Winter ski trips in a kemerton

Hi all me again !!, We have now had our  14 plate kemerton for nearly 6 months had a couple of  longer trips to south of france and more recently through France Spain into Portugal and back up through to Caen as well as the weekends away, we are planning a ski trip to the French alps probably somewhere around Bourg St Maurice, we are planning to stay on either an aire or a campsite so will have hook up to run a small oil filled radiator ( suggestions welcome) just wondered if anyone out there has done a trip  of this kind in a kemerton or similar any help/advice gratefully received.

We've just spent 7 weeks in Scotland in our 15-plate Kemerton which we've owned for 8 months and although quite a different trip to your plans for the French Alps in winter, a couple of lessons we learned may have some relevance.  

Firstly the winds we experienced in the Orkneys really made us think about draft proofing.  Two areas in particular needed sorting: the gap underneath the fridge at floor level got filled in with a rolled up tea towel, and the central area of the rear doors had to be covered with a towel to stop cold air coming into the shower room through the top and middle latches.  We'll now work out a more permanent fix for both areas and the latter has been the subject of several threads on here.

Dealing with wet clothing and foul weather gear quickly became another issue that we had to address. Being a longer trip than usual, there was more of a need to dry out quickly and manage humidity levels in the van - both key to maintaining morale of the crew!  The separate shower space in the Kemerton makes for a great drying area and enables the loo to still be used without having to move wet stuff out of the way. Nevertheless we still struggled at times to dry out, mainly because the shower/loo compartment is much cooler than the living area.  That's partly due to the draft issue mentioned above but is also a function of how warm air from the heater is distributed around the van. In ours there is no way of changing the balance of warm air between the two spaces.  We're now going to replace the fixed warm air outlet at the rear of the bench seat with an adjustable version that can be fully or partially closed, thereby sending more warm air onward to the shower room when needed.  Changing the type of warm air outlet has also been covered on the forum, though not necessarily on a Kemerton if I recall correctly.  

You might want to fit a couple of extra coat hooks in the rear compartment as we did while away.  We fitted them just below roof level on the rear facing timber bulkhead in front of the rear doors.  Having an elastic "camping washing line" (essentially a twisted cord bungee) was a boon for stringing things up and we've ordered another one as they are so handy.   Finally, our microfibre cloths were invaluable for mopping up condensation as they dry out quickly. You might also want to have some old newspaper in the van for stuffing into wet ski boots! 

If you're at a campsite in skiing territory then you may have access to a drying room.  Many good campsites in Europe do, so some of the above may not be so critical for you.  For us, given the recent Scottish weather, drying out as effectively as possible was crucial to maintaining harmony in the van!

Overall, the Kemerton performed superbly and even discovering a small leak in both of the sliding side windows during horizontal driving rain didn't detract. This was our longest trip in any van and the Kemerton is proving to be a brilliant design for us by a large margin.  

Tim & Ruth

Tim and Ruth, Thanks for the message a lot of useful information which I will digest and look at in due course, we just had a weekend away and as part of that visited the motorhome and caravan show at the NEC, I'm glad to say that we didn't see any van type conversions there that we would swop ours for and to be honest prefer our layout to the new kemerton XL, Thanks again.

Can't help thinking it might be snowing in a ski resort, and the thought of driving a van in snow in the Alps would put me off a bit. well done for daring

Have a look here for drying boots in your motorhome. Absolutely brilliant!!!! Get it out when you need it, strip it down and put it away when you don't...

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Full instructions and parts list given on website.

Dennis

That's priceless!  AS should include it as part of their Winter Pack.
I think I might have most of those parts in my workshop ... I can feel a mod coming on!

Brilliant! I want one !

Doesn’t look like rocket science to build / adapt to fit any motorhome with blown air heating. 

I saw this earlier in the year and parked it for later. The post this morning reminded me of it.

Dennis

Dennis thats wicked,better than a heated boot room , as far as driving in the snow done it for years in the car so this is just another step on the ladder.
Bring on the snow!!!

I think I will stick to the drying room - the smell from my boots (now about 10 seasons old) would be utterly appalling!  I'm impressed though.... :-)