How to thrive on a non 240v site!

I used a cheap solar charger at one time to keep the battery topped up which it did well and it fitted inside the van window.  Just be aware if you are a complete novice that you need to be careful with chargers and attaching them.  Don't let the two wires touch each other and I believe best practise is to detach the red positive wire first.  Not wanting to teach you to suck eggs but doing it wrong can be shocking!

Thanks again folks.

You are right Boff, we will eventually replace my broken panel but probably with another portable as I was quite happy with the one we had (half will do for now ). I don't want to get a fixed one as it's a fairly new caravan so don't want to effect waranty etc and we have managed fine with portable.  I shall also keep an eye out in Aldi/Lidl for a thing to check my battery charge.

I tihnk I am going to try a cheap small panel just to keep the battery topped up in storage and see how it goes.  I'm quite a small girl and getting the battery in an out on a regular basis in the winter would be quite a chew as I find it quite heavy.  Even in winter we are normally out every 3-4 weeks and go on EHU in winter so hopefully a little panel will do for in between times.  I shall measure my battery during the coming winter and not let it get so low.

Certainly removes any fears of driving over it boff! Batteries will get 'tired' eventually. We are out on site at the moment in amazingly hot and sunny Dorset so there is no issue with power, however, I know that when I bought my Elecsol batteries, they were not a great product as the idiot who ran it had lost so many customers through rudeness that he was struggling and was cutting corners - they have lasted 3-4 years. They are getting tired now and are certainly not holding the charge they could when they were new. Toast was no problem through the toaster- we could certainly do 6 rounds or so but now the inverter starts to alarm through low voltage when it has almost done the first two so it's a battery change for us! Problem is- what type?? 

Well as of last week I got my sp installed on the roof, went for 150 wat in the end I did go with a standard controller (10 amp) but after reading this and other articulate from this thread I'm going to invest in a 20 amp MPPT controller from Photonic as it seems a little more intelligent.

got two full calorie light bottles at the moment so will wait till they drain down before I look at something else.

Not gone off grid yet first cl without ehu in a couple of weeks, still looking at sites with toilets as wife not yet keen on "fully" using the onboard wc yet😱

After getting a new(ish) van I want to start using it more but don't want to be paying through the nose for nights away.

Nice one Karl - 150w is a nice panel. Yes, a 20w controller would be much better!  You'll have no difficulties going non EHU with that- as long as you have the batteries to store all that lovely free power! Good that you are thinking of alternatives to cylinder gas from Calor- it's just a ripoff. We are on site at the moment and are 11 days into a 21 day stay. 4 adults, 2 grandkids, - no shortage of power- or gas for that matter- £5 a night and so far a brilliant holiday. Tell the wife that she will be fine using the caravan loo- it's emptying it that's the fun part! Bio pods from Aldi or Lidl can cut your costs even more against expensive blue and use Aldi or Lidl fabric conditioner in the flush water and the jobs a good'un! Best of luck- let us know how it went as you are a non EHU virgin.

Well I bit the bullet and ordered the 20amp MPPT controller from Photonic (thanks CC for the 10% off) I did look at the cheaper Chinese ones on eBay but I have had bad experiences with cheaper Chinese rubbish and as its power I decided to go with one I can  trust.

Thanks for the tip about the fabric conditioner will also give that a go when Im out of pink.

I had changed the battery out a couple of weeks ago to the Platinum AGMLB6110L cant go for an Aux as I have some issues with weight at moment, with everything loaded (awning, mover solar panel ext the weighbridge showed 1580kg so 80kg over weight, I know the awning goes in the car but that's not 80KG worth so I have to have a look around and see what I can do but I guess the one battery with a 150 SP should be fine for up to a week away.

This time of year you shouldn't have any problem with a 150W panel and a single battery.   I would check to make sure that your caravan has  led lights and if it still has halogens, that's where I would invest in changing those out.  

Using your own facilities really isn't a problem, but my preference is for old fashioned blue toilet fluid because it is poisonous and I want it to kill stuff. 

We're planning on taking our own first EHU-free w/e with a solar panel, also from Photonic who seemed to have excellent feedback. Will report back!

When you say you want to kill stuff.... the poisonous blue does just that, yes, but is it also worth considering what it does further downstream in the water recycling system, when it goes on killing stuff which didn't need killing? Some of the "green" loo chemicals are every bit as good, and fast,  as rendering the contents of the loo safe and breaking down the bacteria, and killing the smell too - and I'm reasonably good at detecting and objecting to pongs - as the old blue stuff. They also break it down in such a way that it can even go down a normal loo rather than needing chemical hazard treatment. To my mind it smells less unpleasant than the old blue chemical even before it starts. Incidentally the "green" one we use is also blue coloured,'cos they reckon people prefer it that way!

While we're saving energy for the money, I'd like to think we're also doing our bit for the environment as well.

We used to go tent camping with a group, when a hole was dug in the farmer's field for the contents of the primitive loo bucket afterwards. The trouble is, that bit of underground would then have been very polluted for a long time. If the green stuff we now use had been available then, we could have poured the contents of the same bucket into the hole & covered it up, when it would have been usefully breaking down in the soil.
Best wishes,

Richard

HH, we have just moved, this morning, to our 2nd THS site this week, now at Chichester (sun strarting to come out) and the batteries were full before we left at 10:30 and this was after watching the tennis (brilliant performance Jo) in the late afternoon and some other stuff till 10 (it did chuck it down in Fordingbridge yesterday but we strolled into town for lunch.......earned a sit down for the tennis.....)

due to the constraints of our smaller roof (and other kit up there) oir 120w panel wouldnt fit, so we had a 100w one instead, this has been (to us) just as effective as the 120w one, we have wven charged our bike batteries from the leisure batteries (via inverter) and havent noticed any real drop in battery levels.

there is space for a 2nd 100w panel which i am considering, though the larger panel wouldnt fit in either of the two spaces....

also try and use USB charging for phone and tablets if you can.

good luck

So I bit the bullet and bought a new 120Watt portable panel.  Whilst we can probably get away with our broken half panel in the summer, we do go non ehu in Spring/autumn as well, so I thought I may as well buy now rather than later :).  We know with this size panel we can pretty much use what we want in the warm weather.  I'm still considering a really small panel to keep the battery topped up in storage.