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 Topic: touring caravan width HELP!
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12/10/2021 at 5:47pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Perhaps not quite as simple as just the width of the van compared to width of drive. Most vans have the entrance door on one side and ALL the services (Water inlet, Mains Electric inlet (often in with the Battery compartment), and Cassette toilet tank locker) on the other, and you'll need a good couple of feet gap to access those! Some even have the Gas cylinder locker on the side! Also the corner steady winders are often accessed from the side at least at the front end, again you'll need a couple of feet to get the winding handle in! Vans aimed at UK market have entrance door on nearside and services access on offside, continental vans are the reverse.
TBH, once you are inside a van it's difficult to tell one brand from another, they all pretty much follow a similar layout which is as much dictated by practicalities of achieving correct weight distribution for towing as anything else. The appliances such as cooker, heater, fridge etc. are all bought in items and common to many van brands. Once a van is a few years old and out of warranty the brand almost becomes incidental, you need to concentrate mostly on the quality of the individual van you are interested in, damp, soggy delaminated floors and such like become your prime concerns. Layouts change little over many years, and changes are often little more than cosmetic.
'Berths' can be misleading, often any berths other than the main bed (be it make up or fixed) are only kiddy sized in both dimensions and weight bearing capacity! Fixed bed dimensions can be a little short and not best suited to tall people! You need to measure and/or check specs closely to ensure they suit your needs.
Caravan Finder web site is as good a place as any to do some armchair research to see what's out there, what ticks your boxes, and what's within your budget. Be warned, demand has sky rocketed since Covid forced people to holiday in UK, and prices are driven high by demand, expect any van purchased now to be expensive and take a big dive in value in 2 or 3 years time when demand has subsided and people return to foreign holidays, probably flooding the market with vans! https://www.caravanfinder.co.uk/caravans.html
Good luck.
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12/10/2021 at 11:40pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Quote: Originally posted by kylelewis89 on 12/10/2021
Noted thank you, but is it a possibility to slide it out from one end (so it's diagonal in a sense) to reach these every week or fortnight? Or is that unrealistic?
What you have to appreciate is that the axle(s) are approximately midway along body, therefore that is the pivot point, so whatever 'gap' you create at one end, the opposite end will swing the opposite way! So creating a 3ft gap at one end will mean the other end will swing 3ft the other way (into a space that really isn't there)!
Practically, to change a parked 6 inch full length gap into a 'working space' of 3ft, you've got to move the entire van forwards (or backwards) until you have that space!
Certainly if two of you are using the onboard loo, the waste tank will need emptying every 2-3 days max! PLUS, most (if not one of those few vans where the flush water is supplied from fresh water inlet/onboard tank) have the toilet flush water tank filler positioned just above the waste tank locker, that'll need refilling every 3-4 days!
Normal practice is to only connect 'services' once the van is parked on a pitch with access all round, things like the grey water outlet (kitchen sink, bathroom basin and shower water) are only rather tenuous push fit fittings without any locking feature, chances are if you made the connection and then moved the van the pipes would pop off!
TBH, 'parking' a fully functional van with only a 6 inch gap on the 'service' side is a bit of a non-starter! There are a host of reasons why it's less than ideal for a van in storage (access to corner steady winder, wheel locks, battery etc.), but a 'liveable' van takes on a whole different dimension and lacks any kind practicality.
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via mobile 12/10/2021 at 6:14pm
