Living in a caravan

[Gem77]

Hi All,

So after all your advice we went for the caravan on site and spent our first night in it last night.

As always nothing is smooth running but the issues we have are slowly being sorted. We are going to look into insulating it for the winter.

One thing that I would like your advice on now is did any of you have a really wobbly caravan and if so how did you rectify it?

 

Thanks in advance!

[ProDave]

What sort of 'van did you end up with and in what way is it "wobbly"?

 

How is is set up on site?

[joe90]

If it is a static it needs adequate support, with mine I wedged large wooden blocks at various places but here is the “professional” way to do it. 

 

[Gem77]

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

What sort of 'van did you end up with and in what way is it "wobbly"?

 

How is is set up on site?

Its a 3 bed but after looking online, I'm not sure that it is set up properly, the wheel is still on the ground and I don't think it should be.

The whole van moves when anyone turns in bed or walks around - LOL

 

[Gem77]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

If it is a static it needs adequate support, with mine I wedged large wooden blocks at various places but here is the “professional” way to do it. 

 

Thank-you will give that a watch!

[epsilonGreedy]

The chassis under my caravan had 12 labelled support points. After progressive jacking up with a 12 ton jack I raised the van up about 5 inches, now the rubber tyres are just clear of the ground.

 

The 4 puny crank down struts at the ends do not contribute much to long term stability.

 

How firm is the ground under your van? I ask because axle stands may work with a concrete slab at an official caravan park but would keep sinking on a typical building plot. Mine is propped up on flat heavy 19kg building blocks. Even these blocks were prone to cracking under a few tons of load until I bedded them on a fine 10mm gravel over the 50mm harcore base.

 

You will needs loads of different sized wood shims for fine tuning the final level.

 

Have you calculated the gradient for your caravan sewerage connection?

 

Allow the best part of a day to prop the van up and then another few hours a few weeks later for adjustment at the whole setup settles.

 

Safety Note. During the first few lifting attempts I nearly let the caravan roll forward off the jack.

Edited August 23, 2020 by epsilonGreedy

[ProDave]

I am still unsure if this is a static or large touring caravan.

 

A static should not be left on it's wheels.

 

Start by jacking up and supporting under the axle.  Mine is supported on pillars of concrete blocks laid flat then various bits of wood of varying thickness for final levelling,

 

As someone else noted there is often marked flat points on the chassis to support it under.  Including the 2 under the axle, I have a total of 12 pillars of concrete blocks supporting all the marked load points.

 

and then I drive stakes into the ground at the corners and strapped it down with thick fence wire and turnbucles.

[Gem77]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

I am still unsure if this is a static or large touring caravan.

A static should not be left on it's wheels.

 

 Thanks - its a static, I will pass all of this onto my husband!

[ProDave]

You can just about see some of the piles of concrete blocks supporting mine in this picture.

 

[epsilonGreedy]

19 hours ago, ProDave said:

You can just about see some of the piles of concrete blocks supporting mine in this picture.

 

 

Mine is similar, the permutation of flat/on-edge blocks varies according to the gradient.

 

My plywood skirt that keeps the winter winds out is semi structural and prevents minor wobbles when a severe gust strikes side on.

 

So far I have survived two winters without anchor points at my very sheltered plot.

Edited August 24, 2020 by epsilonGreedy

[canalsiderenovation]

It may be worth exploring if there are campsites nearby. We found one campsite had a static there that is normally used for holiday lets/warden (which wasn't advertised) and is 10 mins from our house, albeit we may have preferred to be on site but we couldn't get a static caravan over the canal bridge. We managed to negotiate a two bed static for a 4 month term (it's looking like it may be 5 months at this rate) for £350 a month all in. I also did things like find any Airbnbs locally and ask if they would do a long term. If you have a local Facebook site it's worth asking there. We also had a couple of stables/farm places that had worker accommodation that wasn't been used that they would have been willing to let cheaply that were perfectly functional.

 

We both have portable hotspots for work and have successfully set my phone up as a hotspot for our Netflix binge watching as I have unlimited data. Laundry on site and neighbours/parents have done our washing.