Static Caravan...

[Mulberry View]

What's your opinion? Spend a little and be miserable or spend a bit more and be a little less miserable?

 

I know it's going to be hard to live in a Caravan, but for so many reasons it makes sense. We are determined not to delve into the very dark places that I know we could if needed, but would rather not as we want to still be fairly sane at the end of it! We have a big plot, so can site it well away from the build to avoid damage.

 

If we spend a bit, say £12-15k for something a bit nicer, perhaps 8-10 years old and look after it, surely it's done most of its depreciation it'll still be worth a similar figure in a year? We're hoping to properly kick our build off in March/April, so hopefully after the Winter and would aim to be able to move into the new house, either finished or not quite, in time for Christmas.

 

I can accept some amount of cost, as our circumstances mean that we'd be paying our mortgage off. My Wife also needs to work from 'home', so we could do with some choice, which you don't seem to get at the £4k price-point.

[Dave Jones]

dont do it. trust me they are horrendous. They sell for peanuts after couple years. total waste of time, money and sanity!!!!!

 

Save the cash and rent the cheapest place you can.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Dave Jones

[ProDave]

I would say get the largest one you can if you want to work from home, to the point of a twin unit if you can find one.

 

They will be cold, they are not renowned for insulation, so you want a good heating system and just accept heating will be expensive for the time you use it.

[joe90]

Depends on your circumstances, I lived on my own whilst working on our build and didn’t mind slumming it, however with family it is a different ball game IMO, horses fir courses.

[SteamyTea]

Assuming that there are no restrictions about how the van looks, you can improve the quite easily and cheaply.

You can externally insulate them, stop airflow underneath them, fit an outside woodburner (they will kill you slowly) and pipe warmed water though to radiators, or an UFH system.

Make a sound insulating box and stick a small generator in it and run a heat pump.  An ECOCENT to to the water, and a cheap A2A for the space heating.

Stick some PV on the roof, a few batteries and then get 'free' power.

£10k would turn a pretty useless van into a very good one. 

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, joe90 said:

horses fir courses.

Or in your case a wheezy dog kennel.

[joe90]

8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Assuming that there are no restrictions about how the van looks, you can improve the quite easily and cheaply.

You can externally insulate them, stop airflow underneath them, fit an outside woodburner (they will kill you slowly) and pipe warmed water though to radiators, or an UFH system.

Make a sound insulating box and stick a small generator in it and run a heat pump.  An ECOCENT to to the water, and a cheap A2A for the space heating.

Stick some PV on the roof, a few batteries and then get 'free' power.

£10k would turn a pretty useless van into a very good one. 

yes insulate it a little but £10k will buy you an awful lot of electricity to keep it warm.

[Mulberry View]

18 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

dont do it. trust me they are horrendous. They sell for peanuts after couple years. total waste of time, money and sanity!!!!!

 

Save the cash and rent the cheapest place you can.

 

We've had a chance to rent a place, but it'd be £600/month, that's just over £7000 for the year, plus removal costs and we'd not be on-site. It's a small house that someone has bought to renovate and we'd have it for a year before they do it up. I can really see the advantage of being on-site, being able to do odd hours here and there without having to travel, being there for deliveries etc.

 

I'm genuinely interested to know what your caravan experience was like and why you found it so bad?

[Mulberry View]

29 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I would say get the largest one you can if you want to work from home, to the point of a twin unit if you can find one.

 

They will be cold, they are not renowned for insulation, so you want a good heating system and just accept heating will be expensive for the time you use it.

 

At £15k you appear to be able to get a 'Winterised' model, with Double Glazing and Central Heating. Most of our time in it with be over the Spring/Summer, though we might have to endure a bit of the Autumn/Winter, by which time we'll be a bit more hardened to it?!

[Dave Jones]

15k on a caravan that will be lucky to be worth 5 after a 12/18 months. crackers !!!!!

[Mulberry View]

Just now, Dave Jones said:

15k on a caravan that will be lucky to be worth 5 after a 12/18 months. crackers !!!!!

 

But why would a 10+ year old Caravan depreciate that much in a year-or-so? Surely it's a bit like a car? They lose all their money early on then level out?

[recoveringbuilder]

We have twice stayed in a caravan during a build but they weren’t even static caravans just large towable vans. First time we bought quite a new model and never had any problems during the 18months we were in it, was always cosy and we spent a New Year’s Eve in it with one of the worst gales blowing. Second time we bought an older van and it was fine until the beginning of December when the gas froze but by that time we could move into the house although it wasn’t quite finished. We really did it this way because we have pets and couldn’t rent anything with 4 dogs and 2 cats but it really helped to be on site keeping an eye on everything 

[Dave Jones]

come back in a year/18 months and let us know!

 

Been there done that never again, at the risk of repeating myself waste of £££££, hassle and grief. You will have plenty of all three on the build anyway  wouldnt choose to have more for no reason.

[Mulberry View]

3 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

come back in a year/18 months and let us know!

 

Been there done that never again, at the risk of repeating myself waste of £££££, hassle and grief. You will have plenty of all three on the build anyway  wouldnt choose to have more for no reason.

 

I can't imagine living in one with pets and/or kids. There is just 2 of us.

When we did our Bungalow up 15 years ago, we moved into it completely derelict, it'd been empty for 10 years. The single-glazed windows were all broken and there wasn't really a habitable room. Ceilings down, floors out and mostly back to bare brick, whilst trying to live in it. We had a 10-year-old daughter at the time. Could this be worse than that?

[recoveringbuilder]

Ah but the pets had a log cabin on site! People laughed at us living in the caravan and the pets had the best accommodation. We actually decided to go with a towable van because of the resale value and we did ok when we sold them again, wouldn’t have gotten anything back if we’d rented. I can see why you’d need a static though if you’re both working from home.It’s also good security wise because there’s always plenty of people sneaking around to see what they can take when a new house is being built, saw a blog post from someone who’s build was burnt down.

Edited November 12, 2020 by recoveringbuilder
Adding information

[ProDave]

We spent 18 months in this, during the winter with the "beast from the East"

 

That picture was when it was first delivered, it was boxed in around the base and of course had steps to get to it etc.

 

The best thing I did was fit a cheap wood burning stove that hardly went out from November to March.  Keeping up with the wood to feed it was challenging, we burned coal overnight.

 

We chose that one for it's unusual layout with the living room in the centre and a bedroom at each end, which fits in better with it's next life when we turn it into a studio, workroom and store room (it is staying on site)

 

The "highlight" of the winter was a frozen pipe underneath due to mice eating a section of the pipe insulation and me spending half an hour underneath it during a blizzard with a hairdryer thawing the pipe.

 

You simply can't beat being on site.  No rent, band A council tax and everything is sorted.  You get all your stuff, utilities, telephone, banking etc etc moved to your new address and there is nothing to change when you move from the caravan to the house, except the council tax.

[Mulberry View]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

We spent 18 months in this, during the winter with the "beast from the East"

 

That picture was when it was first delivered, it was boxed in around the base and of course had steps to get to it etc.

 

The best thing I did was fit a cheap wood burning stove that hardly went out from November to March.  Keeping up with the wood to feed it was challenging, we burned coal overnight.

 

We chose that one for it's unusual layout with the living room in the centre and a bedroom at each end, which fits in better with it's next life when we turn it into a studio, workroom and store room (it is staying on site)

 

The "highlight" of the winter was a frozen pipe underneath due to mice eating a section of the pipe insulation and me spending half an hour underneath it during a blizzard with a hairdryer thawing the pipe.

 

You simply can't beat being on site.  No rent, band A council tax and everything is sorted.  You get all your stuff, utilities, telephone, banking etc etc moved to your new address and there is nothing to change when you move from the caravan to the house, except the council tax.

 

That is all very insightful. I realise taking on this build will be a deep-dig for anyone and we'll certainly be making sacrifices. For us, this is the path from mortgage to mortgage-free, but not only that, into a modern, well insulated, efficient home to our spec. 12-18 months of 'pain' seems like a small price to pay as being in that position before we reach 50 is a goal we never thought we'd achieve.

 

I do get a little worried when I hear people, you for one, speaking of projects that take several years, so I'm keen to mitigate that risk as well as is possible. I'm hoping that a substantial chunk of cash in the bank to start with will help.

[LA3222]

Not sure what all the fuss is about, we have lived onsite in a static for 18mths now - missus, 10yr and 9yr old girls who share a pokey little room plus 2 cats.

 

Nothing hard about it, its like being in a small flat. We have curtains across lounge entrance and leave heater on in there overnight so the lounge area is warm in morning. I built a side extension to house white goods. Worst bit of van life is the summer when it turns into a hot box - solution to that is go outside?‍♂️

 

Reckon we have another year to push living in it, will be strange moving into a house where the hallway is bigger than the van!

 

Spent 4k on a 30ftx10ft two bedroom job straight off a site. Wouldnt spend more than that as it will be worthless when done. If you buy a van for 12k who do you intend to sell it to for that sort of price when done? There's no market for it other than self builders and you'd struggle to find one willing to spend more than 5k?

 

Side note: my gas and electric is approx £1600 for the yr.

Edited November 12, 2020 by LA3222

[epsilonGreedy]

There are some strange economic theories being expressed here. The notion that a 8 to 10 year old static caravan has done most of its depreciation and should then hold its value is false. The life expectancy of a static is 2 to 3 times longer than a car hence when a static is sold off from a first division park site at 8 years the better analogy is a car lease-hire disposal at 3 years.

 

Yes the market for statics is tiny once they are not resales within a park but there is a market as proven by this forum. Another market is young people choosing to live mortgage, we know of one young lady who lives in her parent's back garden.

 

I am assuming 10% to 15% depreciation per year.

 

As to my self build choices, two years into my self build I could not imagine not living on site. I could not calculate how much time would have been wasted waiting for deliveries if living elsewhere. Our static cost about a years rental of a small property so we are ahead ££ already. We splashed out more than many here on a wide 13.5' x 37' static, life is comfortable and the square footage is about the same as a 1 bedroom flat. I cannot imagine what we will do with the extra 1100 sq ft of space once the house is complete.

 

Things that my persuade me to recommend a property rental instead of a static are:

1. Big budget self build with a main builder contracted for a turn key whole development with a move-in date a year hence.
2. All ducks lined up pre plot purchase for a quick timber frame kit development.
3. Difficult country lane access. A static is far bigger than a large HGV.
4. Unresolved questions about establishing main services on site.
5. Small site. At 0.22 of an acre I was surprised how quickly I ran out of space for the house footprint plus a 3m working boundary, car parking, tradesman parking, 26 packs of bricks, plus sand pile, cement mixing station and finally the static.
6. Multiple kids.
7. Wife who does not do anything less than Thomson 5 star holidays.

[ProDave]

8 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Difficult country lane access. A static is far bigger than a large HGV

We would have struggled to get anything wider than 10ft here

 

[Russell griffiths]

Are you going to have a detached garage ?

 

why not get the static and site it near the garage site, build the garage first and use it as a utility area, freezer washing machine wood burner, join it to the static with a lean to corridor thing. 

Place to dry clothes, keep muddy boots and have lunch on a day when your covered in mud and haven’t the time to clean up to go in the static. 

 

I have said it before, look up on you tube a couple called PURE LIVING FOR LIFE. pair of complete dorks, but they built a wooden box on the end of their trailer it houses everything I mentioned and has made their build and life in the van very comfortable. 

[ProDave]

We didn't move into our 'van until the house shell was up.  the washing machine was set up in the house as was a desk and my office.

[djcdan]

We bought our 17 yo van for £3200 delivered from a caravan park, which we're currently living in. It's double glazed and centrally heated, and frankly, find it more comfortable/warmer compared to the cottage we spent the last few years renting. I would definitely recommend going big - I work from home and have a separate office, which helps with sanity. From taking deliveries to working a few hours around work or in the evenings, living on site is invaluable. Of course, you could spend £15k, but imo if you purchase correctly, there is no need. I'm pretty confident that we'll sell for what we paid, but will have saved us £££££ in rent!

[Mulberry View]

4 hours ago, djcdan said:

We bought our 17 yo van for £3200 delivered from a caravan park, which we're currently living in. It's double glazed and centrally heated, and frankly, find it more comfortable/warmer compared to the cottage we spent the last few years renting. I would definitely recommend going big - I work from home and have a separate office, which helps with sanity. From taking deliveries to working a few hours around work or in the evenings, living on site is invaluable. Of course, you could spend £15k, but imo if you purchase correctly, there is no need. I'm pretty confident that we'll sell for what we paid, but will have saved us £££££ in rent!

 

Good to hear that. I'm not hell bent on spending £15k by the way, it's just finding something that is 'nice'. There aren't a lot of statics for sale really and everything I've seen for £4k ish is quite ropey. I'm very happy to do some decorating of the 'van, but can you make an impression on a ropey one?

[joe90]

I paid about 3k for mine, not bad and used it as a holiday home till planning came through (after a two year fight), I lived in it myself mostly during the build and for builders “facilities “ for another year. Sold it fir 1k (as it as quite rough by then).