The first two weeks of my Warwick Duo

Two weeks ago we took delivery of a 2016 Warwick Duo, this was our first venture into motor homing. We had been thinking about it on and off for a while, having previously had a boat. The Covid issues have pushed us to finally take the plunge as we are fairly risk adverse and see it as a way to be able to travel around and not have to stay in places out side of our control. With half term this week, my wife works in a school, we decided to take it away for a couple of nights to Weymouth. A few things learnt and some ideas of things to do differently for the next time - which has already happened. We took another two days away at the end of this week to Battle.

I learnt on the road to wave at other vans, apologies to the first Auto-sleeper that waved at us, I didn't know this was the done thing.

The handover, due to Covid was not as full as normal I guess, so we learnt a few things the hard way - confusing the grey water and fresh water dump taps underneath meant that I managed to empty the water tank I had just filled. In my defence the manual we got with it said the rearmost tap was the grey water, it was not.

Still not sure when it is running off the leisure battery or vehicle battery. Running the lights at home when trying things out sounded an alarm about vehicle battery being low - but I thought was was using the other battery. Will need to try to get a better grip on this one.

Sadly, on the rather uneven roads around Battle the interior handle on the sliding door fell off. We have the handle, but there is no bolt/screw to secure it, so will have to find a replacement.

Also, on the same roads, the fresh water dump tap fell off, but luckily stayed attached to the clip underneath, so was not lost, but again the fresh water got dumped when I didn't want it to.

We need to work put a system to dry things, worse with the wet weather of late, but I was expecting something like an extendible washing line or something of the sort. We used to have a boat that had such a device.

We really like the van, very comfortable and it was great being able to park up on the seafront and eat lunch looking at the waves and rain safe in the knowledge we had everything we needed in our cosseted little world.

Parking however has been an issue. In particular the number of car parks with height restrictions, having driven from Hastings to Camber Sands and failing to find places to park in what was a very unpleasant day, due in a large part to the weather, but also the frustration of being able to get into car parks. Is there a resource somewhere that gives a useful guide to motor home friendly parking in various locations?  We have designated parking in Weymouth and Lyme Regis for example, but nothing in East Sussex at all. Only street parking, and given I am still getting used to driving a larger vehicle that could be fraught at times. We did purchase a Caravan Club Sat Nav hoping that would help, however it directs us to car parks we can not get into even though we have given it the height information for the van.

I did manage to solve one little niggle, the draught strip that runs up the centre of the rear doors, the top drooped down. I 3D printed a bracket that went across it and had a magnet on each side that attaches to the door. No more drooping draught strip, a small victory.

Sadly it looks like as soon as we start getting to grips with the van we are forced to stop using it for a month or so. I guess tomorrows job is to drain out all the various water related tanks and protect it agent frost etc during this new lockdown. It will give me time to find a suitable way to retain the sliding door handle at least.

Nice report, nothing major but annoying all the same.
You can download a booklet from MMM mag (outandabout website) for parking by county. There are also phone apps you can use.


Perhaps you could say a brief hello here....
https://www.autosleeper-ownersforum.com/f36-asof-welcome-section-new-members-please-introduce-yourself-here

Hi Mark
Welcome to the forum from soggy Bridington. We carry a wee oil filled electric mains heater, thinks it's a 500 watt? .
It sits behind the passenger seat at night and drys of our dog towels , jackets etc, or run your Truma heating on mains with the shower room vent open ,this usually dry's off light weight clothes quickly.
Hope you enjoy your Warwick,we love ours, when we can get out again.
Boaby

Welcome to the forum and for the good intro.   I have moved your post to this section as Paul suggested.
The main thing now is to to enjoy your van - when we are allowed to of course.

Hello and welcome to this most friendly and informative forum. 

Welcome to the forum

try the website/app park4night for parking spaces.
with the Duo being just under 6m youll soon get the hang of swinging into on street parking places just like White Van Man does in his Ducato/Merc etc.
good luck.

Welcome and congratulations for buying far and away the best Autosleeper! Now reaching for my hard hat, don't know why I take it off!

We only use pubstops in UK, google Moonfruit Motorhomes, and download it. IF you use it, please follow the rules (on the front page). Otherwise park4night is good too, as Chris says

Drying clothes etc in the Duo couldn't be simpler, you need a compact extendable wash line, the sort which is meant to go over a bath, mount one end above the bathroom cabinet, the other on the opposite wall.

Now, put the heating onto 5, open the bathroom roof vent one click, the open end being downwind if poss. Close all the heater outlets except the bathroom one, so now all the heater output goes into the bathroom. I once got literally drenched, came back, totally undressed and hung everything in the bathroom as described above. All bone dry in 1 hr!

If it hasn't got a solar panel, look at getting one.

If it's at home, do as we did in the last lockdown and stay in it in the garden for weekends, that way you'll find anything else wrong and can easily fix it at home, then when we can use them again, it should be trouble free. Ours is, fingers crossed!

Also, go to the search part of the forum, from home page top right, and put in Warwick Duo mods, there hundred's of ideas on there.

Good luck and enjoy!!

From your first post, I think your parking problems were for daytime. Park4night and Pubstops are fine for overnight but although not an app, checkout parkmymotorhome.co.uk for a county by county list of usable car parks and bookmark it on your phone. We often head for a retail park, they rarely have height barriers, and supermarkets although some of those do have height barriers and of course watch for time limits. You should find that parking around the perimeters of these allows you to overhang at the rear.

park4night covers ALL parking, night AND day, listing any restrictions for each...along with photos, costs etc
yes, there are many apps but ive used this one all over Europe and its great.
as Ian says, pub stops for easy, free (to pub customers) and impromptu stopping is a great system, just need a slightly different mindset than touring always at 'club' type sites and always having EHU.
Once you get into the swing of it, youll be touring without planning or worrying, using the vans resources (solar, gas, 12v) to give you a real freedom...
this is exactly how we tour the continent, but substitute aires for the pubstops.
good luck.

It’s good to hear you’ve had a generally positive first experience. Having a well-equipped, comfortable van and the flexibility to explore makes for a very enjoyable lifestyle.

Regarding height barriers, we’ve seen a marked increase in their use during our touring this summer, in both rural and urban areas. Sadly this is often in response to irresponsible overnight stopping with its attendant problems of littering and tank emptying, which peaked when the first lockdown was relaxed in July.  This trend is particularly the case around the coast and the resources mentioned above can’t be relied upon to be always up to date. 

Another way to check when planning a daytime stop is by looking for a tell-tale shadow of a height barrier on satellite imagery, and by using street view. That probably won’t be up to date either but it’s worth checking and is the first resource I go to.

Even if there isn’t a height barrier, some local authorities or landowners are very specific about where motorhomes can and cannot park in their carparks, so do read the signage carefully. Local authority carparks in Dorset are a case in point, as shown by the picture below. Note in this example, which isn’t uncommon, that we are charged more. Some places go to great lengths to make us feel unwelcome! 

Remember to park in a way that doesn’t encroach into a second bay, otherwise you’ll be fined if you haven’t bought two tickets. Call me a cynic but our vehicles stand out and I suspect make for easy pickings by the parking wardens!

Tim

Thanks everybody for the suggestions and the words of welcome. That has given me some things to look into.

Mark

Hello & welcome from S/yorks.