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Excellent advice from Tango55.

One thing you need to be aware of is that generators are not always very popular on sites and many ban them completely.
Of those that do allow them, you are usually only allowed to use them for limited periods of time during daylight hours to top up a leisure battery (so no real opportunity to sit with the heater on watching TV in the evenings)

An alternative to give you power would be to look at getting EHU (electirc hook up) for your camper van. Either a portable unit like you would use for camping or having electircs wired into your van and then purchasing a hook up lead like a caravan would use. That way you would be able to use heater and TV without too much trouble.
If you plan to use sites with no EHU then it may be a case of leaving such appliances at home during those trips.

Good Luck xx

I had bought a brand new Kipor ig2000 silent generator at a cost of £449, over 18 months ago, used it 3 times, went to use it again and a red overload light came on, although I actually had nothing plugged into it, so i contacted Kipor who said I needed a new mother board, they gave me their uk suppliers details, so i called them, and nearly fell off my chair when they quoted me £249.00.

So don't touch them with a barge pole, as by looking at other forums this is a common occurance with them.

In my opinion spend a little bit more money and buy a honda.

pingvin:   There's quite a huge difference in solar panel energy to generator power as a large 100 watt solar panel won't operate mains electric appliances such as an electric heater and even a small 650 watt generator having over 6 times as much power is still nowhere near enough power as to what the OP needs. If you read my first post regarding adding up the appliance wattage it doesn't take a genius mathematician to calculate that a solar panel is far from adequate in this instance.

I have a Honda eu10i which is excellent for what I need. (£400 second hand off e-bay).

However, there is no way it is suitable for providing heat, as a one bar electric fire would be using its maximum output and you could not use any other electical appliances at the same time.

I'm afraid you have to use gas for heating when you have no electric hook up.  A 6kg lightweight bottle of propane is now £21.99 so you need to factor this in if you are staying on a site without EHU.

Having said that, I have just returned from a cold, wet, non EHU site where I got 4 days out of a bottle of gas and used 5 litres of petrol in the generator.  (I could have used far less in the generator but there was no-one for miles and the genny makes the lighting so much brighter).

A few years ago we went away in the winter when the temperature was minus 9 degrees centigrade and used a bottle of gas per day.  The van was still under warranty then and was taken back to the dealer to have several faults repaired (eg ill- fitting door and fridge not properly sealed).

However, I think you have to be slightly nuts to go away in winter as it takes ages to warm the van up.  A camper van may be better as you get some heat from the engine on the journey to the site, to help wam the living area.

Daft or not, I hope to go away at the beginning of December and am already booked up for New Year's Eve.  (with EHU both times!!)