How to thrive on a non 240v site!

While I agree that LED bulbs are a good saving I think we need to assess how many lights we actually turn on at this time of year.  It would be a real waste of my money to go all LED so I just have the two reading ones and above the sink.  I seldom turn on the bathroom light so haven't changed them.  I do keep a rechargeable torch handy for searching cupboards though!  

I don't disagree with you.  I would merely say that there are in my mind three aspect to having 12v electricity, these are generation, storage and use I think that they need to be kept in balance   The temptation is to go for ever greater generation, but sometimes it might make sense rather than getting an ever bigger panel to look at ways of reducing usage   Of course in the summer you use very little lighting and if you are going away just for a weekend probably all you need is a charged battery nothing else.  No solar panel no LED's.   In December and January the situation might be different  

We've just swapped ours, but not the bathroom, largely because we couldn't work out a way of getting the possibly now brittle 17 yr old plastic cover off - we just hope that the bulb it arrived with never never goes!

And we're on an 80W folding panel at present, as we don't have a lot of things other than lights and pumps to draw from the battery.

Richard

just filled Gaslow (large size 11kg/22ltr) after 11 days (5 a fortnight ago and 6 this week) on non ehu THS sites.

guage showing almost empty, but am very skeptical of these so a top up is always the best way to check usage.

tank took 11ltr (so only half empty) at the frightening cost of £6.40...around 60p a day for cooking, hot water and fridge.

a calor refill of the same volume would be around £25.

even at calor prices this is only around £2.30 a day which is significantly less than the approx £4 charge made by CCC for an EHU pitch (probably mirrored by other organisations to recoup leccy/bollard costs).

so, either a huge saving on gas in its own right, or a decent saving on site fees should you choose a non-ehu option (even using Calor) or even more on a specific non-ehu event like a rally/THS etc..

..or all these benefits with cheap gas on a cheap THS site.

lovely jubbly, lol

I've just re-learned the importance of checking and re-checking things actually work... we'd planned our first non-EHU weekend this w/e just past, turned up with our solar panel, (which does work), and discovered that while the gas fridge did light last November when the dealer showed us, it doesn't do so now. Not even with the gas turned on, and the cooker using the same gas pipe working happily away.
Ah well, we were lucky the nice  site warden managed to find an available power line for us. Just hoping we can get it sorted before the next trip, where EHU isn't an option!

Oh Hedgehurst I do hope that doesn't happen to us next month 😲😲. We're off grid for the first time in a while, I suggested to hubby to check fridge on gas - I was informed no need I've checked pilot light lights. We did discuss further 😉 but no other checks were carried out. If it doesn't work he's gonna find it a very expensive few days lol.

Hearing the fridge click onto gas is a relief....hearing the gas run out at 12.30 am not quite such a relief (just happened to us.) Spare bottle essential and good torch for early hours connecting.....

I woke some 8 nights ago at 3am to that scenario! Could have left it until getting up time but was awake anyway

Get yourself an autochange over regulator, worrying about gas running out in the.middle of the night becomes a distant memory. 

B2, if you have access to the van, always worth spending a minute or two just to finish the test off and see the fridge fully alight.

best to find out now than on arrival....

one of the real advantages of having the van on the drive is that any mods can be tested here prior to leaving for site...

i realise what a pain it can be having to collect van from storage, or even do work at the storage site....our pals have no room at home and even loading/unloading can be a pain.

good luck with your venture 'into the wilds'