We use the gas for heating, the fridge, and water heating (for showers). We have two Calor gas bottles. Only one came with the van, a 6kg one. We found that we could just fit 13kg bottles into the van so we bought one. For some silly reason Calor will not allow you to swap a 6kg bottle for a 13kg one so we have two different sizes. Read more
Some folk don’t like drinking water from the tank so they carry bottled water with them. We carry a few bottles of tap water in the fridge for use in an emergency (like an empty tank!) or when we want a really cold drink. We are happy to drink the water from the van tank. It is British mains water which is considered safe to drink after sitting in underground pipes for weeks on end… Read more
I think we have been very lucky with our heating. We have a Truma Ultraheat which can work of gas or mains electric. We almost always use it on gas.
There is a fan fitted to duct air into the cab or into the loo/shower but we find the convected air which comes out of the front of the heater without assistance is easily sufficient to heat the van, although in colder weather the fan helps to mitigate the layering effect. We mainly use the ducted air to warm up the air in the shower – it only takes around 5 minutes. Read more
We have never been particularly careful when using power, but because we were aware of the limitations of the battery we found ourselves switching off lights at every opportunity.
So we gave in and bought another leisure battery. This time it was a Varta LFD90 from Battery Megastore.
We were actually living in the van at the time and had little time to research batteries but I found this site… Read more
As I have mentioned, the original system is horrendously complicated. The control panel is microprocessor controlled and gives an indication of fresh water level (very unreliable) waste water level (never worked for me at all) blown fuses (may have worked – I never blew any) as well as battery condition (useless). This means there are lots of wires in the harness that I simply don’t need. Read more
It’s around four years since I wrote the last article on the electrics. The mods have worked very well, we have used the van two or three times a month without any problems. But the Banner Leisure battery was starting to struggle. Sometimes we would see the lights flicker as the water pump or the loo flush motor was running. The lights have built in regulators and will dim if the voltage falls below around 12V…. Read more
SO after all of the calculations and planning, there we were ready to set of for our first festival at Moffat.
We had been been happy with our new battery but while I was arranging the van I noticed liquid in the battery box. Yep, it was battery acid… Read more
I now have the Banner battery installed and I hope to keep it for a long time. In Part 1 I described how I have added some electrics to bypass the power distribution unit thus saving lots of wasted power. In Part 2 I described what I had to do to be able to last a week on the battery and without an EHU.
Following a few trials I have had to make a couple of small modifications to the bypass circuit described in part 1 Read more
I’m updating this as I dig out more data. To tell the truth I’m getting a bit fed up with the lack of datasheets and the standard of the data sheets that the manufacturers put out. My theory is the rise in the popularity of solar panels means that users can actually make do with any old battery and the suppliers will sell “any old battery” as a leisure battery at inflated prices… Read more
If you always use EHU then this article is probably not a lot of use to you – although you may find the battery isolator switch very handy.
If you have a large motorhome with multiple rooms that need blown air for heating, this article will be of limited use.
If you have a small motorhome, and indulge in off site camping then some of the ideas here may be relevant to you.
Whatever – have fun. Read more