Washing caravan at storage site with no water supply

[Barry C]

We do not have the option to park our caravan at home even for a short time, and our storage site, although very good in all other ways, has no water supply available, nor mains electric.

We have a couple of big 25ltr canisters I can fill up and put in the car, but really need to spray water and cleaner mix (so as to lift the green algae) off, including spraying across the roof. We've got a proper long handled soft bristle brush, with water feed capability, I've used for caravan cleaning before, so could at least still use the brush bit of it.

I'm fully aware that pressure washers are a big no-no, as can damage the caravan's seals, so I want something that can give a decent spray over a reasonable few feet, but not at high pressure. Also need it this way so as not to end up spraying over adjacent caravans.

I've seen a few cordless hand held spray gizmos, that look vaguely like a cordless drill, and come with a long length of tubing, which they claim will suck water out from a water container of some kind. But If I've got water in a container on the ground, and the pump bit of it in my hand for spraying across the roof, then it has to be capable of lifting the water 9 feet or so, which means it's got to be pretty good!

I'd be grateful for any thoughts or ideas for how others maybe deals with this. Many thanks.

 

[borderbilly]

Who told you pressure washers are a no-no? They are talking bull, used one for years and never had a problem.

 

[GUMPY]

Best way to deal with Green Algae is spraying using one of These on a dry day with Patio Magic, go home come back a week later and it will be clean.
Then you can look at the reset if it. I use a Dry Cleaner and lots of microfibre cloths, used to do the same on the boat.

 

[Beachball]

Who told you pressure washers are a no-no? They are talking bull, used one for years and never had a problem.

At our l site you would not be allowed to use them so i got some Greased Lighting Showroom Shine Waterless car and caravans, wash and wax ,easy and fast.

 

[Barry C]

Who told you pressure washers are a no-no? They are talking bull, used one for years and never had a problem.

Page 176 of the 2026 Swift Caravan Owners handbook:-

"CAUTION: Do not wash your caravan with a high pressure washer as these can permanently damage the seals of your caravan."

Seen it elsewhere in the past also.

 

[IanB1485]

I have several pressure washers and on the end of the wands the nozzles have two settings , one is high pressure low volume and the other is a lower pressure , higher volume .The thing with a pressure washer is not to get the nozzle too close and patience. They even have battery powered ones nowadays which would be a real boon at a storage facility like a farm were there is no power.

 

[Barry C]

Best way to deal with Green Algae is spraying using one of These on a dry day with Patio Magic, go home come back a week later and it will be clean.
Then you can look at the reset if it. I use a Dry Cleaner and lots of microfibre cloths, used to do the same on the boat.

Thanks, I'll look at that. We've been caravanning a long time, but only more recently not able to bring one home. In the past we've used the Fenwicks cleaning products, and found that once sprayed on then after 5 minutes or so the algae just virtually falls off.

 

[borderbilly]

Page 176 of the 2026 Swift Caravan Owners handbook:-

"CAUTION: Do not wash your caravan with a high pressure washer as these can permanently damage the seals of your caravan."

Seen it elsewhere in the past also.

Swift would say that, just another excuse if you make a claim on their shoddy workmanship.

 

[Mr Plodd]

I have used my domestic pressure washer ( Mains Karcher) on motorhomes and caravans for probably 25+ years without any incident.

The trick, if you can call it that, is to firstly not use the very fine pointed spray but the wide angle "flat" pattern nozzle, and secondly and more importantly, keep the nozzle a decent distance (at least 2.5 - 3ft) from the caravan/MH bodywork.

The spray is to rinse the detergent etc off like you woukd with a hosepipe and NOT "blast" it off from close range.

 

[Barry C]

Swift would say that, just another excuse if you make a claim on their shoddy workmanship.

I do have to agree with you about Swift, we are totally disgusted with the diabolical production and design quality. My wife and I wanted to treat ourselves close to retirement and buy the only new vehicle we have ever bought, and wanted to buy British, so we got hoodwinked by the Swift marketing. Got ourselves a 2024 Swift Sprite Alpine 2, and these are just some of the things we had to get fixed under warranty, with all the aggro and demoralisation that came with it all:-

1. Severe leak front window, discovered at weekend stopover on way back from collecting caravan. Heavy rain, so spotted and videoed front sill flooding. Dealer fixed, advised the window aperture had not been manufactured properly.
2. Incredibly noisy water pump. Located under wife's bed so me getting up in the night a bit of a disaster. Partly due to the fact the pump is inboard rather than out in the aquaroll, but made hugely worse due to how Swift installed. The pump is on rubber mountings to give acoustic damping, so the obvious thing is that nothing must compromise it. But they had routed the pipework so it touched the bulkhead, so as the pump vibrated on its rubber mountings, the hard pipe elbow was like a machine gun against the bulkhead. And also they had routed the wiring in between the motor body and the bulkhead (so again rendered the rubber mountings useless), which acted like an amplifier giving this horribly loud motor whine. Basic engineering which Swift totally failed. I diagnosed and preferred to fix myself.
3. The blinds fitted by Swift so the frames were not parallel, so they either stuck or fell out as you moved the blinds up and down. I sorted.
4. The shower panel sprang away from the wooden batten it was screwed to, because there was barely 5mm of thread holding it into the batten, and too fine a thread pitch for it to properly bite into the wood. I fixed this issue, with different screws of coarser pitch and longer, the batten being plenty deep enough.
5. Awning trim strip constantly coming out across the corner because stretched too tight. Tried to sort several times with little success, but then bought myself one of those little wheely trim strip tools to easily get the trim back into the groove, and then undid it back to about halfway along the caravan so I could get the necessary length needed for the corner with out stretching it tight. Been fine since.
6. One of the front grab handle only secured by one screw, the other one sheared. Discovered on weekend stay on way from collecting caravan. Dealer sorted.
7. Front locker latch tabs (the ones that turn when you turn the front locker key), that are held onto long threaded studs, each one with a nut and lock washer front and back of it. They had never been done up at all, just spun on barely finger tight, completely loose with the nuts and washer spinning free, one almost off and lost if I'd not spotted.
8. At first service dealer spotted something that in truth they should have spotted pre-delivery. The water heater over-pressure bypass pipe was missing, supposed to take escaping hot water safely out down through the floor! Potentially dangerous if a heater fault meant scalding water suddenly spurted out while someone rummaging in the under-bed locker. And definitely a Swift production issue, because I'd noticed this "spare" hole in the floor and just assumed another example of bad Swift production, and they'd just drilled a hole in the wrong place, but the tell tale was the hole still had hard-fixed wood splinters across it, which could not have been there if a pipe had ever been passed through it.

So yes, we are totally disgusted with Swift and their supposed "craftmanship" and "quality". I would never buy Swift ever again, and would never recommend them to anyone. A disgrace.

 

[borderbilly]

I do have to agree with you about Swift, we are totally disgusted with the diabolical production and design quality. My wife and I wanted to treat ourselves close to retirement and buy the only new vehicle we have ever bought, and wanted to buy British, so we got hoodwinked by the Swift marketing. Got ourselves a 2024 Swift Sprite Alpine 2, and these are just some of the things we had to get fixed under warranty, with all the aggro and demoralisation that came with it all:-

1. Severe leak front window, discovered at weekend stopover on way back from collecting caravan. Heavy rain, so spotted and videoed front sill flooding. Dealer fixed, advised the window aperture had not been manufactured properly.
2. Incredibly noisy water pump. Located under wife's bed so me getting up in the night a bit of a disaster. Partly due to the fact the pump is inboard rather than out in the aquaroll, but made hugely worse due to how installed. The pump is on rubber mountings to give acoustic damping, so the obvious thing is that nothing must compromise it. But they had routed the pipework so it touched the bulkhead, so as the pump vibrated on its rubber mountings, the hard pipe elbow was like a machine gun against the bulkhead. And also they had routed the wiring in between the motor body and the bulkhead, which acted like an amplifier giving this horribly loud motor whine. Basic engineering which Swift totally failed. I diagnosed and preferred to fix myself.
3. The blinds fitted so the frames were not parallel, so they either stuck or fell out as you moved the blinds up and down.
4. The shower panel sprang away from the wooden batten it was screwed to, because there was barely 5mm of thread holding it into the batten, and too fine a thread pitch for it to properly bite into the wood. I fixed this issue, with different screws of coarser pitch and longer, the batten plenty deep enough.
5. Awning trim strip constantly coming out across the corner because stretched too tight. Tried to sort several times with little success, but then bought myself one of those little wheely trim strip tools to easily get the trim back into the groove, and then undid it back to about halfway along the caravan so I could get the necessary length needed for the corner with out stretching it tight. Been fine since.
6. Front grab handle only secured by one screw, the other one sheared,
7. Front locker latch tabs, that are held onto long threaded studs, each one with a nut and lock washer front and back of it. They had never been done up at all, completely loose with the nuts and washer spinning free, one almost off and lost if I'd not spotting the issue.

So yes, we are totally disgusted with Swift and their supposed "craftmanship" and "quality". I would never buy Swift ever again, and would never recommend them to anyone.

I feel for you, you think that buying new, you would not encounter any problems and have a stress free life. Maybe its time to get shot of it and get 2nd hand one. I understand the joy and excitement of buying new, but it sounds like you have had enough of it. Good luck, with whatever road you go down.

 

[Barry C]

I feel for you, you think that buying new, you would not encounter any problems and have a stress free life. Maybe its time to get shot of it and get 2nd hand one. I understand the joy and excitement of buying new, but it sounds like you have had enough of it. Good luck, with whatever road you go down.

We'll see how it goes this year, hoping we may have shaken the bugs out of it. Time will tell.

Many thanks.

 

[RogerL]

We'll see how it goes this year, hoping we may have shaken the bugs out of it. Time will tell.

Many thanks.

I've always found that the caravan warranty period is a time to be endured, to get all the faults fixed including design faults and then enjoy many years of trouble-free caravanning - all 3 of our caravans were bought new and kept for an average of 14 years so far more years without problems than with them.

 

[otherclive]

I do have to agree with you about Swift, we are totally disgusted with the diabolical production and design quality. My wife and I wanted to treat ourselves close to retirement and buy the only new vehicle we have ever bought, and wanted to buy British, so we got hoodwinked by the Swift marketing. Got ourselves a 2024 Swift Sprite Alpine 2, and these are just some of the things we had to get fixed under warranty, with all the aggro and demoralisation that came with it all:-

1. Severe leak front window, discovered at weekend stopover on way back from collecting caravan. Heavy rain, so spotted and videoed front sill flooding. Dealer fixed, advised the window aperture had not been manufactured properly.
2. Incredibly noisy water pump. Located under wife's bed so me getting up in the night a bit of a disaster. Partly due to the fact the pump is inboard rather than out in the aquaroll, but made hugely worse due to how Swift installed. The pump is on rubber mountings to give acoustic damping, so the obvious thing is that nothing must compromise it. But they had routed the pipework so it touched the bulkhead, so as the pump vibrated on its rubber mountings, the hard pipe elbow was like a machine gun against the bulkhead. And also they had routed the wiring in between the motor body and the bulkhead (so again rendered the rubber mountings useless), which acted like an amplifier giving this horribly loud motor whine. Basic engineering which Swift totally failed. I diagnosed and preferred to fix myself.
3. The blinds fitted by Swift so the frames were not parallel, so they either stuck or fell out as you moved the blinds up and down. I sorted.
4. The shower panel sprang away from the wooden batten it was screwed to, because there was barely 5mm of thread holding it into the batten, and too fine a thread pitch for it to properly bite into the wood. I fixed this issue, with different screws of coarser pitch and longer, the batten being plenty deep enough.
5. Awning trim strip constantly coming out across the corner because stretched too tight. Tried to sort several times with little success, but then bought myself one of those little wheely trim strip tools to easily get the trim back into the groove, and then undid it back to about halfway along the caravan so I could get the necessary length needed for the corner with out stretching it tight. Been fine since.
6. One of the front grab handle only secured by one screw, the other one sheared. Discovered on weekend stay on way from collecting caravan. Dealer sorted.
7. Front locker latch tabs (the ones that turn when you turn the front locker key), that are held onto long threaded studs, each one with a nut and lock washer front and back of it. They had never been done up at all, just spun on barely finger tight, completely loose with the nuts and washer spinning free, one almost off and lost if I'd not spotted.
8. At first service dealer spotted something that in truth they should have spotted pre-delivery. The water heater over-pressure bypass pipe was missing, supposed to take escaping hot water safely out down through the floor! Potentially dangerous if a heater fault meant scalding water suddenly spurted out while someone rummaging in the under-bed locker. And definitely a Swift production issue, because I'd noticed this "spare" hole in the floor and just assumed another example of bad Swift production, and they'd just drilled a hole in the wrong place, but the tell tale was the hole still had hard-fixed wood splinters across it, which could not have been there if a pipe had ever been passed through it.

So yes, we are totally disgusted with Swift and their supposed "craftmanship" and "quality". I would never buy Swift ever again, and would never recommend them to anyone. A disgrace.

My 2013 Sprite had an inboard Flojet pump installed just like you describe. I spent quite a bit of time reconfiguring it and its pipes/cable to get something better. Makes you wonder if any Swift developers actually used the caravans and experienced that pump arrangements noise. Give me an external pump any day rather than Swifts poorly designed and installed arrangement

 

[Mel]

I have a cheap cordless pressure washer. It has a choice of nozzles and so on a wider spray it really does not generate enough pressure to harm anything. You can put your hand in front of the jet without any pain unlike powerful pressure washers. It came with a soap dispenser bottle.
We are able to fill an Aquaroll at our storage but there is no washing bay. It works really well
We got this one from B and Q but there are loads similar about. For the money I do not expect quality or longevity but it does the job so far

https://www.diy.com/departments/electric-handheld-pressure-washer-cleaner-with-2-batteries/0694162752947_BQ.prd

Mel

 

[otherclive]

I have a cheap cordless pressure washer. It has a choice of nozzles and so on a wider spray it really does not generate enough pressure to harm anything. You can put your hand in front of the jet without any pain unlike powerful pressure washers. It came with a soap dispenser bottle.
We are able to fill an Aquaroll at our storage but there is no washing bay. It works really well
We got this one from B and Q but there are loads similar about. For the money I do not expect quality or longevity but it does the job so far

https://www.diy.com/departments/electric-handheld-pressure-washer-cleaner-with-2-batteries/0694162752947_BQ.prd

Mel

At that price and with two batteries it must be worth a punt. After all if it expires prematurely you could still get a refund.