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Quote: Originally posted by cwdc56768 on 04/10/2010

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If the van is sloping backwards down the incline then the handbrake will not work if the van starts to fall backwards. Van brakes are designed to come off in those circumstances. So handbrake may as well be off.

Phil

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Thanks for your post Mr RC. Have to bow to your greater knowledge on these technical matters. Always thought from what I had read in various publications and posts on here that the handbrake was not designed to hold in reverse to any great extent. Certainly a number of posters have made just such a point.

Anyway, having been pointed in the right direction I thought I would just look into the background legals (boring) and dug out my Construction and Use Regs and various EU Regs (its amazing just what stuff you keep when retired just in case!). For anyone who wants to know the handbrake parameters for a caravan.....(never know when it may come in useful)

Any braked trailers manufactured after April 1989 must be fitted with a hydraulically

damped coupling and auto reverse brakes to give braking efficiencies required by EEC Directive 71/320. The handbrake must be capable of holding a stationary trailer on a gradient of at least 16% (1 in 6.25). So OP how steep is your winter storage pitch?

Remember a thread on here about trying to get a caravan to stay put on levellers and that mentioned brakes not holding when going backwards. Maybe the levellers were just too steep, or, as Mr RC has pointed out, the brakes had not been maintained to the standards required by the Regs/EU Directive

Thanks for the steer RC

Phil

may help from al-ko

www.al-ko.co.uk

http://www.al-ko.co.uk/edit/files/support/BrakingOperation.pdf

since i started caravanning i have seen two caravans with brakes stuck on and being dragged,not a nice sight.one was going on to a flat bed truck.both were on sites.how long had they been there? do not know.common sense says to put the handbrake on whenever it is parked.if i go away for a month and leave the handbrake on the car it sticks. fully serviced by the way and fitted with new pads.

I can understand your concerns cosidering your drive is sloping Simon but I always park ours on the drive with the handbrake OFF. Whatever the experts say, I've had enough of standing vehicles having problems getting the brakes off over the years.

I will add that our drive is level & the van is hitched to an RSJ concreted into a 27" deep 20" square hole in the flower border for added security. Are you able to put a post of some sort in to hitch yours to so you can be sure it can't run away?

I'm not sure how you'd stand in the event of a run away & had to place a claim on your insurance.

BB

Hi all, 1st post,go easy.

 I'm currently serving in the armed forces, we have a policy in my current unit of leaving trailer handbrakes off (wheels chocked) because they do seize up, sometimes after only around a couple of months of none usage.

trailers all go through an inspection and roller brake test every 12 months, so are in very good condition, yet still seize up!!!!

any way brakes off for me,

bazza

Quote: Originally posted by TQMS on 08/10/2010

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Hi all, 1st post,go easy.

 I'm currently serving in the armed forces, we have a policy in my current unit of leaving trailer handbrakes off (wheels chocked) because they do seize up, sometimes after only around a couple of months of none usage.

trailers all go through an inspection and roller brake test every 12 months, so are in very good condition, yet still seize up!!!!

any way brakes off for me,

bazza

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Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, having read the Alco leaflet..... If we were reversing our caravan down onto our drive the brakes won't be anywhere near the wheels during this process. Then if we put the handbrake on - the brakes are still nowhere near the wheels as according to the Alco sheet, it can still take 10 inches before the mechanism operates the brakes using the power store. So in this scenario - the brakes cannot seize onto the wheels as they are nowhere near the wheels.

In actual fact we reverse ours up on to  the drive, but I think the same logic applies.... the brakes are still nowhere near the wheel and so can't lock on as the hand brake is applying power to the power store not the brakes !?!?

So the handbrake only applies the brakes onto the wheels if you pull foward a bit - which is what is recommended usually. In this case the brakes can seize onto the wheel as they are actually touching them !

I could have got it all wrong though....