cl sites

[GrahamDerby]

My wife and myself like using cl sites either caravan club or camping and caravan club ones, but we find a problem,when looking through the books we look for sites with electric hook ups and find them few and far between in areas we would like to visit. Now i know what your thinking, for a few days cant you do without a hook up, yes we can, but the caravan manufacturers keep putting more and more 230v equipment in their vans, electric hob, microwaves and floor to roof fridge freezers blown air heating and so on.If its fitted you should be able to use it if you are carting it around.

If the site owners invested in 5 hook ups they would be able to open all year and soon make their money back as people would use them more.

 

[DianneT]

I agree Graham you do need EHU these days but I think the CC CL's are getting more and more with Electricity. I find Norfolk is a county that could do with more EHU sites but we generally have not had a problem and we only stop on CL's. I think in the future lots of sites will charge extra for the Electrics and even have metres as some caravanners do abuse it.

 

[JTQ]

Quote: "If the site owners invested in 5 hook ups they would be able to open all year and soon make their money back as people would use them more."

I am not so sure; remember they not only have the initial installation cost but the annual recertification plus maintenance, then they cant sell the electricity at more than they pay for it. So the whole cost recovery must come from pitch fees and occupancy.

This puts up the pitch cost so discourages other users who would come if not funding the EHUs they dont want.

Given many CLs are on farm land then in the winter the ground conditions inhibit the sites use so part of the year the investment is idle. Additionally in winter many use much more electricity and the only way to have fairly recover from these people is to have meters with the greatly extra cost that brings in.

No I don't buy the cost is "soon" recovered for just a 5 van site; for many owners just opening in season with a basic site is the only way to make ends meet.

 

[David.O]

Graham

Not knowing your favorite areas why not look up http://www.armcher.com/ they have produced Cd's of many CC Cl's .

The CD show the CL as a short video clip.There is also 5van.co

We keep our cl open all year because the soil type we have is sand. You would be surprised how much electricity is used in winter by our visitors, some of this cost is offset by not having to cut the grass. We have at this time 2 vans on site. most of the winter visitors are working in the area , those on holiday are usually visiting family who live nearby. We look to cover our costs in winter.

David from Suffolk

 

[JeffinSpain]

Hi Graham

My wife and I run a small CL site albeit in southern Spain, www.fincadelapiedra.com and when we first started we included electric in with the pitch price but because of one bad apple we now find ourselves having to charge for electric via meters, we only charge the same rate that we pay, which we think it's as it should be, we don't wish to profit from it but at the end of the day we are in business, we can only give one example of greed, when we checked what the bad apple had used we found that they had used _128 worth of electric over two weeks, they were then told that they were to be put on a meter and guess what, over the next month they used _25, which, is still a bit high but they had a large fridge/freezer in their awning, left lights and fans on even when they were out etc etc, the moral is that when you take your home with you, don't forget to bring the consideration & responsibility that goes with it.

Regards,

Jeff.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Because we usually use our own facilities I wouldn't go without an EHU. How on earth would her Ladyship dry her hair without the hair dryer :O(

We have used and still use CLs, and I've also got the Armcher DVDs of CLs and from memory all of them have EHU.

Go to the CC website ...

http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/planning-your-trip/uk-trips/uk-site-search-and-book/certificated-locations
..... and put a tick in EHU under the search options. Saves hunting in the book.

 

[JohnKS]

A friend of ours has a CL and has had to put up his charges to cover the cost of electricity used,particularly during the winter months. He is open all the year because all pitches are hard standing. 2 years ago he charged