I use the clip as well as leaving a few sheets of kitchen roll on the shelves and freezer compartment. Again I leave this open. Bottle corks are great for leaving the cupboard doors open enough for air circulation.

If you find this hint useful please subscribe, like and comment. We have way more howtos hints and tips on our channel and would love your feedback.

We're new to the vanlife world and we've joined both major clubs. We'll probably compare and contrast our experiences at the end of the year. Thanks for sharing N&Nx

Some campsites are jumping on the band wagon that everybody enjoys van life holidays. This will drive many campers to stealth camp etc. Greedy site owners will lose customers

The club is not run for members any more it's run by faceless accountants.😊😊

I assume you are at Wyatts Covert? Obviously people have different views on value for money but Club costs have risen a lot in recent years so I am not sure that around £30 a night (without electricity) is that bad, especially for a site within striking distance on London. Many CL's now charge £25/30 a night. Why did you only put £5 on the meter? Given that MeterMacs will refund any balance you wouldn't have lost out had you put £10 or even £15 on the account. I have heard that they don't immediately cut you off but I think that is to give people time to add money to their accounts which seems a good idea. At the end of the day you are responsible for what you use and for paying for it. The Director General of the Club has said that metering will be rolled out across the network once they are confident that the App is working correctly and it seems the new app arrived whilst you were away.

If you like the video and want to see more, please do subscribe.

They have to bill you. But when?

We only encountered metered electricity once during a 3 month European tour this summer and we managed with the sites ACSI allowance of 4kwh free per day to run our fridge/water pump/electric kettle/lighting. Beyond that the site would charge Euro 0.90 per kwh ( say 78p). The ACSI rate on this site for 2025 is Euro 27 ( Paradiescamping Wolfgangsee). I think that UK site fees are often excessive although I feel that the 32p per kwh charged in the video is not excessive as businesses may have to pay at a higher rate than domestic users.

You installed “all this solar gear” so why go on a EHU pitch, makes no sense to me

We used that site in May '23 and the electricity averaged a fiver a day. The CMC did publish how much they'd reduced the pitch price by and it varied depending on the time of year. Remember business energy costs aren't restricted like domestic, so many pay more than you do at home. Abbey Wood CMC is £39 to £41 end of Jan and Feb. Wyatts is the only CMC site that charges for power. They haven't extended the scheme yet. Remember £32 now was £26 in 2021, that's the average inflation.Leisure industry inflation has been higher so a £32 site now was probably £24 in 2021. Trouble is our minds haven't reconciled the increase and our earnings haven't kept up. The Putin/Truss jump in inflation has made us all poorer.

That's terrible, if it runs out it should cut off. Try not to use metered sites as they add extra on to make more profit out of the electric use. I think when you have paid over £30 a night electric should be included.

Can you imagine going to a hotel, and getting billed if you turn up the heating or have a long shower - extra charge if staying alone and you use the second bath towel in the bathroom. Sadly CAMC (I am currently a member, but reviewing this before my renewal is due in several weeks time) do not appear to be competing with privately owned sites, where in my experience the costs are comparable but the facilities tend to be better. CAMC should be a club run for its membership by enthusiasts, not as a “for profit” organisation with highly paid senior roles. From a simple Internet search: the average Director base salary at The Caravan and Motorhome Club is £92K per year, how many of these roles are there?

i live on a site he read the meter once a month we pay .28p kwh my bills about 25 ish a month in winter and £0 from march onward as solar plus i pay 16 a night

It's almost a year since I last used a Club Site. I'm afraid their prices are going into the realms of fantasy. £20 a night is my maximum, and that includes electric. Anywhere not including electric should be £15 maximum.

Little site here, we had to start charging for electricity over a certain amount of kWh a day. Didnt want to, but when you've got people sat outside their van with the door open and the air conditioning going like stink.... what can you do? We're paying commercial rates for our electricity because its a business. Not saying its whats happened here, but the climate units on modern vans love to randomly go onto Auto and start trying to heat/cool the whole planet when the owner thinks theyve turned it off

C+M club losing membershand over fist ,not run for membership who also pay a membership fee as well ! pure greed

I'm afraid the CAMC site fees are getting ridiculous, if you do a breakdown of how you get charged it exposes one high cost. Recently when booking a pitch I thought it seemed a bit cheaper than usual, when I checked the booking I realised I'd forgotten to tick the box for a second adult. When I ticked the box the price increased by £22-70 per night, taking the price to nearly £50 per night. The pitch was the same, the amount of extra water would be negligible, along with a negligable amount of extra waste. So that only left the use of the facilities, I think a charge of £22-70 for using a toilet and having a shower is nothing short of daylight robbery. I can understand a small administration fee, but not this amount. They don't even try to hide it by increasing the basic pitch price and reducing the extra person charge. And now they're bringing in metered electricity to further rip us off.

I've spent months on a boat in a marina using a metered electricity supply, and a £10 top up lasted me for at least two weeks, if not more. That said, I was using a coal stove for heating. If you were using an electric heater that might partly explain the high cost? But the bottom line for me is that if they're charging around £5 per day, it is just far too much taken over a week's stay. My guess is its a cynical marketing/billing ploy, designed to squeeze the maximum profit out of you, by separating out one of the key costs of your stay into a separate bill, an 'extra'. US business use this technique all the time. I would never visit the place again, and I would write an email complaint to CAMC, and basically raise the profile of this unpleasant business practice as much as you can. The more people acquiesce to these increasingly unfair charges, the more these cynical scumbag operators will do it.

The night cost would need to be £20 per night or less if electric isn’t included.

Hey there, thanks for the review! I am wondering, what gas regulator do I use with this Gasbank LPG Gas bottle, if I just want to connect it to the bottle itself and then attach a hose to the double gas burner outside? I don't need something with a part on it which helps it attach to Bulkhead of a motor home, for example. If it was Calor I would know exactly what to buy, but with this I am not sure quite what is compatible. Hope you can help, and hope to hear back from you soon. Best wishes, From Brandon

Do the CAMC sites say they have metered electricity on the website so you can avoid them? We use CL & CS sites predominantly.

i wont use metered sites the prices are too high anyway

I only go off grid with a generator

I don't think it's a good idea to have metered sites..... You shouldn't have to worry what electricity you are using when you're on holiday....I personally wouldn't use a site with meters.

Brilliant because of you i did not have to change the whole system i just brought the new adapters

Why would you pay anyway? There are free vpn

so its a 40a dc-dc but you have fused it to 15amp ? so have you changed the max charge lower than the 40 amp ? alternator dc input side ?

Fantastic job! This was super engaging and well-made-keep up the awesome work!

Did you have any problems filling it i heard some people are turned away it they are not approved for refill on four courts

I'm confused you spent the 1st half of the video trying to convince us VPNs are useless then try and sell ( and i don't mean in literally ) us using a router with a built in VPN......most people don't have the IT know how to set up a "free" VPN and how we gonna watch our dodgy fire sticks with out one!

Interesting information, thanks for sharing :)

i don't understand what the point of it is .....

December is always a poor month for solar, My domestic setup some days produced just 200W for the whole day, and at just 7Hrs of daylight on dark cloudy day with the sun no higher than 11 degress above the horizon here. In comparison in mid summer it can produce 30kW so you can see the difference. Yes I have a much bigger solar setup but domestic systems are no different. Thanks

I don't remember the last time we had sunshine...its been a bad winter this year....and not to get any better anytime soon...

You can safely run your lithium batteries down to 5-10% if you need to. Even down to 0% if necessary (about 10 volts). 100ah are now sub £200 so you could add another. The solar panels sound disappointing. I was just getting 500 watts from 2x410 watt panels and it's the 7th of January. That's close to the maximum of my solar charge controller. These are domestic type panels with half cut cells and 3 diodes which means they handle shading well. If you are still using bog standard victron type panels then half cut panels would probably be a big upgrade. Also if you have an mppt charge controller running the panels in series could help if it doesn't exceed the rated voltage. Admittedly on dull days I still get next to nothing but on sunny days I've stored 1.7kwh (2nd of January). My battery is 24 volt 100ah as it's just a stand alone system I put together for a project. I'm only running a TV off it in winter but also a dehumidifier and occasionally a small heater when I've got excess solar coming in. I'm not in a caravan but I'm looking at off grid setups for future projects.

👍

Interesting stuff, still quite impressive compared to my standard lead acid battery. The truma heating fans will take most of the battery power in one evening with telly and router active as well.

You're my neighbour

Yay ice and cant get to work easily and many accidents happen cos people surrounding the reading area are in oversized cars and cant drive yayyyy

Same in wigan

SAME FOR ME IN SOUTH ENGLAND

Yooo same here form Basingstoke

🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 IRELAND 🇮🇪

Looks a nice CL, thanks for sharing :)

I think that 20A fuse is for the circuit that was there already. Those 3 other fuses are for the new circuits.

Merry Christmas! You helped us make the decision to buy a 304 and it’s been the best thing we’ve ever done. Whatever you decide I hope it brings you happiness! Thank you. Hope you have an amazing 2025.

I'm really interested in getting a 12v Lithium battery. But I haven't got the confidence to do it myself so will get an electrician to install it I think :) I didn't know these batteries were so light. Have you tested how many days you can happily stay off grid?

Good solution :)

I would love to take our cat with us, look forward to some more of your experiences with this :)