Coming from a tent background and recently ordered my new Conway countryman. I was wondering if anyone would recomend the blown heating system (factory Fit) and what is a feasable camping season with or without it. bearing in mind i have a 2 year old daughter..
well we have camped in freezing conditions with fan heater and electric blanket. the advantage of the built in system is it works without mains electricity but no way would i camp in winter without mains so the £500 seemed not worth paying
------------- Good friends are hard to find, difficult to leave and impossible to forget.
We have camped in sub zero temperatures in our Trailer Tent. We do not have the built in heater but we use a small gas heater which costs about £40 as a back up to a convector which cost £23. However other people may differ.
Hi we bought a new Crusader last year and did not get the blow heating and i think that is the only thing we regret. Also having children ourselves i think it is safer to have factory fitted heating and for another five hundred i wish we had got it fitted. It can be chilly early/late in the seaon.
In my old Dandy I had an underfloor heater. This was good but I could,nt risk it with young kiddys. The plate got just too hot !!!!. Ever since I,ve never bothered with any extra heating. I did concider a fan heater once but did,nt bother in the end.
I know all people are diffrent in thier tolerance to cold. But I,ve never really felt the need for anything. If it does get a bit nippy I just put the kettle on. You get a nice hot drink & the gas ring boiling the kettle warms everything up nicely.
Once you are snuggled up in bed I find any cold just goes anyway !!!!!! Then again this advice is coming from someone who used to camp out on the yorkshire dales in Dec & Jan in the snow !!!!!!! And enjoyed it !!!!!
Regards THUMPER.
------------- The British soldier must be driven to digging in the moment he occupies a piece of ground,lest he waste time in sightseeing,souvenir hunting & drinking tea.....
Maj Gen F.W. Festing (GOC 36 Inf Div )
Hi Theresa I live near you. Where did you buy your NEW Crusader from? I am envious, I would have loved a brand new one. Bought one about 4 years old though and am quite happy with it. Don't camp out in the cold though. Ours was wrapped up and away by the end of October. In fact last outing was at the beginning of September and the first wasn't until end of May. Real fair weather campers we are.
i would go for the blown heating, the old dandy heating was discontinued due to problems mentioned, but new equipment has to comply win EEC and BS standards so should be safe and would, in my opinion, be safer than using a fan heater etc, nothing to knock over cover etc
Based upon my experiences of owning a couple of "almost" brand new caravans and the niggling hassles and expense associated with getting things fixed when they fail, when I bought my folding camper, I opted for the base options with a view to kitting it out with easily removed/replaced accesories, so no fixed fridge.
I bought a £40.00 fridge from Halfords and if/when it fails Ill chuck it and buy another.
Ditto for heating, Ive had fancy blown heating running off either mains or gas in caravans before(which kept playing up) but found a cheap (£12) letter box fan heater a much easier option, again when it fails I chuck it and simply buy another...its the moden way!!!!
Ive just bought a pair of electric blankets at Aldi...£12 each.
With all of that, I guess that should keep us pretty warm for early and late season camping..not that we plan to do much - but for the total cost of all of those items it isnt going to break the bank. You also tend to find that these expenseive options also seem to have virtually no value when it comes to change.
I'd say it really depends on whether you'll be camping away from an electric hookup. If you have mains, then all of the above cheap replaceable options must be better value - your only headache is child-proofing them. I used to have a camper van, and enjoyed the freedom of 'rough' camping, but I wouldn't even have considered it without the on-board gas-fired blow-heater. As an adult you can cope with the odd chilly night (recommend dark rum and hot blackcurrant), but coping with a child having a cold sleepless night is really tough!
------------- It wasn't me - a big girl did it and ran away.
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Topic: Extend season
