Advice for new MH stopover with services.

Folks,

Friends of ours are going to build a MH stopover next to their farm shop here in Scotland.

I’ve been asked for advice and have worked on the basis of what works for me when I’m away in the van.
Before the concrete is poured, I’d like to check a wider sample!

This is a spill-over car park for the farm-shop. MH parking will be in the area from right of the digger to the Volvo. More space past that if the demand is there.


How much distance should be between spaces? Based on Cobh & Portumna, a couple of meters would be plenty?

The plan is to install 4 16A EHU points, EHU will be optional for an extra charge.

Behind the parking, in front of the boiler house, will be the service area.


The plan is to build a small hut with a partition. One side for the black dump and the other side for fresh water. The black dump will have flush and a rinse hose too.




Drive over grey drain adjacent to this. It will be set in dished concrete.

MH can drive through the service area and back onto the farm shop access road behind the boiler house, or reverse in and drive back to the parking area.

The location is a mile off the A90, Dundee to Aberdeen road. About half way between the two.

Pricewise; looking at what’s in the area (not much) I reckon £10 to park and £4 or £5 for EHU; or is that a bit strong? Benefit to the farm shop will be limited a bit as they are not open Monday or Tuesday and the open hours are only 1000 - 1600.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Grey empty valve can be either side, at the rear in fact pretty much all for corners so site the drain in the middle of the drive over and have a gradual slope from all angles to it. Ramps up to the drive over are not great as the slope of the van may mean not all grey water empties. Give plenty of room for the drive over.

Depending on how many stands I’d do at least half with ehu although most MH should not need it they may use the aire after several days wild camping and may want to top up, clean up etc. If possible put stands with ehu away from stands without ehu as some will steal if they think they can get away with it.

A washing machine and dryer would be an extra source of income and give an alternative to MH tourers to campsites.

Going on what I’ve seen stands 6m wide would be the norm for most Aires.

If the farm shop has WiFi that would be beneficial for some.

If there is a pub, somewhere to eat in walking distance a £10 sounds reasonable.

Think of a service only price and how to manage this.

Also bins including recycling bins would be good.
Have an info map or notice board, walking cycling routes etc.

IMHO 16amp supply is mad, it only encourages use of electric heating, water boiling and cooking. It also brings the requirement of substantial cabling and supply from the grid to avoid voltage drop.
A 4amp supply is more than enough for battery charging, fridge and TV/Sat equipment.

I think the spacing between units if based on the Cobh model is fine. I am working with two councils in N. Ireland and am pointing out to them that if the spacing is much wider, then cars are liable to park between the Motorhomes resulting in it becoming like an ordinary car park with the danger of door dings etc. This would also remove any firebreak spacing of whatever size. In fact last week I emailed lots of photos of Cobh to both councils.
However, before concrete is poured and things are finalised, I assume that the owner has cleared things with his local planning office. Many councils seem to have the 6 metre spacing idea ingrained from their dealings with the big clubs and commercial sites.
Hope it all works out for your friend.

Davy

That 9 amps would be the 12v charge going to the batteries. 9 amps at 12v would be only about 0.5 amp at 230v, add about 0.8 amp for a large fridge and about 0.3 amp for a TV + sat box.
An ehu rated 4 amps would leave plenty to spare.

Say that an ‘average stay’ on an Aire is 16 hours, arrive 8pm, depart next day at mid-day.
There is a 6 amp hook up.
230 volts x 6 amps = 1380 Watts or 1.38KW/Hr.
16 hours x 1.38kw = 22KW/h or thereabouts at 0.23c per unit = €5.06

So, if you run the EHU at only 6 amps you will burn more than the fiver cost.... I know I’m expressing the maximum usage, but it goes to show where the costs can escalate, now take that figure up to a 10a hook up and run it at max and the costs are €8.50 per 16 hour stay.
A 16a supply has the potential to use over €13.50 for the same stay !

I often see blow heaters on in awnings, table lights, Etc....
Starts to make sense only having 6a trips in situ on an Aire. I put in 3 points at my own place, all running through 6a trips.... there is a need to regulate the potential costs of supplying electric in this environment.

In our game, EHU, is a luxury, the more offered, the more ways that we find to burn it. Heating our mh is the biggest expense but if we pay for EHU, there are quite a few of power hungry appliances on the market to suit our needs.
If the proposed development is offering the EHU as an optional extra for , a mh recharge, or someone who needs a medical device supported or recharged, keep the amps available down to a 6 or 8 amps.
This will allow low amp camping equipment like camping kettles etc to be used without trip the switch.
Just advise the developer to advertise their EHU availability extensively.
Regarding waste water dumping, look at the car wash industry. Fit a 4'×2' grid and pour 6 foot surround of concrete around it at 1 :10 slope. This will idiot proof bad drivers.
Put your fresh water tap beside the concrete pad for grey water drainage, but move the toilet dump about 20 feet away.
My routine is to pull in, connect fresh water hose to fill tank, then pull the grey water sluice and finally to empty the toilet cassette.
In laying out this design, to use the fresh water tap for cassette cleaning deserves the mh occupants a belt of a very blunt object for their stupidity.
Just a few of my thoughts
Malcolm

The problem with the more modern gas units is the blow air fans flatten the batteries and then ehu needed to charge them

Why not use gas for you heating, it's much cheaper.
I used a full €30 bottle of gas a few years ago while doing Christmas Markets, the weather was freeeezing but we were nice and toasty every night. It worked our at about €4 worth of gas per 24 hours for all our heating, cooking and showering needs.
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We find the gas heating to be more than adequate for heating the van....always toasty inside even on the coldest days.

In our case we don't have solar, never needed in this van so far and I am a great believer in the saying if it is not broke don't fix it. regarding the usage of The gas for heating, I have no problem using it but mrs C isnt as happy and I agree an electric heater is safer. getting back to the gas heater, Dave beat me to it, the fan drains batteries so I don't see any point paying for hook up and then burn gas on top of that. My biggest gripe with the Gas heater is the Board went in ours last year and we got it repaired plus a gas service and a few other small bits at a cost of well over €800 so nothing cheap about gas in my opinion, if using a electric heater eliminates that cost I say go for it.

Portumna has a good set up for electric h u a unit buys 2kwh, I think that’s the ratio, so it would not matter if you put 16amp supply as long as the end user paid for their use. I have also ehu with coin slots 50c = 1kwh etc.

If I were putting in my ehu again I definitely go metered as it’s fairer. You pay for what use, rather than what I currently charge which based on the average user.

The metered ehu is by far a faired method on charging for electric.
In 10 years of caravaning and motorhoming, I had only once hooked up to a meter. This was about 5 years ago in Byrnes of Battlesbridge. Over a long Easter weekend of sunny weather, we used 9 kwh of power with our caravan. We were still charged the standard per night hookup price.
It is the winter heating that burns electricity.