Is EHU metering a good investment?

I don’t find it that surprising, he did say it was a particularly cold spell. A few years ago we were away in our 2014 Unicorn Cadiz during the beast from the east. The Alde heating on 2Kw was only maintaining 18C by being on constantly.

ChocT, as an aside, Alde wet heating has been around for decades. I had a 1992 caravan with it fitted and it wasn't a new innovation then. I heard it was originally designed for boats.

I agree with David in that we prefer to do our touring/exploring where 'suitable clothing' is generally shorts and a tee shirt.

however, we have family to see and be with around the festive time of the year, along with a regular New Year break with out local pals.

we are heading out with them tomorrow for a couple of days as they want to give their van a run...serviced pitch, hs, water and EHU right on a local river for £18 a night....

however the weather is anything but bright and crisp (that would make a change) with just more and more damp dark days, not helped by the ridiculous clock change which forces everyone to have their heating on for an extra hour each evening...just what you want when power might become short and prices are high and you want to lift folks spirits....hmmmm. Im regularly reminded of 'double summer time' to aid the war effort and how we could still be a little more inventive now.

but back to the thread and the club might find itself between a rock and a hard place as it struggles to find a fair solution to electricity use.

any form of 'smaller included amount' or other measurements requires the not insignificant investment of meters.

other forms of reduction like lower level breakers should help members appreciate why and how, and could bring overall levels down but might add to warden 'duties' if members can't fix a tripped bollard with a flick of a switch as we all used to.

of course, as in all 'projects' a viable solution is 'do nothing' which is where the club is currently (other than notices that folk don't read or ignore) and let everyone 'pay the (increasing) price'. 

some might say this is a fair approach, but it won't do anything to help reduce overall costs with folk ever more happy to use 'what they've paid for'.

perhaps, things might change in the world with supplies eventually getting back to a more normal level along with prices...but that's a long way off yet.

Until then we can only watch this space with the club...but that might mean a lot of watching...

So if heating and cooking on electricity easily double that on a cold day.

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Our 1984 Cotswold Windrush had Alde heating. It was 2kw version. That van, and the one we still have were/are incredibly well insulated. Having done quite a bit of renovation on both, we took walls apart occasionally, and had to get all the insulation back into place. We never struggled with cold in either van, in the depths of Winter.

Our current CW van has Truma heating. Our MH is Truma as well, again it never seems cold, as we only have a small oil filled radiator on in cab area overnight in Winter. That’s a max of 2kw as well, but it’s never on full. 

The thing with restaurants is that you do pay for what you consume. The meal served is a standardised portion. Sides/ second helpings come at a cost. The standard caravanner/motorhomer IS subsidising the electrically obese.

On the point raised by YT on page 32, are we already seeing price pressure? Minehead was quoted at £29. It was the last CAMC site I stayed on two years ago. The cost then £21.50, a rise over the past two years of 38%.

In 1980s we had a Target caravan with wet heating.  The boiler sat outside on the A-frame and had a pull-and-turn valve on the burner allowing two levels of heat. The handbook suggested that in cold weather we should turn on the second burner!

As an aside, we were using the earlier Calor lightweight bottles that were alluminium.  

Our van is a 2008 model, I think it was 2009 when Swift beefed up the insulation in their vans, so we just missed out.

As TW said, the Alde system has been around for a long time, and was indeed originally designed for boats.  It is very popular in Scandinavia where lots of people have seasonal vans that are used all year round, as it can be remotely controlled to turn on the heating, on gas, so the van is warm when you arrive for a weekend of ski-ing .  

Warm up does take longer, especially in winter,  than the blown air as the whole fabric of the van is heated, so we would normally leave it running, at a lower temperature when we are out for the day so that bringing it back to a more comfortable temperature does not take so long.  This is much less of a problem usually in late spring,  summer, and early autumn, when we do most of our caravanning.

As we spent a lot of time in Germany in 2009-2017, where metered electricity is quite common, and very expensive, and connection boxes are often locked, I had fitted a metering system in the van so we could keep an eye on our use and not end up with an eye-watering bill, something which is very possible in below zero temperatures in the Black Forest in May!

We noticed that most German caravanners use very large gas bottles, so they must also find their electricity expensive and prefer to use gas.  Plus, as already said, on most continental vans an electric heating  system is usually an optional extra, and gas is much better at heating the van quickly as you are not limited by the rating of the EHU.

We also have a refillable Gaslow system, so using gas for heating is more cost effective when EHU rates are high, and we often speed up the heating and HW by using gas even when EHU is not metered.

We have an excellent user payload and a very good, spacious shower room in our van, the main reasons we still have it, and OH needs help when showering, so it makes life much easier just to use our own facilities most of the time, even though it usually means fetching more water.

The advantage though is that we can use no facility sites and CLs, and do not need to worry about the standard of facilities anywhere.  And save on site fees!

The price pressure is worldwide CY it’s not down to lack of on site or lack of metering. If I personally ever pay extra for someone to be warm I’m happy to help, it’s the caring thing👍🏻