking things actually work... we'd planned our first non-EHU weekend this w/e just past, turned up with our solar panel, (which does work), and discovered that while the gas fridge did light last November when the dealer showed us, it doesn't do so now. Not even with the gas turned on, and the cooker using the same gas pipe working happily away.
Ah well, we were lucky the nice site warden managed to find an available power line for us. Just hoping we can get it sorted before the next trip, where EHU isn't an option!1 -
Oh Hedgehurst I do hope that doesn't happen to us next month 😲😲. We're off grid for the first time in a while, I suggested to hubby to check fridge on gas - I was informed no need I've checked pilot light lights. We did discuss further 😉 but no other checks were carried out. If it doesn't work he's gonna find it a very expensive few days lol.
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B2, if you have access to the van, always worth spending a minute or two just to finish the test off and see the fridge fully alight.
best to find out now than on arrival....
one of the real advantages of having the van on the drive is that any mods can be tested here prior to leaving for site...
i realise what a pain it can be having to collect van from storage, or even do work at the storage site....our pals have no room at home and even loading/unloading can be a pain.
good luck with your venture 'into the wilds'
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Bolero Boy vans in storage so no chance of checking 😔.mind you if we get rain, they keep forecasting but it doesn't arrive, there will be a trip and I'll do it myself. If not apparently there's access to buses or the entire balloon festival for food outlets. And no fish and chips or take away won't cut it 😂😂😂😂😂.
Reason for visit after rain is resealing of bathroom skylight, was a slight dribble when we last had decent rain which hopefully has now been sorted. 😉
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I don't think you'll starve or die of thirst at the balloon fiesta.
There's a permanent cafe in the Ashton Court yard if you want a walk away from some of the crowds.Thanks for the info Boff, we don't always carry two bottles but that will be music to OH's ears.
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Agreed Brue if I thought there was any chance of it being a problem. IT would be resolved before hand. Have to let them have enough rope 😂😂.
Boff is automatic switch over widely available? Asking out of interest as I don't expect well need one 😉
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I think that most dealers sell them. If you follow this link from ebay you will see what they look like Cavagna changeover regulator. Gaslow also do just the head to which you need to add the regulator but it costs the same price. It is my second favourite gadget after the solar panel
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Took us some time to get the fridge on this time away hedge but got it going in the end. There can be a problem sometimes with air in the pipe and I wonder if this is sometimes the problem. If a fridge runs on gas. It's always a good idea to remember to get it serviced regularly- the last thing you need is it burning inefficiently and causing soot and worse- carbon monoxide. The CO alarm stays on the floor at all times when we are away.
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My first attempt at the gas fridge with my new to me caravan - led me to call the dealership techies. Their advice has helped on many occasions and it was to switch the Fridge to battery and to Electric (even though neither will work) then attempt the gas ignite. Last time out I did this three times before the gas stayed lit. Of course it also helps if the caravan is reasonably level!
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Sometimes it can be quicker if you run the gas through using the cooker or heater to expel any air in the system. 0
