Impulse buy
Hi all,
In my wisdom I had a bit of an impulse buy in the autumn and ordered a new caravan as I wanted a bigger bathroom with all the COVID issues. They said it would arrive in June, and emailed yesterday to say it will now arrive in March. I am now worried that the caravan won’t fit on my drive. It may fit diagonally but I’m not sure. I wondered if there were any programs where I could put the exact size of my drive and caravan and check if it will fit?
Laura
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If this is serious, follow the advice above.
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🤣
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The only way is to compare lengths and widths, and look at any small extra space that may be available at some point on the driveway.
Are you worried about access as well as when it is in place?
For us, access is not a problem as the street is not narrow and the drive is 10m wide at the pavement edge, narrower in front of the garage.
Length is another matter, the drive is only 5cm longer than the shipping length of the van. However, at the side where the van sits we have a 1.8m wide path that goes up the side of the house, so we can use some of that to run the hitch and part of the A frame into, meaning the van can be slightly further from the pavement.
We move it onto the drive with the mover, it is a twin axle and the drive slopes, and it has to go hitch first to be able to access the van door.
Even if we did not have that extra space, the van would still fit......just!
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I have to agree with Another David, The answer will be a motor mover. My Caravans fitted between my rear fence and garage and had incline to contend with. Our first caravan we could get part way in with the car and then push it on. As our caravans grew in size the push option became became unrealistic. The Motor Mover saved our caravanning future (and a lot of arguments setting up on site). if you haven't ordered one fitted I would advise doing it now.
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Now that's a novel idea - putting the car in the garage. Where did you get that idea from?
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We had to do similar to this when we purchased our first motorhome as I wasn't sure we could get it in the back garden. Mind you even with a scale drawing and a cutout of the size of the motorhome I was still not convinced. Slight difference here that we had not at that point committed to buy so was chatting to the dealer and he offered to drive it down to see if it would fit. He had parked it in the garden with no issues and was there armed with the contract!!! Couldn't refuse after that!!!
David
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Even with all the paper planning - for the day it arrives/is collected do have somewhere else arranged to take it should you not be able to fit it in straight away.
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Thanks for the helpful replies, I know I can use the shipping length but was thinking I may have a bit more play with the a frame being narrow compared to the back of the caravan so might be able to slot it in nearer to the front door hence looking for something that looks at the space where I can jiggle the caravan around in to see what fits, it sounds like a scale drawing may be my best bet. I am not convinced it will fit, the current caravan is a metre shorter and fits with about 30cm spare.
I've booked a seasonal pitch as I dont want to risk it.
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Thanks good tip, the plan was to move house before getting the new van but as the time has been moved from june to march that isnt going to be viable. I've booked a seasonal spot so should be alright for a while.
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Have you checked to see if the seasonal pitch will be available for when you are projected to get your new van, as there's no dates yet of when sites are to be allowed to open up?
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We bought a new motorhome 4 years and the very first time I parked it on our (spacious) drive I decided to get as close as possible to the brick property dividing wall. Due to lack of experience and general incompetence I managed to scape the wall. So, wherever you decide to park the van - take extra care!
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When we changed our van from a 2 birth to one with and island bed we had the same concern. He suggested fastening a cane on the back corners protruding to the new length and then using the mover to check it would fit.
Thankfully it worked.
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When we were considering moving from a single to a longer twin axle van we did something similar to Trini, before we bought the van...... I can see an issue with getting access onto the seasonal pitch in March, nothing in any of the recent announcements suggests holidays will be allowed anytime soon. I suspect you will need another plan B.... for a start i would do everything possible to stall taking ownership and possession of your new van until sites are open. The problem with using storage places will be finding one that has a vacancy. Where we live we have about 15 known storage places within a 5-6 mile radius.. All full and only one has a waiting list, the others say they get so few cancellations and so many enquiries every week they don't bother keeping lists. If you haven’t already and storage would work for you, you need to start the search NOW, not when you are about to take delivery
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Many years ago we had the roof of the garage raised and had wooden concertina doors made for front and back so that we could take the van through and park in the back garden and still use the garage. It is out of sight from the street and secure with high fencing and trees, and 30 years free parking.
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