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is there a cleaner or cleaner or polish that will inhibit that yucky green algae from growing on the outside of my caravan ?

It's an awful job to get off the dimply bits (I wish they's just make caravans smooth !) but I'd rather not have to polish it, hoping someone can reccommend something that I can just add to the water when I'm washing it  - if there is such a thing ?!

Fenwicks caravan cleaner works great .

atb

Wizard

Hi both and thanks.  I'll google that now.

Craig we've managed to get it off (with Ecover & water & a lot of scrubbing ) but it always comes back again. Hopefully this Fenwicks stuff might help prevent that though...

Sorry, same here, I've always waxed my vans regularly, I have tried loads of products before but nothing works as well as this in my opinion.

The older the van, the more pitted the paint, the more nooks and crannies for algae to grow in.

You could try using a decent wash and wax to do the job in one, though to be honest, espcially on the roof, I think you would be hard put to beat a decent layer of wax.

Saying that though, when you wash the van, you probably leave very small amounts of Algae behind, as soap wont kill it, so it probably comes back quicker because of this.  I wonder if it is worth trying a treatment to at least try to kill off the stuff that is on the surface and paint pits on the van.  Just had a quick search, possibly something like this:

http://www.trinionchem.com/sdp/330645/4/md-1416366/1914646.html

Tony B

It would be worth checking it hasn't also got paint removal properties aswell though Lol.

Tony B

This has all been helpful.  I'm mainly looking to find a way of spending less time & effort at keeping the old caravan looking presentable you see, so....

Sounds like the overwintering stuff might be effective at preventing algae re-growth which is precisely what I was looking to do.  However as you seemingly have to apply that then scrub  it off again tbh that doesn't seem much less work than scrubbing off the algae - and would cost a lot moe than just washing the green stuff off with Ecover !

Car wax out too as again needs doing regularly so probably that's not the best option for us either...

Any sort of caravan cover would get ripped to shreds by the winds here within one year so I'm afraid that's out too

I'm liking the sound of the  wash n wax in one though... Tony is there any particular one you's reccommend ? I appreciate you feel a good wax is best, but just not willing/able to do that on a regular basis so wash n wax sound like a good one for us     What you said about the pitted paint etc all makes sense to me & I reckon there's a fair old chance you're right about the algae needing killing off properly too. Clicked the link you provided & I think that most likely that stuff would do the trick, but it sounds abit scary ! We're both `organic' sort of people if you know what I mean .. ?  I'd be scared for the dogs & as we'd be applying this stuff at home and would worry about the dogs ingesting any residue etc etc so I think will pass on that stuff but thanks a lot for the all the info Tony   

This is great everyone thank you , reallly helping to have all the differnt info / suggestions to mull over. Were it a newer caravan I'd probably make the time to wax  & polish it regularly but it's not, and it's sort of devoid of any shine / gloss - mind you maybe that's got a lot to do with the rampant recurrent algae problem !  

  Just a tip on cleaning dimpled aluminium. When we had a van with it, the makers handbook recommended using a pad of short pile carpet when washing it.

                       Pete.

Quote: Originally posted by Burrellboy on 01/6/2011

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  Just a tip on cleaning dimpled aluminium. When we had a van with it, the makers handbook recommended using a pad of short pile carpet when washing it.

                       Pete.

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