Message Forums

How are you going to go on about insurance for a MH, the companies i have looked  at  state you have to be on the electrol roll ,a homeowner or  in  a long time rental agreement and one said   around the time of renewal it wants a bill to prove you are at that address, so wonders how others go on.

Hi Gypsy

Never had a problem do all mine including finance on the internet and have never been asked for the above info other than an address and telephone number so can be anywhere YES I will have to give my daughters address as permanent when I renew it and our house is sold.

Only 6 months to go - lots to do get quotes for the MH.  Wife busy throwing out my clothes been wanting to do thsi for some time(if OK going to the charity shops).  She claims I have at least 7 gardening outfits so its clothes wehave been meaning to get rid of but haven't got around to it.  So hopefully some one in the east will be a bit warmer this winter. 

As you say that you've ordered the van,along with some extras...be VERY careful of your available payload and axle loadings..especially as you're talking of a rear rack(..and you'll probably be lugging about more stuff than most,anyway).

DON'T just asssume that because the dealer is supplying and fitting things,that "..it must  be okay then,coz they know what they're doin'...trust me..not all do..not even the "Big" dealerships!

While we don,t full time we do long time but we found the side fixed bed to be a problem because if you get the wall side have you tried getting out of it ?

You have to do the phosbury flop, much better with an island bed

As we too are retired and have a limited income we tend to go for the small sites in summer and use park resorts/haven in the early/later months as then you need the full 16 amps

Hi

Yes we ahve tried both styles of beds and the wife much prefers the French Bed as apposed to the Island Bed and in any case she sleeps on the left and I quite like her rolling over me ha! ha!. plus she is quite a bit younger than me so no problems.  Plus when she goes to sleep a bomb wouldn't wake her up - bless her. I sleep on the left and its only me that has to get up in the night and the bathroom is just next door so very handy.

I picked the MH and the main equipment and my OH picked everything else as I know where my bread is buttered.

Keith..I know I seem to be banging on about this....and sorry if you have looked into it..but once again have considered the payload?

The Startrail in standard 3.5T form,has around 300kg payload..(which sounds quite good)..but that's excluding the passenger,any accessories,any general camping "stuff" (leads/levellers/camping chairs,table etc..it all adds up!) and in your case as you'll be living in it,you'll also be carring your "belongings"..!

You'll also need to subtract weight of your rear rack AND the two electric bikes..as well as keeping an eye on the rear axle loading...

If you have looked into all of this,then forgive me..but payload(or lack of)is something that gets discussed on other forums at length..

(..whereas on here,folk seem to be more concerned about which Cadac they should choose.. )

We have electric bikes and ours are quite heavy, which meant we went for a tow bar mounted rack as they would have been too heavy for a door mounted type. We therefor had to have tow bar fitted. We have a thule rack designed to carry 60kg (a lot only carry 45kg) Yours might be lighter though and you are probably stronger than us, 2 x 5' nothing females

Jules

 Hey good luck with your plans:) Like you I am diabetic and explained to my Dr what i wanted to do, He sugested that I could stay on his books and get the perscriptions from a Dr near where I was staying he would give me a letter explaining condition and meds. Have a great time Mark

Hi all -  Thanks for all your comments and tips its always useful to get other peoples experiences or perspectives on MH life for us virgins.  We have checked all the weights of the extras and to be fair the dealer did explain that it would reduce our payload slightly.  We were originally going for a Autocruise Startrail and then it was announced that production was ceasing this year other than on Van conversions.

So the wife felt we should stick with a 2011 model and as Pepe commented the Autocruise only has just over a 300kg payload whereas what we have gone for has 50kg more.   We got a good deal on a Swift Bolero 680FB at a show with the French Bed so we have gone for that plus it has the 350kg payload (735lbs). It seems for 2012 this model is comimg in at 3800kg hence why we went for this year model as I wanted to stay under the 3500kg. 

I have also worked out the weights of all we will want to carry (I'm a stickler for detail) plus I'm retired so have nothing better to do as my wife states.  So we shall be picking it up in December and will have to hold back until my wife completes a handover period of the business at the end of March then its jolly time - well for us anyway.

That's great Keith..glad that everything is coming together okay.. ....and I hope I didn't come over, too pedantic..

(...it's just that we've nearly been caught out by the lack of payload with ours'...if it hadn't of been "uprated" to 3.85t by the previous owner,we'd be over by 100kg when fully loaded   )

Have fun!

(..although I should imagine the wait 'til Dec,is going to be a painful?!?.. )

Reading all this with great interest as we've just embarked on our 2 years out!  We're both 64. 

For the last 5 years we've had a caravan permanently sited in south of France and lived in it from March to October,using a small Burstner motorhome to commute between UK/France, as well as it doubling as a runabout vehicle for shopping, day trips out, shortcamping breaks away from the campsite during the summer.   Up to this year we've had to return to our house in the UK for winter as hubby was only semi-retired.  This year  hubby fully retired, so we put our house with professional letting agents, got tenants in at the end of March and set off down to France for summer in our caravan.  We'll be motorhome camping in Spain from October 2011 till March 2012, then back to France for the summer.  The savings on gas, electric, council tax etc plus the rental income go a long way towards funding our adventure.

We use our UK house address as our legal address for all "officialdom" and have set up Royal Mail post forwarding to my sister-in-law's address.  She opens our post and emails or Skypes us if there's anything we need to know about.  Hubby needs regular medication and gets prescriptions from a local French GP.  We have to pay upfront for the consultation and for the tablets but (hopefully) will get 80% of the costs refunded via our EHIC card.  Don't take this as gospel because trying to interpret the rules and regulations is a positive minefield!  To get prescriptions from our GP in England, hubby would have to fly back for a day to visit the surgery.

Campsite fees in France/Spain vary greatly, but the average low season rate is around 15 euros per day for a site with decent facilities.  If this was coming out of savings it would certainly bite very deeply into capital and it's only with the benefit of our rental income that we can afford to do it. 

Would not recommend wild camping because of the "professional" criminal element in Europe (and no doubt the UK) who target motorhomers, particularly ones with UK number plates as they know you're loaded with loads of valuable stuff.  In the last 3 years we've been robbed of our TV screen, digital receiver box, wristwatch, handbag containing £80 cash, rucksack, all my hubbie's clothes out of the wardrobe(!), designer sunglasses, designer hats - and all this during mid-day while we were parked on the roadside visiting local markets.  Oh and not forgetting having a tankfull of diesel syphoned off whilst parked on a motorway services in Italy!  We've spoken to many other motorhomers who can tell horrific tales of being broken into in the middle of the night whilst in bed.

We'll decide after our first winter away whether we want to repeat the experience for another winter.  If not, we still have our house to go back to.

Travel and health insurance is a very difficult issue because of the 90 day rule and also when the insured has an ongoing medical condition.  Hold your hands up in horror, but we don't have any.... Calculated risk, I know,and we agonised over the pros and cons but the hassle of having to fly home every 90 days to recharge the policy, plus the fact that hubby can't claim for any of his existing health conditions, makes the whole thing pretty worthless.

All-in-all, there are lots of problems and pitfalls but the alternative is to miss the opportunity of a lifetime.   

It's a great way of life, glad you are going for it. me and the wife have been full time caravanners for the last five years after selling up everything. You couldn't get me back in bricks and morter if you paid me. I'am still reletively young (47) and managed to cut my work load down massively I still only work as and when I need to or if I get a call from the family firm. We use my parents address for mail / insurance /licence etc.and stick to local CL or CS sites.  We have just bought an ex prison service 7.5 ton truck which I will be converting to a motorhome ( it is my trade) over the next few months to replace the caravan which is now beginning to show it's age after a constant 5 years use. good luck and enjoy yourselves..........Mark

Hi all  - the question of keeping on a GP's books when you do not have a permanent address comes up time after time on various web-sites and having asked the NHS help line I received a very prompt letter back from a lady at the Department of Health.  The main point is that many practice staff are under the impression that it is essential to have a permananet address to register with the practice - which is not true and I can use this lettter to show them if I have a problem.  Also In the UK there are plenty of NHS walk in centres or walk in clinics (on NHS choice website) which will enable anyone to get checked and also obtain ongoing medication providing they have a letter from there existing GP stating what their medical problem is and what medicine they are taking.

However, in my case as a diabetic I would want to return to my current local GP's practice twice a year for my check ups whilst in the UK as they have an excellent diabetic clinic.  Also he can prescribe me 6 months medication so there should be no problem.

On the weight issue we have squashed the idea of electric bikes so have gone for lightweight folding bikes - still having a carrier fitted but with folding bike we can take them on the train if we want to go further.  We know we will have to watch our payload with only 375kg to play with but I am going through everything and making a list of everything we want to carry (weighing them) plus items added by the dealer to make sure we are not to far over the top.  I am informed by a friend who is in insurance that they allow a + or - 5% on payload as do the police. So unless you go really mad and your MH is not down on its springs then you should be OK.  We saw a old MH going onto the ferry to Spain last month that was clearly overloaded and struggled to go up the ramp without bottoming out and in the end two of the passengers got out and walked in.

Any way our MH (the wifes named it ha! ha!) in to be fitted with carrier, roof rack and ladder, plus an extra leisure battery and gas cylinder plus a TV arial so things are moving on.  Told the wife that with all this extra weight she will have to cut down on her clothers ( can't print what she said)  suffice to say it will be me going light it seems. So next year if you see someone with a MH walking around in his underpants and slippers - its me. 

Can't wait for 2012 -

Hi again..

If you're having a second gas bottle fitted/supplied,is that just another of the "exchangable" Calor type?...if so,depending on your estimated usage,it may be worth looking at changing that for a refillable cylinder(gaslow or Alugas etc).Although the initial outlay is quite high,the gas works out a lot cheaper and you'll also be able to fill up at "Autogas" points and also when on the continent...

Having said that,we don't have a refillable system ourselves(..as we don't travel abroad at the moment)but I have managed to "shoehorn" a 13kg propane bottle into our gas locker..as this switch alone almost halves the price of the gas,over the usual 6kg refill..

Certainly worth looking into,if you're fulltiming....