Campervan newbie

[ATM]

HarryW said:

I don’t know where you’ve fitted your heater but I’d make sure there’s a fresh air drop on the unit enclosure, I’m assuming it’s either externally mounted or within sn enclosure. Likewise you need air drops throughout the van to encourage air change/flow.

It was already fitted to the van I bought. It's in the box shaped seat base mount so below the driver seat. The vent blows towards back. Exhaust pokes out from underneath behind driver door.

Google image found at random to give you idea.

[Obison]

Is there a thermostat in the van? If its anything like my heater you can choose to run it from a stat or change it to pump speed, I use pump speed as the thermostat on my heater is in a box with the heater unit so it doesn't really work.

[PurpleTurtle]

ATM said:

So this truck completed it's first camping trip this weekend. I did get turned away from some snotty sites due to this not being a real camper snd some waffle about regulations and not sleeping in a vehicle. Eventually I found someone a bit more realistic and we stayed at his campsite.

They're not really being snotty though, are they? This is a long-standing policy observed by the majority of campsites to avoid having to accommodate the kind of people who sometimes have a spare lorry load of tarmac on offer.

Obvs you are not like this OP, but a kitchenette and a 'proper' bed easily changes things.

[ATM]

PurpleTurtle said:

They're not really being snotty though, are they? This is a long-standing policy observed by the majority of campsites to avoid having to accommodate the kind of people who sometimes have a spare lorry load of tarmac on offer.

Obvs you are not like this OP, but a kitchenette and a 'proper' bed easily changes things.

Felt snotty to Me.

His look of complete shock when I said I had not booked and this definitely took him aback. Now I can understand how they want to eliminate the seedy element. But surely a 5 minute conversation with me could have established that I am not one of those. Clearly they are not interested in being flexible or nice or judging a situation on its merit and therefore this makes me stand by my snotty comment. The place I was admitted into had absolutely no concerns and laughed off these earlier comments. These are the kind of people I want to deal with. If we accept snotty then it proliferates. If we do not accept snotty then it will decline.

I like the idea of having an empty Van. I do not want to fit fixed furniture. I want to be able to use the Van as Van if I need to.

[ATM]

Obison said:

Is there a thermostat in the van? If its anything like my heater you can choose to run it from a stat or change it to pump speed, I use pump speed as the thermostat on my heater is in a box with the heater unit so it doesn't really work.

Yes

Like this

[Obison]

Might be worth turning the stat up, if it gets up to temperature the heaters can't just turn off and on to keep the temp level, so if it gets up to the stat temperature then it will lower its heat output but still run.

[ATM]

Obison said:

Might be worth turning the stat up, if it gets up to temperature the heaters can't just turn off and on to keep the temp level, so if it gets up to the stat temperature then it will lower its heat output but still run.

Stat was set to 19 or 20 and temp was showing 15 at 1am when I checked it.

[Output Flange]

ATM said:

Felt snotty to Me.

His look of complete shock when I said I had not booked and this definitely took him aback. Now I can understand how they want to eliminate the seedy element. But surely a 5 minute conversation with me could have established that I am not one of those. Clearly they are not interested in being flexible or nice or judging a situation on its merit and therefore this makes me stand by my snotty comment. The place I was admitted into had absolutely no concerns and laughed off these earlier comments. These are the kind of people I want to deal with. If we accept snotty then it proliferates. If we do not accept snotty then it will decline.

I like the idea of having an empty Van. I do not want to fit fixed furniture. I want to be able to use the Van as Van if I need to.

More often than not, it’s down to the stipulations of the site’s insurance cover.

[PurpleTurtle]

ATM said:

PurpleTurtle said:

They're not really being snotty though, are they? This is a long-standing policy observed by the majority of campsites to avoid having to accommodate the kind of people who sometimes have a spare lorry load of tarmac on offer.

Obvs you are not like this OP, but a kitchenette and a 'proper' bed easily changes things.

Felt snotty to Me.

His look of complete shock when I said I had not booked and this definitely took him aback. Now I can understand how they want to eliminate the seedy element. But surely a 5 minute conversation with me could have established that I am not one of those. Clearly they are not interested in being flexible or nice or judging a situation on its merit and therefore this makes me stand by my snotty comment. The place I was admitted into had absolutely no concerns and laughed off these earlier comments. These are the kind of people I want to deal with. If we accept snotty then it proliferates. If we do not accept snotty then it will decline.

I like the idea of having an empty Van. I do not want to fit fixed furniture. I want to be able to use the Van as Van if I need to.

Fair enough, but just so you're aware (I speak as a camper/caravanner of 40+yrs, so some reasonable experience) most people book sites in advance, especially as you can mostly do it online with a few clicks on your phone. Turning up unannounced in a campervan that's really a panel van with side windows will restrict the amount of sites you can get on. That's the norm, they are not being snotty. Although I'm sure you're a perfectly well behaved model citizen etc.

[ATM]

Another little Saturday night test drive with the new ... not really a Camper ... Van. Some good news and some bad.

Good new first
I think the heater is working fine. I set it to the maximum which is 32 degrees C. At about midnight my guest believes the display was showing 27. It certainly felt warm to me as I was already wearing extra clothes and was zipped up in a sleeping bag.

Bad news next
I ran out of electricity. I'd be running the fridge and this is a first for Me. I bought a 3 way free standing Dometic fridge 2nd hand off ebay. I was running this off 12v. So I guess 6 or 7 hours of refrigeration toasted my little lipo battery. I have already bought some more lipo batteries but have not had time to fit them. So that's a job for this week.

Interior
I'm starting to think about some Interior tweaking. Nothing massive just some form of raised platform for a bed and therefore storage space underneath. I would like to be able to park bikes underneath but that means it needs to be high up and the Van only has a low-ish roof. I don't want this to be permanent so I want something I can install and / or remove quickly and easily. Is there a well trodden route in terms of fixings which can be used as anchor points but also allow easy removal and then reattaching. Like a quick release bonnet pin or an mtb wheel skewer?

Mtb
I dug out my old mtb and had a little ride around. It felt good and considering it's not seen day light for at least 5 years and I have done absolutely zero maintenance or tweaking it worked well with just some fresh air in the tyres.

[Alex@POD]

For the electricity, the type of fridge is probably the issue. 3 way fridges are only designed to run on 12v in between gas or 220v, as you can't use those while driving. It's probably really inefficient on 12v.

[i4got]

Alex@POD said:

For the electricity, the type of fridge is probably the issue. 3 way fridges are only designed to run on 12v in between gas or 220v, as you can't use those while driving. It's probably really inefficient on 12v.

Agreed - on ours it's -

12v while driving
Gas when parked up off grid
Mains when on EHU.

[ATM]

It is similar to this one, below. Some of the reviews do say it will discharge a battery overnight.

I don't have any form of EHU. I only have a 240v kettle lead connector on my inverter. The sites we've visited have the round plug type - is that 110?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dometic-RC1200EGP-Portabl...

[Output Flange]

That fridge shouldn’t kill a LiPo battery in 7 hours. What size is your battery and how are you charging it?

[ATM]

Output Flange said:

That fridge shouldn’t kill a LiPo battery in 7 hours. What size is your battery and how are you charging it?

Its only a baby. Its one of these - see below. Charging is just via the alternator. The Van came with a split charging system. The leisure battery installed under the pass seat was basically dead so I replaced it with this Lipo as I had it spare.

https://ultramax.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/199...

[Output Flange]

Would need to check the consumption of the fridge, but still shouldn't be killing it that quick. Your 50Ah battery is the rough equivalent of a 100Ah AGM battery in terms of usable capacity.

The round connectors on campsites are mains voltage, not 110.

[anonymous-user]

A 3 way fridge uses gas flow to remove heat using Dalton's principle. It uses heat to make this process work, from 230v or a small gas flame it's OK as you won't notice it and might get 2-3 weeks from a gas bottle. When asking 12v to create enough heat though the inefficiency starts to show as 12v just isn't up to the task of creating approx 150w of power for the system to work. 150 watts at 12v is 12.5 amps so your 55amp hour battery will only give 4 and a half hours of use if yours is 150watts, even if it's only 100watts you'll only get 6.5 hours running continuously.

You have a decent battery and the equivalent AGM would be 110Ah which is pretty standard for a camper so it may be worth considering changing to a compressor fridge instead of upgrading the battery. A compressor fridge creates cold instead of removing heat like the 3 way fridge. It only uses a 12volt compressor so it's optimised for use on a 12v system and has the added benefit of working like your fridge at home and will cool to a set temperature regardless of the outside temp and generally can freeze too. Depending on the size and brand of fridge you want it might not be too different in price to the extra battery.

For comparison my compressor fridge is huge at 110 litres and with two compressors (one for fridge and a separate one for freezer) and it draws around 2 amps an hour on average. I say average because it cycles on and off like your fridge at home. When I just run the one side at 3 degrees it runs at an average of 0.5-1amps per hour. Id absolutely expect you to easily get 2 days from a compressor fridge on your battery. It all depends on what other power you use too.

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 26th September 11:42

[ATM]

So would something like this be better for electrical use only

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304639929966

[ATM]

[richardxjr]

We use one of those for transporting stuff in the car (on 12v) whilst the caravan 3-way fridge starts thinking about getting cold (it takes a good whole day and we can't pre-cool it as van sits in a storage barn away from home).

Then it serves as auxiliary beer fridge on mains on site. Works alright in the shade in (most) UK temps ... BUT it is noisy so no use in a van you are trying to sleep in.