Blog 1.8: T'Van. Part 3. T'Kit

OK, enough of the faux northern nonsense now. No more T'anything. Promise.

So then, the equipment-type stuff that the van came with as standard, and the bits that we've added ourselves since getting it in May:

TV

It came with a 'smart' TV as standard, which is quite useful if you like that sort of thing. We never bothered before in all our many years of camping and caravanning, much preferring to read as an antidote to watching the garbage broadcast constantly while at home. However, it's quite nice to watch a few You Tube vlogs (we're avid subscribers to such channels as Liam the Terrible, Camper Vibe, Haze Outdoors, Girl Outdoors, John & Mandy, Luke's Vanlife, Charlie Pauly, Will's Whereabouts, The Beechwoods, and many more, so it's nice to be able to keep up with their lives while we are on the road). The satellite dish is quite convenient as it unfolds and retracts at the touch of the TV's remote control on/off button, so there's no real chance of driving off with an antenna extended, as many will have done. Freesat is pretty good, as it's, well, free, but we also invested in a Fire TV stick for the occasions when we don't want to (or can't) put up the dish, but obviously this comes with a cost on the wifi subscription. However, in truth we don't use the TV much - maybe just winding down for a hour at the end of the day if we feel like it. I probably wouldn't miss it even though I've kinda got used to having it recently.

Wifi

Yes, this is pretty much an essential. It was something we specified to be installed before we picked up the van, and consists of a roof-mounted 'dome' antenna which can pull in a signal where the normal phone often can't and a tiny router mounted in a cupboard, and is currently driven by a Smarty card subscription (under review as I'm not convinced by it, especially on the 'roaming' side of things. We'll soon see though).

Heating/Hot Water

This is taken care of by a Truma 'combi' boiler mounted under the rear habitation seats. It can be run from LPG, or from 'shore' power when we are on a hook-up (increasingly unusual for us). Apparently it can be controlled via a phone app (Truma iNet) but I've not downloaded that yet, so haven't tried it. One day maybe, as it gets colder.

It has various settings which mean it can be used at various power levels (eco-lukewarm, up to volcano-hot) and can be boosted by using both gas and electric in tandem - probably costing about ten quid a minute at current fuel costs. I exaggerate. Slightly.

SatNav/Radio, etc

This is down to a Pioneer Apple CarPlay/Android Play headset, with a quite nice and decently sized touch screen. Over the period since we started using the van we've used the obligatory GoogleMaps satnav, which I really don't rate, and the inbuilt setup, which I believe is TomTom judging by the voices and style as it appears to mimic the TomTom standalone unit we once had. Anyway, I quite like it; certainly much more than the Google variety. I've also downloaded Waze as an alternative but have yet to use this in anger.

Power Outlets

Poor. No really. I don't know what it is about caravan and motorhome manufacturers, but they really don't seem to want to add these to their base spec. They're cheap, and if added when the van is in build, they're dead easy to wire in. But no, they seem to think that Mr & Mrs EndUser only want to plug in a kettle, and maybe one phone charger at each end of the van. Like I said - poor.

Fortunately, we noticed this, somewhat, when we placed our deposit, and so specified extra USBs and fag sockets (in the garage and above the second bed. I've also since had the fag socket and usb on the dash, which were only active while the key is 'on', replaced with ones that run directly off the leisure battery, and handily also have a built-in voltmeter. The latter, however, has rather a bright blue light, and tends to get covered with a sock or similar at bedtime!

The rest of the van needs a good looking at in this respect, and will be the subject of a few mods before our next big trip. For this one, though, we'll make do with what we have and a few doublers.

Cooking

The van comes with a three-ring gas hob and an oven and grill in UK spec. Everyone else gets a cupboard instead of the oven/grill. They're adequate. There's no microwave, but that's no loss as pretty much all we use the home one for is warming plates...

We do, however, use an induction hob too. It's a 'Kampa' low-power one admittedly so not super fast like the Bobby Bosch one at home, but it saves the gas, and is reasonably efficient. We can't always be arsed to drag it out of the garage to use it, mind, but it's a useful thing to have. Obviously it needs 240v to run it so shore power or an inverter is required. Not having (yet) an onboard inverter may be seen as a problem, but I'll come to that.

The tea and coffee requirements come down to a 'Collaps' folding kettle running off the gas or the induction hob, or if on hook-up, there's a low-power mains kettle - which has to plug into a ludicrously-sited socket mounted on the bottom of the wall cupboard over the sink/hob. Those crappy power provisions again!

12v Power

This, after a bad experience the first time we went 'off grid' is now pretty good.

As built, the van had a 100w solar panel mounted on the roof, which we decided wasn't good enough, so we had the dealer uprate it to a 155w one, which was the largest they reckoned they could install, disappointingly.

This fed into (or didn't!) a puny 75ah Varta dual-purpose lead-acid battery. All quite unsatisfactory as it was, but much more so when we discovered that the panel wasn't actually charging the leisure battery, when we were many miles from home and set for a couple of weeks on the road. In the event, we managed, but only by running the engine on a regular basis to top up the battery which spent most of its time hovering around the 12v mark (ie pretty much discharged) otherwise. We later discovered that there was a loose connection to the solar charger, which may have been OK when the dealer installed it, but had probably vibrated loose and disconnected. Grrr.

I've still to hear back from the dealer re. this. I'm not expecting anything particularly positive, but some kind of acknowledgement... nah, not going to happen, is it?

Anyway, following that trip I bit the bullet, as I'd planned anyway but maybe not so quickly, and booked the van in with the marvellous guys at Bluefix at Hereford, Luke and Mark, for some heavy-duty upgrades.

These consisted of installing a much larger 400w Perlight Black solar panel (see Mr Dealer, it can be done) and a 110ah Ecotree Lithium LiFePo4 battery, a Victron MTTP charge controller, and a Victron shunt.

I can't, for obvious reasons, compare the performance of old vs new systems, but I don't think there's any doubt at all that it's a massive improvement.

If you ever find you need to have any similar upgrades, or diesel heaters, etc, be sure to contact Bluefix. They'll even come and do the work on your drive if you ask them nicely. Can't fault them.

Cooling/Freezing

This is one bit that Weinsberg definitely got almost completely right. The tall fridge with a good freezer compartment is excellent, certainly compared to the unit we had in the caravan. Capacious, and with auto switchover, meaning it'll shut the gas supply down when the engine is switched on, reverting to 12v operation, and likewise to 240v if shore power is hooked up. Being a 3-way means it's not suitable for 12v operation without the engine running however, which is the drawback, and one reason we also carry a Halfords 12v 'beer fridge' Not that I drink, myself...

Gas

As standard, these vans come with a gas locker with room for a couple of 'Calor Gas' type bottles, but we decided to specify a Gaslow system instead. It still uses two (11kg) gas bottles, but these are connected to a filler socket above the gas locker door meaning they can be charged from an ordinary LPG pump at a fuel station. This is a mixed blessing, however, as filling stations with this facility are far less common than they used to be. It was a judgment call though, and one I don't regret. Yet. At least I know we should be able to refill on the continent (we have the adaptors for continental pumps) whereas Calor bottles are unobtainable, so we'd need to swap out for local regulators and bottles.

'Other' Electrickery

By that, I'm referring to our backup Ecoflow DeltaMax 1600 powerbank, carried in the garage, and connected to the solar panel via the adjacent fag socket. This gives us a big chunk of extra power for such things as charging the two folding electric-assisted E-Go bikes, and running the induction hob via its built-in inverter. Yes, it was pricey, but it's so worth that cost

The nice thing is that it can also be charged quite rapidly when we are on a hook up, and also gets a charge while driving, so it's a virtually constant source of extra powre should we need it. It may even be quite useful at home when those power cuts hit us... Who knows?

That's most stuff covered I think. We may well decide after the upcoming trip that we need a diesel heater installing, and to be honest I'm thinking that I should have perhaps done it already. They're a cheap source of reliable heat (2kw should suffice although larger ones are available) and help conserve gas for hot water/cooking/fridge, so I could well be giving Luke a call in the not-too-distant future to discuss options. I may even do it myself, but these bones aren't getting any younger for scrabbling around on cold tarmac. I may also look at adding a built-in inverter, but I'm yet to be convinced, unless I also double up the batteries, and that's a whole other world of financial pain!

Anyway, it's now late Monday afternoon, which means that in two days time we will have cruised the M1/M25 etc (oh joy) down to our parkup in Seaford ready for are sojourn Into the great Wide Open (with apologies to Tom Petty) on Wednesday morning.

See you on the other side.