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We are new to caravanning, although my wife did lots with her parents when she was younger, and we have just bought a Bailey Pageant Provence and needed a bit of advice for when we stay at sites without hook up.

How long should a cylinder of gas last if you are using it for the heater and the fridge and how long should the leisure battery last for the other appliances over a long weekend. I take it that in order to re-charge the battery you just hook the car up and leave it running for a while??

Sorry if these are silly questions but we are planning to go to Hollands Wood in the New Forest shortly which doesn't have hook up and I want to be as well prepared as possible - any other tips would be much appreciated.

Cheers, Shaun

The other thing you could consider is fitting a solar panel to just help with trickle charging in the daytime. look at some of the ones in the link below.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=solar&source=15

Your battery and gas should easily last a long weekend. I would be very surprised if you managed to use a cylinder in a weekend. Mine has lasted a year lol. Before EHU I used to use 2 batteries and they lasted me 2 weeks.

I dont think you can charge up your battery with the car while on site. I am sure someone will be along to explain why. 

When we started caravanning we never used EHU as it was mainly rallying. Although we only went in spring and summer I don't recall ever using up a full bottle of gas in a weekend (7Kg butane), and for our summer holiday the battery never went flat in a fortnight.

But of course we didn't have TVs or CD players running from the 12v - the radio cassette used it's own batteries.

Thanks for all the replies - this is really helppful.

One other thing - we may be going to Hollands Wood which I don't believe has a waste disposal area so what do you do with both grey and chemical waste??

Thanks again for all the help

Shaun

You could, if you were looking at using non EHU sites on a regular basis, invest in either a solar trickle charger (as mentioned) or a small portable generator to top your battery up during daylight hours - apparently it doesn't need to run for long - in laws use 1 quite regularly, just a couple of hours a day.

As for gas, depends on the weather really - if it's nice & warm, then it's really only going to be for hot water & the odd meal, in which case, 7kg should last you ages.  we've only just had our 240v / gas water heater installed, so were using gas for hot water & cooking with a baby, yet we're still on our 1st 4.5kg cylinder having had 2 weeks+ away - granted we weren't using it for heating, but that was because I was a numpty & was concerned about CO build up, not realising that the heater had an external flue, so only used sites with EHU so we could plug our little heater in!!!

Regarding waste disposal - can't say I've heard of a site through my inlaws which didn't have an Elsan point of some description - even just a dedicated outdoor loo to empty into - failing a dedicated point, then you may just have to take it into the loo block & pop it down the loo.  As for grey water, there are some sites which it is far easier to just let things drain - depending on what others are doing - would have a look for the general concensus - you'll either have to go the whole hog & empty in a designated point, or leave a drain point on the waste open slightly & let it drain slowly, moving every day so there isn't a hugely obvious green lush patch, or just have extra long pipes & drain directly into the bushes or verges - like I said - have a wander & see what everyone else is up to!! 

thanks for the advice Amanda,

how have you found settling the baby in the caravan as we have a very lively 20 month old and I am a bit concerned about her bedding arrangements!!

Shaun