What affects the value of a static caravan?

[epsilonGreedy]

We started shopping for a static site caravan over the weekend and I soon realized I had wandered into a strange new world.

 

• She liked the generous room proportions of a one bedroom example but I was concerned about resale potential as the market is largely comprised of 2 and 3 bedders.
• I liked a 20 year old lightly used example but a GasSafe friend warned the gas heated/ducted warm air central heating would be problematic to service as the gas fitter needs an extra certification for this.
• The owner of Statics4Less pointed us towards a PVC clad example which is a deluxe feature apparently.
• We only looked at double glazed examples as we face a winter in the static. I have the connection of services all sorted in my head and in addition we will push ahead with getting a roof on some part of the build to accommodate a washing machine and tumble dryer.

 

Any static caravan buying tips will be appreciated.

 

 

[joe90]

I paid £3500 for my two bed 30ft single glazing delivered from a dealer two years ago, it’s been great but very cold in winter (wish I had installed a WBS like prodave). It’s also been a site hut so builders have been using it as “facilities “. I am looking to shift it soon but the removal costs are steep, a neighbour might have it and I am only asking £1000 as it does need extensive cleaning, re plumbing etc.(buyer to collect!).

[newhome]

It was the transport costs that put us off going down the static route. We had a large touring caravan so used that and hubby lived in it for 9 months before some rooms were habitable (I went back there at weekends). I had an apartment in Edinburgh during that time as I think the Taggart classic line ‘there’s been a murder’ may have come to pass otherwise ?.  

 

We had a 3kw fan heater and an electric blanket and were never cold even in the deepest snow. 

[oranjeboom]

I would just say 'don't do it'!!!  Our 6-12 months planned static living has turned out to be 4.5yrs now...not all fun. The initial 'holiday-feel' wore off a long time ago. If you are 100% sure that you will only live in there for 1 winter and perhaps also don't have kids, then it's not too bad. But it's not all fun....as you can probably imagine.

 

Double glazing will help, but these things aren't designed for all year round living. It'll be cold, pipes will freeze, there will be mould and the damn thing will be too small....especially after arguments!

 

• It could be worth fitting a log burner in there and with all the doors open, should keep things toasty in winter. I also insulated underneath with loft roll and 'blocked' it all in so there are no nasty gales. Just ensure you keep all the vents open in the floor!!!
• Get a de-humidifier as the LPG and cooking will saturate the thing, especially curtains, clothes etc.
• Layout is important! We managed to pick one with kids bedrooms down one end, ours the other end with kitchen and lounge in between. Walls have no sound barriers so any small fart will be heard!
• Don't spend too much on the thing. Unless you are lucky to buy a bargain you are unlikely to recoup your money when you sell it on! My wife's going to burn ours so I won't get anything back!
• Connect the gutters with some downpipes and drain away the water. Stops the walls going green and stops the surrounding ground from getting extra boggy!
• Site it away from wind prone areas if possible. They will tend to be a bit 'reactive' with the winds!

And don't buy from a certain company that has the name 'Hampshire' or 'Salisbury' in their title.

 

PVC = deluxe??? Really? More likely to crack get damaged I would say. Nothing wrong with alu-skinned ones.

[ProDave]

My honest advice is go to a caravan dealer and look at the stock they have for sale. We are fortunate there are 2 such dealers close by up here.

 

This will let you look at a lot of 'vans from the old £1000 barely habitable wrecks to some quite nice younger vans. and make a choice what suits you.

 

The one we bought, we chose because it had an unusual layout with the living and kitchen area in the middle and a bedroom at each end. Not only did that seem a better layout for our site to live in during the build, it also has more potential for later use as work / storage space. (we are keeping outs as a garden outbuilding so it is not going anywhere)

 

The advantage of buying from a  dealer is usually transport is included.  If you buy privately you will have to arrange and pay for transport, and not all the dealers up here will transport 'vans they have not sold.

 

Ours was only single glazed. Yes double glazing would have been better, but you are never going to get particularly good DG units in a static, expect a very thin gap between the panes. 

 

Don't rely on bottled gas heating. In the first month of living in ours, the inbuilt gas fire had emptied a 47Kg cylinder at a refill cost here of £80. We stopped using it then and before the winter fitted a wood burning stove, that hardly went out between November and the end of March.

 

Top tips.  Support it well, ours sits on 12 piles of concrete blocks. Panel in the gap between the bottom of the 'van and the ground. Insulate under the floor. Strap it down to some stakes so it stays put in a gale. Lag all the pipes. Check the lagging from time to time, we had one freeze up due to mice stripping a 12" section of pipe insulation.

 

These things are poorly insulated. However having said that we had no problems with condensation, unlike the very old one we had last time, so the more recent ones are not quite as bad so perhaps buying a more recent one is a better idea than an old wreck.

[epsilonGreedy]

On 18/07/2018 at 14:24, newhome said:

It was the transport costs that put us off going down the static route.

 

 

We are looking at £350 transport costs for a 30 mile delivery, one of the benefits of building in a poor area of the country where statics are a primary residence for many.

Edited September 28, 2018 by epsilonGreedy

[newhome]

2 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

We are looking at £350 transport costs for a £30 mile delivery, one of the benefits of building in a poor area of the country where statics are a primary residence for many.

 

Yes that sounds quite reasonable. Do you have to pay council tax with a static? I don't think you do with a tourer although we were paying council tax on 2 different homes anyway when my hubby was using the caravan so they got their pound of flesh. 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

5 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

Yes that sounds quite reasonable. Do you have to pay council tax with a static? I don't think you do with a tourer although we were paying council tax on 2 different homes anyway when my hubby was using the caravan so they got their pound of flesh. 

 

 

We will claim it is onsite workers accommodation for a few months but eventually it will become our primary residence so I am prepared for a Band-A council tax bill at some point. 

[ProDave]

2 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

We will claim it is onsite workers accommodation for a few months but eventually it will become our primary residence so I am prepared for a Band-A council tax bill at some point. 

You are supposed to include it on your planning application usually for temporary permission for the static caravan.  This will trigger the council tax valuation officer to keep on snooping.  When we eventually moved into our 'van, I phoned them to tell them, and he said "let me get your file. Yes I have a photograph of your caravan, and I see I have been to your site 17 times"

 

I have no doubt he is still snooping to see if the house build has reached a stage he thinks it can be assessed.  It will be interesting to see if he notices that we might have moved in.

[newhome]

8 minutes ago, ProDave said:

 

I have no doubt he is still snooping to see if the house build has reached a stage he thinks it can be assessed.  It will be interesting to see if he notices that we might have moved in.

 

Are you sitting in darkness with blackout blinds? 

[recoveringbuilder]

when we did our last self build we bought a 26ft twin axel touring van which we lived in for 18 months, it had a fixed bed and shower room. We heated it through 2 winters with the gas blow heating, it took a 13kg container per week and we had a generator for a few weeks until we got electricity connection. It was never cold and we had a container on site with all our belongings which was handy when you found you were needing something packed away.We paid 10k for it and we thought we did ok getting 5k back when we sold it as it would have cost more to go into rented accommodation for the duration. This time we’re in a tourer again slightly smaller but ok and it won’t be for as long this time!

[Weebles]

We are living in this beauty.

It is 17 years old and cost £7K.  We hope to recoup some of this at the end.  Rental costs round our way would be a min of £1200 per month so it will pay for itself fairly quickly.

Being on site is already proving to be a huge advantage.

It has 3 bedrooms (we have a 14 year old boy and a 12 year old girl).

It has double glazing which just means the weak points are the floors and the walls.  Not sure it will make that much difference but we will see in the winter.

It adopts the outside temperature, whatever that is.  So even now, it can be cool-ish at night.

We chose a van with no furniture in it so we could put our own sofas / table and bed in - saves on storage costs.  

Got it from a static van seller in the East Midlands.  Looked around 50 vans (there and at another site in Guidford) to work out what we wanted / needed.

Originally thought £2-3K would do it.  But then looked at some at that price and realised we couldn't live in them.  

We have been in it since mid April.  It was very cold until the end of May.  We are expecting to be very cold this winter but hopefully it will only be one winter to survive.  

We have a dehumidifier ready. And some 4 season sleeping bags.
And we have a laundry (washing machine and tumble dryer) and a second toilet / basin set up in a shed next door.

We have resealed the windows (rubber seals) and boarded up some of the outside between van and ground to reduce cold air flow underneath.

And sited next to a tall hedge.  This provides shade (very important at the moment) and reduces the impact from wind.  The trees behind are the other side of the access road but also help shade the site.

I echo @oranjeboom comments about the paper thin walls.  Nothing is private.....

No regrets so far but haven't been through the cold months yet and we have been lucky as hasn't been too wet yet either.

wind.

 

[epsilonGreedy]

9 hours ago, Weebles said:

And some 4 season sleeping bags.

 

 

I was chatting to a static caravan dweller this evening and he said just like sleeping bags, vans are manufactured in different grades according to expected season usage.

[epsilonGreedy]

Update: A few weeks later and a lot wiser about the static caravan market. The big discovery is that it is a two-tier market. Many vans above £10k are sold sited which effectively means tied to ongoing rental and position in a caravan/holiday park.

 

If the park operator feels a static van is too old and bad for the reputation of the park it will be discounted for sale to an offsite owner. We have encountered a few dual priced vans with a 30% difference depending on a offsite or onsite sale.

 

Static caravans start to feel and smell old at about 10 years which currently equates to £10k offsite.

 

14ft vans are rare but seem much bigger than standard 12ft models.

 

Blown air gas central heating requires a gas safe fitter with special qualifications.

 

A mid sized static caravan has double the internal area of the largest touring (towable) caravan.

 

Touring caravans are more salable at the end of a build and the offsite static market is smaller than park site static sales.

 

Statics can be difficult to deliver particularly 14ft wide models though if possible they can be dismounted off an HGV in 15 mins and then maneuvered onto a tight site with a separate chunky 4x4 vehicle.

Edited August 24, 2018 by epsilonGreedy

[ProDave]

I would have struggled to get any more than a 10ft 'van here

 

 

It was easy to maneuver into position with my Landrover, they only weigh about 2 ton. A front mounted tow ball would have been easier.

 

 

If you buy one from a dealer by law it has to come with a gas safe certificate so that will do you for your use of the 'van.

[Russell griffiths]

For anybody living in or contemplating 

have a look on a you tube channel called. Pure living for life. 

Ignore his house building as it’s shocking, but have a look at where they are living 

they have added a timber porch to their van, in this porch is a wood burner, it’s a place to keep all the wellies, work clothes,dog and charge tool batteries, washing machine. 

It has transformed a tiny mobile home into a liveable functional space. 

 

We have done exactly the same with our current house, added a 3mx3m boot room it houses everything I mentioned above and actually makes the house practical, why do people dry washing in the front room, build cost for us was about £1000 including the wood burner and flue. 

[Triassic]

I’d be tempted to build a double garage first and live in that rather than a caravan.

[Russell griffiths]

20 minutes ago, Triassic said:

I’d be tempted to build a double garage first and live in that rather than a caravan.

 

Yep already suggested that one. 

It is standard practice in Australia 

build a big garage, fit a shower and toilet, fit some temporary partition walls

live in garage

finish house

garage ends up as nice man cave with toilet. 

[Weebles]

12 foot wide van still required a gap of min 14 foot. Shoved it back and forth with a mini digger to get it exactly in place as needed to site 90 degrees from site entrance. Challenging day as them had to level it in the pouring rain. Fortunately had laid some hardcore so it was not in danger of sinking. 

Been a fun 4 months so far in the van but last night I took a hot water bottle to bed as it is getting cold inside already (yes it is still August!).

Can’t beat being on site though.

[newhome]

17 minutes ago, Weebles said:

Been a fun 4 months so far in the van but last night I took a hot water bottle to bed as it is getting cold inside already (yes it is still August!).

 

If you have electric invest in an electric blanket. A lifesaver in the winter and cheap as chips to run. 

[Onoff]

47 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

If you have electric invest in an electric blanket. A lifesaver in the winter and cheap as chips to run. 

 

Chubby wife works too...

[newhome]

13 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

Chubby wife works too...

 

That patio is getting ever nearer!! Go and get on with your damn tiling! 

 

 

[ProDave]

10 hours ago, Weebles said:

 

Been a fun 4 months so far in the van but last night I took a hot water bottle to bed as it is getting cold inside already (yes it is still August!).

 

 

It is unseasonally cold at the moment.  Last night was down to 7 and it's barely been above 15 in the daytime.  If we were in the 'van now we would be using some form of heating, either electric or the WBS.

[joe90]

I was in our van for two years on and off, bloody cold in winter (I was too tight to heat it properly ?), I have just dragged it away to a corner of our field and is for sale, tired but functional, needs carpet and Lino but complete, we have advertised it for £1500. It also doubled as “site facilities “ for the builders (who were grateful in the winter).

Edited August 26, 2018 by joe90
Add

[ProDave]

^^ put some boards under the wheels. or by the time you next come to move it, you may find it has sunk to the axles (it would in our ground in winter)