We caved in and brought a ehu, was a bargain £60 instead of £120 because the box is battered and hubby's work can't sell it on!
Anyway, what can we use with it, am I alright buying a normal kettle\toaster or would I be better of with a travel kettle as they are lower wattage ie. 550w instead of 3kw, also we need a small heater so which sort would you recommend, the cheaper the better!!!
Any other essentials that you use with you EHU?
This cheap weekend away is costing us a fortune lol.
You can use the EHU for almost anything. All you have to make sure is that you don't overload it. The way to know this is to look at the wattage specification of what you are plugging in ( it is near enough always printed on the equipment somewhere ). Everything you plug into it must be less than about 2200 watts ( 2.2kw ). £60 is about the normal price for a tripple EHU, there are some places doing them a bit cheaper than that now.
Also ensure that anything you take camping isn't that sensitive to camping conditions ( remember it may get a bit damp ). In gerneral I havn't had any problems with normal electrical equipment and everything I have is on EHU.
Regarding heaters, it is very much a personal opinion and trial and error. I have tried most forms of heating for our tent and eventually settled on Halogen. But a lot of people prefer a fan heater. Fortunately they can both be bought for around the £10 so they are cheap enough to experiment with.
We just use a normal kettle, as the travel one we had took about two hours to boil! Seriously, just make sure you don't overload - as has already been mentioned. We just unplug everything else when we put the kettle on if the supply isn't that great.
sorry to hijack but, if you have a single socket ehu can you plug in an extension with say two or four sockets, and use them all so long as you are not pulling too much power???
Don't use a kettle and toaster or heater together,one at a time is fine but usually two heated appliances will trip the electric. You can run a fridge and light at the same time as the kettle or heater, without problems.
here is a conversion table , your elecy stuff should give the watts it uses on an info plate on the item, find out the EHU amp level, usually 10 or 16, add up what you can use at any one time , the table will tell you if you're gonna be over or not , if over the amperage of the site's EHU then it will trip , no big problem you just re-set it at your EHU post
R1ck
The sensible answer is A BIG NO , power-wise you can "pull" the same , but your normal extra socket extension has no protection against condensation, damp and have open sockets that liquid can get into, have an accident with any liquid, and you're tent will glow like christmas tree , just before you're all saying hello to St Peter at the gates !!!!
However, a lot of people do ignore these facts and take one, being extremely cautious , putting it in the inner (bedroom) tent, wrapping it up in waterproofing (placcy bag !) etc, etc and taking every care not to get any rain, cooking liquids, drinks, etc near it !!
Hope this helps you both
Cheers
-------------
2006 Summer Tour
Ormskirk May
Cornwall June
Christchurch June
Ullswater July
St.Michaels on Wyre August
Wastwater September
Glen Nevis September
Arkholme October
If anybody is interested I have a 3 point ehu for sale. Used it in my Sunncamp 400se tt before buying an fc. Give me a shout and may be able to do a deal.
Come on Lincoln City, still unbeaten in the league.
------------- Relax. You can do too much too soon.
It is a bit misleading just to add up the amps and expect to be able to use the equipment up to the site's max limit as lots of electrical appliances pull more current at start up.
It is prudent to use a multiple point R.C.D.protected EHU but provided your RCD is working correctly if you use an extension then the RCD would trip before your tent lit up like a christmas tree otherwise there would be no point in having one,bearing in mind the appliances used by most campers are normally household appliances and are not protected against water or damp ingress.
here is a conversion table , your elecy stuff should give the watts it uses on an info plate on the item, find out the EHU amp level, usually 10 or 16, add up what you can use at any one time , the table will tell you if you're gonna be over or not , if over the amperage of the site's EHU then it will trip , no big problem you just re-set it at your EHU post
R1ck
The sensible answer is A BIG NO , power-wise you can "pull" the same , but your normal extra socket extension has no protection against condensation, damp and have open sockets that liquid can get into, have an accident with any liquid, and you're tent will glow like christmas tree , just before you're all saying hello to St Peter at the gates !!!!
However, a lot of people do ignore these facts and take one, being extremely cautious , putting it in the inner (bedroom) tent, wrapping it up in waterproofing (placcy bag !) etc, etc and taking every care not to get any rain, cooking liquids, drinks, etc near it !!
Hope this helps you both
Cheers
i'll be sticking to my gas appliences! did wonder though!
Quote: Originally posted by saxo1 on 09/9/2006
bearing in mind the appliances used by most campers are normally household appliances and are not protected against water or damp ingress.
Which is a big reason not to use them and buy proper camping outdoor rated appliances instead.
Now I KNOW everyone does use their domestic appliances...I`ve taken the mini B&W tv, my travel hairdrier, the portable DVD player, the phone chargers on different occasions...none of these are designed for or rated for use anywhere other than inside a house. So I`m as guilty as anyone. But I do feel these of us that know about this this (even though we then proceed to ignore it) have a responsibility to point this out to folk that don`t know this, rather than just say "Oh, it`s fine to use such and such." Then at least it`s their own choice to use their own appliances or not. And it would at least encourage caution. It`s not good to encourage the "Oh, safe as houses as long as you don`t trip the campsite electrics" concept.
Bottom line is to do what you want, but be aware of what you`re doing, no?
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: EHU question!!!
