Hi Tony Lyn.
I have been fulltiming for nearly 4 years now and have posted many tips and advice on the permanent caravanning thread.
A good cheap and very effective way of lagging Aqua rolls is to use XXL size puffa jackets often found at charity shops for a fiver. You can use the sleeve of the jacket to lag the water pump. Putting a hot water bottle inside the jacket last thing at night helps to prevent freezing. We errect our porch awning to cover the water and waste water units during winter. Despite it being a nylon awning, it shades the barrels and keeps the frost at bay. Also it makes for comfortable sheltered changing of water etc. We run two aquarolls & two wastemasters to avoid daily barrel lugging.
Keep a 10 litre can of water inside the caravan for hot drinks even when waterpump freezes.
Insulate the internal water pipes in the van. Even behind the sink, fridge and cooker. Most caravan manufacturers feed the water pipes behind the units where no natural heat is generated and thus pipes freeze in winter. We leave the pan draw under the cooker open a couple of inches and take the cutlery narrow cuboard door between the fridge and cooker off to allow warm air to circulate.
Idealy use a hardstanding pitch. If thats not avaiable park the van on timbers under the wheels and use timber pads for the steadies. I use 10" X 2" X 18" long timber off cuts for this. It stops our 1500Kg van sinking and also becoming rocky every couple of days, as the ground settles.
If you want to put up an awning on the left side (conventional side), you may want to add extra roof poles to counteract snow loading weight. Steel poles are best due to strength and latteral stiffness. We use 5 doggy tie downs (cork screw type) found at a pound shop and even cheaper at a 99p store
, to attatch an over the top storm strap and to add elastic straps to tension the side & end panels ( pound shop again). Corkscrews are much easier to put in and out in frozen ground. You can use a battery drill and an old 10mm drill bit to get a starting hole and use the steady wheelbrace as a tommy br (cross bar) to ease the effort needed to insert/remove the screws. Duck boards and not awning mats are best inside the awning if you're on grass. I use some chicken farm nesting boards, but lowered and inverted bread trays (plastic) do just as good a job.
Oh. Also have a battery charger starter at hand for the car (machine mart do a good shoe box sized one), and cover the windows against frost. A bin liner shut in the drivers door around the top of the door stops the rubber freezing to the steel door. A simple but effective thing is to park with the drivers side nearest the caravan, heat does travel.
One last tip and probably the best one to guarantee success. Keep your sense of humor, and plan for the worst conditions. Then it can only get better. There's no point in cussing and cursing each other for forgetting to do something, or that frozen pipe in -10c. Being a happy chilledout camper keeps the moral up.
Good luck with your adventure and if you have any questions feel free to ask. Parksey will happily pass on my E mail address if you want it for future reference.
All the best.
Steve L.
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