Electric Hook-Up Amps v. Winter!

Hi there,

As it is snowing and we are planning a trip up to Scotland at the end of this week I thought that I would Post a timely reminder about the EHU Amps that are provided on camp-sites.

The forecasted temperatures for our visit are as low as -3 with a "feels -5" so that means that it will be pretty chilly at night and we will certainly want to keep the electric heater running through the night!

The site we are intending to use (East Fortune Farm - North Berwick, East Lothian) provides a 16 Amp supply which will allow us to run up to a 3Kw heater and the charger with ease; so hopefully "nae problemo Jimmy"!

I suggest that you check the promised EHU supply Amps before booking aywhere between now and April!

Hope this helps someone.

Best regards,

Running a 3kw heater would cost the site a pure fortune eeeeeekk. Costs around £0.60 an hour to run one of those. Think thats one of the reasons site electric keeps getting more and more expensive.
Most vans have their own gas/diesel heaters fitted so the EHU should mainly be for charging the batteries and the odd thing like the ladies hair driers

......

I think we will see sites moving towards a metered supply so that you pay for what you use. The amount of energy I see wasted by space heater, water heaters etc just left running is shocking.

ubuntu1 wrote:I think we will see sites moving towards a metered supply so that you pay for what you use. The amount of energy I see wasted by space heater, water heaters etc just left running is shocking.

Totally agree with you, though the cost of putting in a metered supply to each EHU would be very expensive. I think thats why a lot of places may end up fitting 4A mcb,s but even at that there will be people buying a 800w heater and leaving it on from they arrive to they go. We wont pay £5 or £6 hook up in a lot of places to subsidise the ones that abuse the EHU.

Dutto wrote:........... (East Fortune Farm - North Berwick, East Lothian) provides a 16 Amp supply which will allow us to run up to a 3Kw heater and the charger with ease; ...........

Hi there,

I hate quoting myself but I did say "up to a 3Kw heater"!

I don't actually own a 3Kw heater! Even the two night-storage heaters in the house are only 2.5Kw!

I presume that the site-owner knows his business and that the 16Amp supply is included in the £13 a night fee they charge; and if I was only paying £5/£6 a night I could easily use the outstanding £7/£8 to fund the LPG required to heat the van.

Best regards,

Ian

While I agree that everyone has the right to use the power supply as they see fit, can they not see that their abuse of the system is going to spoil it for everyone including themselves.
I have seen sites that specify no electric heaters/ kettles/ microwaves etc. Just how they enforce this I don't know.
Maybe we're lucky, but having been motorbike campers for 20 yrs we have all the kit and know how to keep warm, our kit has served well whilst camping in Norway in January and that kit and knowledge has been transferred to the van.
The only extra we have is a 450watt oil filled radiator and we use this to supplement the gas heater for a couple of hours before bed and the same in the morning, we don't use/need heat in the night as our kit keeps us lovely and warm.
Even a thermostatically controlled electric blanket would use virtually no power and provide adequate warmth so why run a 3kw heater all night.
If we plan to go away and know it's likely to be cold we make sure we have plenty of gas (2 in the locker) and take a spare and make sure we can get more if needed.
If this kind of abuse continues sites will either stop providing power or restrict it to 5amps then you will have to use gas for everything including the fridge just like the good old days.
I'm not saying it's everyone or anyone in particular but I have noticed that it seems to be the younger generation that think they can use as much power as they like because it's only costing £2/night.
I believe it is our responsibility to provide our own heating not that of the site management.
If we continue down this road we will be fitting electric hobs and ovens because "we've paid for it so we'll us as much as we bloody well can".
Well there's my two pen'orth.
I'm going to have a cup of camomile tea and calm down now.

Agreeing with you there Celticbiker.

Well said. Whisky.

Hi All,
I wasnt aware of any 4amp sites in the UK, though it seems that I have to stand corrected, though I am well aware that 4 to 6 amp pitches are almost standard on the continent, one pub listed as a stopover that we stay at occasionally will provide EHU in return for a £3 contribution to the air ambulance. I now see from the book, that because too many people were refusing to put money in the box they now charge £3 for Electric before even switching it on, and put it in the box themselves. With regard to electric heaters on all night, during the winter I run the ultra heat on 500 watts and a setting of 2 during the night just to knock the chill off for nocturnal visits, I dont think this is a huge drain on the power.

Brian2

I can see both sides of the argument, but I think there is something of a myth to the extent of people abusing the EHU limits. There may be a small number of people that run 3kW heaters in their awning 24hrs/day, but most people could not consume 3kW all the time in the average motorhome without making it very uncomfortable!

I use a 500W heater (soon to be replaced by a 700W Eco Chico on Dutto's recommendation) and that keeps my van warm enough down to around zero degrees.

Contrary to some comments above, I think it's unlikely that there will be a move to individual metering any time soon. Metering at the EHU bollard would be pretty expensive and horribly difficult to administer (for example, how would you charge someone who leaves site before any of the wardens are about, as I sometimes do for perfectly innocent reasons?). Remote metering would be ridiculously expensive, and no less difficult to administer.

We use an oil filled radiator during the colder weather. Cheaper to run than a fan heater and retain the heat. Best to get one with a thermostat. I think campsites are well aware that people use all sorts of appliances and if it was not cost effective I don't think they would supply EHU.

Dutto wrote:

Dutto wrote:........... (East Fortune Farm - North Berwick, East Lothian) provides a 16 Amp supply which will allow us to run up to a 3Kw heater and the charger with ease; ...........

Hi there,

I hate quoting myself but I did say "up to a 3Kw heater"!

I don't actually own a 3Kw heater! Even the two night-storage heaters in the house are only 2.5Kw!

I presume that the site-owner knows his business and that the 16Amp supply is included in the £13 a night fee they charge; and if I was only paying £5/£6 a night I could easily use the outstanding £7/£8 to fund the LPG required to heat the van.

Best regards,



Ian

Ian we were saying £5 or £6 for electric NOT camping fees and all. Your £13 a night is including your camping fees which take up most of the charge, its a tad mad to think if you pay £13 site fees including EHU that entitles you to use £13 of electric, just my opinion.
Even running a 1000w heater costs £4.80 a day to run, EHU points were never installed to be used as 24/7 heating.
At the end of the day £2 for a hook up is great and handy to keep batteries topped up, the blip of a microwave or a small hairdyer. These simple things make the stay more comfortable.

PS Ian my first post was not aimed at you in person saying that YOU actually used 3kw, it was the fact that a reasonable amount of people do it and it costs us all with higher and higher EHU prices, so please dont think other wise

Hi there,

May I ask a simple question?

"How on earth am I 'abusing' a caravan site owner by taking something that I have paid for?"

Best regards,

Ian

Dutto wrote:Hi there,

May I ask a simple question?

"How on earth am I 'abusing' a caravan site owner by taking something that I have paid for?"

Best regards,

Ian

maybe good you asked this, firstly as I keep saying now this is not personally you. >>>>


FOR EXAMPLE .........If a person pays £4 a day for EHU and knowingly uses £8 ad day thats abusing the system and that is exactly what I meant Ian, I hope this clarifies this for you.....

Hi there,

A point of full agreement!

I think that in many cases there is a hazy line between what someone has paid for versus what is available for use.

A good example that I still reel at is a local Chinese Restaurant where they run an "Eat as much as you can." buffet. Obviously when you pay for your food you are offered the utensils with which to eat it and, because it is a Chinese Restaurant, they had chopsticks available.

However, they stopped issuing ANY chopsticks because the Great British Public didn't just take one or two pairs to eat their meal with they stole many thousands each week and the restaurant owners just couldn't afford the cost!

In view of the very low cost of mass-produced chopsticks my mind boggles at how many had to be stolen to trigger that response but that is abusing a system!

Best regards,

Ian

Hi All,
Knowing what electricians charge and the fact that both the CC a C&CC require the hookup to be checked and certified safe every year, this charge has to be incorporated into the site charges, and I can see that the continental sites use low wattage to reduce the power you can use, for example on a 4 amp site when you have the fridge and the water heater on if you want to boil the kettle you have to switch the water heater off.


Brian2

I know of sites that are installing the metering circuits right now so it is going to happen.

ubuntu1 wrote:I know of sites that are installing the metering circuits right now so it is going to happen.

I can believe that if they were installing new wiring infrastructure they would wire for the future possibility, as it would cost almost nothing extra to do so.

But I doubt that any sites have thought through the practical difficulties of implementing metering and have come up with a workable way of doing it. Let's face it, nobody wants a system where you go to reception to say goodbye, and then wait while someone goes to "your" bollard to see what the meter reads, then come back and subtract what it said last time the meter was read, then calculate your extra charge, then ask for your credit card, etc.

Even with a fully centralised (expensive) remote metering system, it's still going to be hard to create a system that would be workable in real life.

-mojo- wrote:

Even with a fully centralised (expensive) remote metering system, it's still going to be hard to create a system that would be workable in real life.

Hi there,

They have it at Camping Marjal Costa Blanca.

The meter reading for your pitch is given to you when you check in, the metered amount is printed out when you go to pay your bill and the EHU cuts off at 10am on the day of departure! All done from Reception!

Brilliant system but expensive!

Best regards,

Ian

Dutto wrote:the metered amount is printed out when you go to pay your bill and the EHU cuts off at 10am on the day of departure! All done from Reception!

In my experience most UK sites use a "pay in advance" model, which allows anyone to push off whenever they like - not just when Reception happens to be open. On many UK sites the wardens have too much to do on site during much of the day to be sitting around in Reception!

Sure, the model could be changed, but (as you imply) costs would change too...

The issue in the UK is a law that puts huge restrictions on the resale of electricity. In simple terms you can't profit from the resale. So campsites charge for the use of their system but not for the power itself. New and improved metering means they will be able to charge for what you have used and they could still charge a fee for the facility. Having seen the energy bill for a campsite over Christmas I am not surprised they are moving to a new charging model,

Hi All.

In the Durham area a few sites have coin meters, I have been useing these sites now for about the past 10 years. You pay for what you use. Leave when you want to not having to mess about with meter readings calculations of what you owe etc.
Seems the best way to go by me.

Whisky.

Hi All,
The only 2 sites I have come across with meters were 1 CS several years ago somewhere NE of Birmingham and the CL we stayed at in January last year. The one near Birmingham was £1 in the slot (we used 50p overnight) and last year there was a meter but the site owner couldn't be bothered to read it and charged us a fixed fee of £10 per night including electric.

Brian2

Having read through this thread, I looked up my last years total electric bill, it came to £1150.17.
If a campsite charges £3 per night, that would come to £1095.00.
Considering that my bill is for the full house including storage heaters, lights & sockets and the campsite bill is for 1 socket, I don't think the campsites are doing too badly out of it.

Frank

Hi boxerman, don't forget the site has to have each outlet checked by an electrician every year and they do suffer with damaged posts and rcd's. It's not all profit.