Hi
I see plenty of MHs on people's drives with the orange electric cable plugged in.
We are thinking of doing this over the colder months.
Is it advisable to just plug in an oil filled radiator or to use the Truma on board heater.
Any advice is much appreciated
We plug in a day or two before every trip to get the fridge cold, with heating off. We use the Truma heater in winter (as in frost, snow) because we can set the thermostat to something like 10 deg: more controllable than the oil filled radiator & the blown air gets further than the radiated heat. Your water will be drained for winter so make sure you don’t put the water heater on at the same time. And you’ll notice your house electric bill goes up.
We also struggle to keep the storm door letterbox draught proof, with the cable coming through: our socket in the lobby is an RCD one because we also plug in an electric lawn mower.
Thank you for this. The only thing is I have read somewhere that truma don't recommend the heater to be on permanent for hours and hours. I think.it said something like 5000hours max at a time. I can't find the place where I read it now....
We were able to store our motorhome in the back garden and it was connected to the mains via the garage lights. It wasn't on 24/7, only when I flicked the switch to the garage around dusk. It was mainly connected to make sure both batteries where charged. Unfortunately heating the van, even if infrequently, is expensive these days so latterly we didn't bother. I suspect the point made by Truma is because their electric heating elements tend to go and they are pretty expensive to replace, hence the suggesting/instruction not to run them all the time?
I have never seen why people worry about heat. They don’t heat their cars that stand outside and very few use a garage nowadays. Have now had caravans for nearly 53 years and never put heat in any of them over Winters, and never suffered and problems. Just stand seats up on edge to let the air circulate around them.
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I leave ours on hook up with a little oil filled radiator inside, set to lowest setting just to prevent it going below freezing inside. Also keeps the batteries topped up.
Quote: Originally posted by birdman101 on 29/9/2024
I have never seen why people worry about heat. They don’t heat their cars that stand outside and very few use a garage nowadays.
Cars get driven most days, with the heating on (some have heated seats) & topping up the battery. Our MH doesn’t get driven much over winter: supposed to drive it so the tyres aren’t always resting on the same spot…
My caravan is also plugged in, not to heat it or anything, but to keep the battery topped up, 100w of solar doesn't do much when the days are short, the suns low and its cloudy
For the first winter, I put the Webasto heater on as low as possible and found it still used up the diesel in no time.
I then discovered there is a over-winter setting on the roof-mounted air con unit that comes on when the interior temperature drops below 10degC and have been using that ever since.
The van is hooked up to the mains all the time when it is parked outside my house behind the gates.
There is a switch inside to toggle between the van's leisure batteries and the car battery.
I was advised by the company that carried out the customer conversion on my van to keep the switch on "Van" to keep the leisure batteries charged, and flick it to "Car" every two weeks or so for a few hours to top up the car's battery.
I have a repeated task reminder on my mobile phone to remind me to flick this switch every 2 weeks.
After the very last trip over the New Year weekend, I would empty the fridge and turn it off until it is time to go out again at Easter.
Can't comment on the electricity usage, sorry! I have a smart meter and pay by monthly direct debit.
DK
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