CL Hardstandings

Many thanks yes quite aware it charges the battery, we have a trickle charger solar panel on our tractor barely keeps that charged, our 4KW house system barely makes any some days in the winter and the car battery soon goes flat if you leave the side lights on!!  Regularly during the winter the CL site has used in excess of 200KW for 5 vans per day,  I still dont think a 120w solar panel will cope with that. As always there is a pitch and a CL for everyone.

The trick with a Solar Panel system is recognising it's not so much how many amps or KW's it generates but what your storage capacity is.

SpK. You assume that everyone has a caravan like yours. There are many with camper vans, small caravans without hot water or on board showers,  trailer tents, and  folding caravans. We don't all tow bungalows around. 

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your absolutely right euro, that's a valid statement which I accept

Returning to the OP's point about hardstandings.

We, along with a large part of the club membership, tour in a motorhome.  It's a simple fact that motorhomes don't do wet muddy ground.  It's also the case that a much higher proportion of motorhomes are in use all year round than is the case for caravans.

So I'd suggest that the single most cost effective change a CL owner can make is to provide adequately sized hardstanding pitches that can be reached without going off a hard surfaced road.

Suitable for all and hopefully provide a year round income stream for the operator.

jakeontour- Fully agree and they dont have to be special,Reasonably flat, accessable from hard entrance. Saves the M/h and the state of the Cl site.

Best if part of the site could be grass for those of us that prefer it in summer. 

Even if there are five hardstanding points us grass lovers could go somewhere else on site if big enough. 

The trouble with hardstanding points is they tend to be all together in order to make EHU installation less expensive. Some if us like to be off in a corner somewhere on our own 

Many thanks yes quite aware it charges the battery, we have a trickle charger solar panel on our tractor barely keeps that charged, our 4KW house system barely makes any some days in the winter and the car battery soon goes flat if you leave the side lights on!!  Regularly during the winter the CL site has used in excess of 200KW for 5 vans per day,  I still dont think a 120w solar panel will cope with that. As always there is a pitch and a CL for everyone.

.....but i was only advocaring the charging of a few ipads, alog with running the water pump and TV from the battery and solar panel...

all the 'meaty stuff' that you're alluding to with your electric readings are likely to be for heating and hot water where i suggested using gas.

yes, its fairly obvious an SP isnt going to be able to heat a van and provide hot water too....

As the number of motorhomes increase (as a proportion of the overall membership) and CL's realise they can increase their occupancy and open all year rather than on a seasonal basis, I'd expect to see an increasing number of CL owners who wish to invest in their CL considering the installation of H/S seriously.  Especially if we have another wet Spring.  

The costs are not inconsiderable.  The Club budgets approx £2K per H/S.  Some farm-based CL's who have the skills and equipment (mini-digger etc) may be able to do them for a lot less, but with a hard driveway, the costs are likely to be £5K to £10K for installing them.   Not to mention the lack of income during the installation period.  

Making them look attractive by using 'Eco Grid' type products that allow the grass to grow back on top of the H/S (as at Birch Hill  - see above) will only add to the costs.

Pay-back on H/S @ an investment of £5K-£10K will depend on location and occupancy, but it will certainly be a couple of years for most CL's and possibly much longer.

I have been wrestling with this dilema for our CL.  The CL drains exceptionally well, but this Spring we were close to closing due to the continuous rain.  Hardstamdings would lengthen the season, reduce the hassle and be much easier for Motorhome visitors ( which struggle even on dewy grass)..  But, I'm in an AONB and I don't want a CL looking like a car park, which means the Eco-Grid route..  

I have not seen your site but might it be possible to do say 2 pitches or would the cost be disproportionate to doing all 5 whilst the plant is on site?

If the cost is £5 to £10k then the return on an investment of that amount could take years to recover.

As I am sure you know, the calculation is not simply the number of nights needed to recover the investment but the number of extra nights you sell that without making the investment would not have been sold. In other words, the opportunity cost.

That could take a very long time indeed.

2k per hardstanding. If you pay some contractor maybe. We did ours for about £200 each that's purely for gravel as we had plentiful supply of hardcore and I used our own digger. Road I which is about fifty yards was done with road planings which very soon sticks together to become tarmac again and cost no more than 1k I would guess. Our land is wet so HS is a must however we have managed to retain two well drained ish areas for grass pitches. So three HS and two grass pitches all accessible from the road. We get a lot of MH enroute so agree that Some HS are a must