Hi, we have just been away for the first time in our new to us caravan. We put the Draught skirt on along the bottom, but could find nothing to attach it to the wheel arch. (On our folding camper, there are press studs) There are two figure 8 bars (is that what they’re called?) but nothing to attach them to be found in the van anywhere. Advice please. We have an Alpine Sprite 4 2010 model. TIA
Thread the skirt as usual up to the wheel attach figure of eight place across the wheel area and then
start again with the skirt that came out of the figure of eight up to the end. Job done. Thats how we use ours it's to stop the wind coming through the wheel space. There will be a slight gap at the top but nothing to worry about.
That’s what we did . The figure of 8 pieces make the skirt hang down away from the side of the van. Not much point to the skirt as there is a gap letting all the wind in. ☹️
Don't forget that the skirt is lower than the wheel arch. The covers they sell only cover the wheel.
On most folding campers the one that we had anyway only had skirts around the bed area the rest was open with ours they were within the awning.But our door was at the back Conway Countryman
new style. The other way is to get a piece of square plastic and buy some Limpets to attach to the van and make some holes at the bottom for pegging fit and then put the skirt over that. Just a thought.
There are various options to attaching the top part of the wheel arch skirt but some involve making holes in the side wall so I would avoid them.
The simplest way is to use small self adhesive velcro pads, I would use the 'loops' to fix onto the van wall and the 'hooks' on the skirt.
Second is good but more expensive and that is to attach fixings called Snads to the van wall, (they are permanently attached by self adhesion) and used in sailing to attach boat weatherproofing, and then fit poppers onto the skirt.
Dave.
------------- Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you on experience.
Mark Twain.
The way I did mine was a bit tricky because I have one of the fridge vents on the right side not far from the wheel arch so I made a template to suit the width, height with two angles (one to miss the fridge vent) with a radius at each corner to avoid the corners from flopping down. I used a length of wallpaper and measured the size for the width and height which I then cut out with a pair of scissors. I then put the wallpaper strip up to the side of the caravan wheel arch then marked off with a pencil where the two intersections needed to be and to allow for some brass grommets for fixing points of the wheel arch cover to the side of the caravan. I then drew a straight line between each of the intersections and I cut out the two angles with scissors which was then the finished template. I checked a second time which was satisfactory but if you make a mistake at this stage it's easy to discard a piece of wallpaper and start again than discard a wheel arch cover. When satisfied with the result I put the paper on top of the sheet then cut around the template so I finally got the shape I needed. I then got a cup or glass for the radius at the four corners and drew round it with a pencil then cut the curves at each point to make a professional neat job. I then punched some holes into the plastic sheet at the centre of each radius and fitted four brass grommets at the centre points which are the fixing points for four plastic suction hooks that stick to the side of the caravan missing the curve of the wheel arch itself. The suckers may leave slight marks but can easily be wiped off with a bit of polish. Plastic suction hooks are much cheaper than suction limpets and can always keep some as spares.
I made my extension wheel arch cover about 12 years ago which we are still currently using.
Thanks everyone for your ideas. I thought the skirt would be the same as on our folding camper, (we didn’t look before going away, Der)which is the bit that slides across has an arch shaped piece all in one, that press studs to the wheel arch, covering the complete open space. I think we will go with making a piece to attach onto the skirt with the figure of 8, and use suckers to attach it to the van.
Thank you.
Just to add on from my previous post, there are already press studs on the side of our caravan to accommodate a wheel arch cover which were fitted by the previous owner but to match the stud centres on the cover would have to be absolutely spot on otherwise one will clip on but the other may not. Press studs that are drilled into the side of the caravan also have to be sealed to stop any rain water ingress so it was best to just leave them and choose another method which the idea of having plastic hooks with rubber suckers was a much easier option and guaranteed to work. The only thing to watch out for with using rubber suckers with hooks is that the surface area needs to be flat in order for the suckers to stick to the side which ours has a ripple effect on part of the area, that's another reason why I had to make a template so that the brass grommets were located at the correct positions for the hooks to go through.
Hi all
I tried suckers but they kept slipping off, didn’t want to drill the caravan wall to fix press studs or have pieces of hook and loop stuck to the van wall, my solution was to purchase a draught stopper, copied this from their website
The full kit consists of the polypropylene board, support bar, retainer clip & velcro strap. Manufactured from Opaque Polypropylene fluted sheet, extremely tough and tear resistant yet light weight with durable hinges Slots at each end enable the use of the Velcro straps to keep the board closed when in storage
Tango55,cliffbrown, & gray871, thank you. That’s given us plenty to think about. I will look at the link you sent cliffbrown, thanks. I like what you suggested gray871. Tango55 we had press studs fitted on our folding camper, which work well, but we don’t want to start drilling holes in the van, so it looks like it will be suckers. We have a few weeks now before we’re off again, so we have time to sort it.
I love this forum. Always plenty of ideas and advice. Thanks again to all who answered my query. 😊
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Topic: Draught skirt.
via mobile 21/8/2022 at 10:19am
