Caravan covers

[grahamr_5041507]

We have to park near some tress on our storage site - not ideal and our last caravan needs some heavy duty cleaning at times.

Whats you thoughts on covers - i see that Bailey have now approved them. As long as they breath and do not chaff and scratch the windows and bodywork - are they better than a shoddy looking van?

We will probably trade in after 3 years anyway and dealers are not bothered where they've been stored- should we be? And just what do you do with the cover whne you go to pick the van up??

 

[rob_jax]

Hi Graham,

We are able to store our caravan (Eriba Triton) at the end of our garden - about 300ft from the house and well out of sight from the usual crims. But our garden ends in a stream, with the usual trees - so we see quite a lot of wind blown leaf crud and I agree there is quite a lot of cleaning to be done if you don't cover.

However, since it's an Eriba - we don't plan to change for ten or more years. So we thought long and hard about covers, and five years ago actually bought one - breathable and fleece lined - so no window scratching.

The Eriba Triton is one of the larger Eriba Touring caravans, and because of the pop top is quite a lot lower that a shoe-box shaped van. Even so, armed with a couple of steps and a pair of brooms it was moderately OK to pull the fitted cover over - wasn't easy, wasn't hard.

What was a surprise was:

1. The breathable nature of the material lets very fine dust particles through - so the roof was quite dirty

2. The breathable nature of the material lets some rain water and sun light through - the water quickly evaporates - but didn't stop the GRP roof from going a bit green

3. We can store the cover in the roof of our garage - but it's a lot of fabric to store if you don't

4. The cover started to breakdown (attack by sun light?) after four years - and it was a good quality cover. We use the Eriba a lot, so it's not as if the cover was on for 50 weeks a year. Maybe silver would be more reflective and better than green?

We now no longer have a cover and are happy to clean the van. But just to keep the leaves off, I'm thinking of buying a cheaper cover that only covers the roof and comes partway down the walls.

Robert