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To be honest our van is 10 years old - it has a gas fire but we don't use it as the guy who was meant to be servicing the van let us down and until it is done I won't turn it on.

We have an £8.99 fan heater from Argos and our 15 foot odd van is warm within 10 mins of putting it on!  It then cuts in and out on a thermostat and we find that totally adequate and it doesn't cost us a penny as it is running off of the EHU which is bought and paid for.

Ali

 You can cut down a lot of draughts by buying fridge vent covers. I have 2 for winter and cover over 90% of the outside fridge vents. They just clip on and turn plastic lug.

 There is a couple of vent covers on this link for different types of vents:

http://www.east-coast-leisure.co.uk/modules/catbuild/files/range190_Fridge.html

We also have the S6 Burgundy and we set the electric fire to 1000 watts and leave it on setting no. 7 all night, we were as warm as toast all weekend and only use a 4 tog duvet.

                Jim

The gas is more powerful that the electric, but even on electric it should not take too long to warm up.  Using an ordinary fan heater will warm quicker than the van's one as there is no loss in the pipework.  If you have 16amp EHU you could put the van heater on 2kw and use 1kw on an additional fan heater.  Leave everything else off except the fridge/lights/battery charger until you are warm enough.

A thick rug on the floor will help to keep your feet warmer.  Track down annoying draughts and try to reduce them, but be careful not to block any essential vents.

We've just come back from a frosty weekend in the caravan.

We leave the (electric blown warm air) heating on all the time - just on low overnight, or if we go out and also keep plenty of ventilation open too, to prevent condensation.  It takes a little while to warm the van up initially, but is cosy and warm from thereon.  We don't find we need any additional heating appliances, or blankets etc,.  With a standard 10.5 tog feather/down duvet, we are plenty warm enough overnight.

Be wary of using winter fridge covers (if you have them) - I was reading in my Swift service handbook that they should only be used when the temperatures outside are below 7 deg C.  If you use them under the wrong conditions, you can damage the fridge.

hi

we go away all winter even in the snow and we are always toastie warm we use the gas fire without the fan to get the van warm then use the fan and thermostat to keep it lovely and warm we dont really use the blow air except in summer to blow cool air round the van and we use the electric coz we paid for it although depending on some sites u can use everything but sometimes you have to forfeit the hot water because of the ampage you trip but we have put the water on to gas just to heat it up you use less gas than having heating on    

                                                    jo

Hi

I've a bailey Pageant (Series 5)

To be honest I think the blown air heating isn't very good. It seems to lose a lot of heat through the under floor ducts. In our last caravan we just used a thermostatically controlled convector heater (no fan noise) and left it on 24/7.

We now use the new system but generally as an electric convector heater. It still takes a while to start producing heat but does keep the van nice and warm. Start off with 2000 watts to get it going and then turn it down to 1000 or 500 depending on the outside temperature and the E.H.U. supply.

Tyreman