Buying A Caravan in 2024

Buying A Caravan in 2024, Dummies Guide, we start with the basics.

we then look at different caravan heating systems, how caravan systems work and how to do a few caravan checks. if your looking to buy a caravan used caravan or new caravans 2024 then it can be a challenge to get everything right. But in reality you won’t get it right the first time.

hopefully these caravanning tips will help and steer you in the right direction if you want to buy a caravan in 2024.

check out our website for all our used caravans for sale, we even have used motorhomes for sale stafford.

https://www.thecaravanplace.com

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so it’s one of our first proper videos for the new year and we’re going to look at buying a garavan it’s going to be like a dummy’s guide to buying a caravan dummy’s guide yeah dummy’s guide is you’re doing this pretty much come on so uh a few things and this is going to reply to if you’ve already got a caravan if you haven’t got a caravan um we’re going to go over a few things to look at look out for and what you should be thinking about so if you’ve never had a caravan before obviously we’re going to need a toe bar um which are pretty standard that’s on the car so that’s on the car that’s not on the Caravan we’re going to need that on the car and we’re going to need electrics to go with that now pretty much anything over 2010 a newer is going to be fitted with 13 pin electric so if you’ve not already got a caravan you’re going to want to have 13 pin electrics and then probably 75 probably more than that isn’t it uh probably 90% are going to have have an Alco or a winoff stabilized hitch head so this is basically a stabilizer where they used to have a bar it’s all built into this now it’s just a standard Ball but you do need to sell them when you have your toe bar fitted that it’s got an Alco because it’s slightly extended it’s a slightly longer ball and a slightly taller extension on there the ball is exactly the same size but it’s just slightly different so so is the Sha different but the balls the same so the ball are the same and the shaft’s different yeah so it’s just a bit longer and a bit taller right so um but 13 pin electric majority and again if you’ve got an old Caravan majority of the new ones that you can upgrade to are going to have 13 pin electric so same sort of thing you can always find what it you converter yeah so we’ll put some little links up or in the description we’ll have some converters that will go from 13 to 7 pin uh on the side majority on the opposite side to to the door side are going to have your battery box this is where you’re going to connect up a Leisure battery and it’s a Leisure battery and this is going to take roughly 100 amp Leisure battery Mains electric is going to plug into here you need a special lead for that yeah Special Mains lead n well pretty much all the Caravans now got cassette toilets so that is going to be where sort of inside everything goes into and then you’ll have a cassette maybe not exactly the same as this one we’ve been draining the Caravans off so over the winter if you’ve not drained your Caravan off already you need to drain everything off so that includes your water system um and the fresh water or the flush water for the cassette toilet and on this one that’s what that was uh so that was where we’re drying that toilet down they’re all going to have a cassette um so that basically is where everything all the crud inside we M and everything is going to go into so that’s what we’re going to empty out and then waste water is all going to come out out of here so when we then come into the different Caravans obviously there’s loads of different lats and if you have a look on our website and also our new YouTube channel uh which will be popping up now that’s going to have lots more reviews on all over the next couple of weeks it’s going to have a lot more reviews going on so specific Caravans there’ll be more reviews of individual Vans with the layouts and whatever you but that’s one of the the biggest things is actually figuring out what layout is good for you um so no one can really tell you that it’s just going to be having a look at different ones and trying to figure out what is going to work for you similarities um between pretty much all of the Caravans so most of them are going to have fridges so three-way fridge so this is worked on gas electric and should work off the car as you tone along as well um different sizes um so not they’re not all going to look like this big Slimline one some are going to be smaller and underneath the cabinets realistically um if it’s your first van I wouldn’t be too picky about your your fridge um as long as it works that’s pretty much what you want um majority of the Vans are going to have the gas Rings some of the new ones will have an electric ring on there as well and then all of your grill oven it’s all going to work on the gas uh you don’t do electric ovens do they no so it’s always going to be gas some of the new ones again we’ve got the microwaves fitted in there um lighting is going to work on 12 vs so that’s why we need that Leisure battery on the outside and also if it’s got a motor mover that is what we’re going to need to power that motor mover so we’re going to need a good battery for motor movers Etc most of the Caravans going to have a little display panel like this above the door or at the side of the door and that is going to put our power on for the 12v to power up all of the lights Etc and put the power through then to sort of our igniters our fridges our Heat in the hot water systems so that is sort of an again it’ll work off when we’ve plugged into the mains electric and also when we’ve put our Leisure battery on there now that’s going to be pretty much the same on 99% of the Caravans you’re going to have a display panel um and that is then going to put your 12vt system on heating systems and Hot Water Systems so again there’s a few different variations on your heating and Hot Water Systems we’re going to start at the most expensive heating system and I work our way down so if they’ve got a little panel like this on the new ones uh it’s going to have Aldi on there now it doesn’t mean your local Super Market Aldi it means our actual Aldi central heating which is a wet central heating um now it’s like a radiator system that goes all the way through the Caravan so all underneath of the bed boxes that can’t see on that one can’t see under there oh let’s try and find an easier way to show area we’re basically going to have pipe work so if you can see just in this one here so all the way around the Caravan we’ve got a little radiator system like that and that works off a a water system that’s got antifreeze in there so it’s not going to freeze up or cause any problems through the winter and that’s then going to pump the water through the radiators um some will have a proper Radiator in the bathroom so if you have a look at that one now we’ve got a proper proper radiator and that’s a controlled system so you set your thermostat and it just works like your house basically puts the radiators on around the Caravan and that is probably the most expensive heating system and you’ll find that on the more higher spec top level Caravans um because it was a more expensive system very very good system uh and if you’re going to use the Caravan all the year round that’s a really good system to have because you can literally set thermostat and it will pretty much just keep the Caravan at that is that the one that’s doing the under floor now is it the AL yes so again some of the newer ones again uh the Aldi will have the underfloor heating system so sort of our big 835 um The Coachman lucos things like that some of the some of those bigger expensive models will have the underfloor heating as well the Bookers and next one then is the truma heating system so we’re going to have a panel like this in some of the newer Caravans and that will have blown air vents around the Caravan so you’ll see little vents like this one and this is more of a blown air system so in this particular one it’s like a Combi boiler that will do our Heating and our hot water and then it’s got our vent pipes that go around the Caravan and it will blow the warm uh around the Caravan and even into the bathroom there’ll be a vent in there and it’ll keep that warm now still a very very good system I think just down in this bottom corner still a really really good system um but just not quite as controllable you’ll sort of have to have a bit of a play around with the thermostate or get a little bit warm you’ll end up opening the door you’ll drop the thermostat down and it’ll get a bit but it’s still noisier isn’t it a little bit noisier yeah a little bit noisier um but still a really really good system so if you’re looking at a caravan and you’re going oh I really want all the central hitting but that’s exactly what I want I wouldn’t let that put you off um it’s going to do the job it’s going to do what you want it to and if you haven’t had the Alis central heating before you’re not really going to know any difference in all honesty um such a small space to heat up isn’t it it’s not yeah yeah it doesn’t it doesn’t particularly matter to be fair fridge as I said before um so that’s just a nor of a normal type of looking fridge and again these are going to have the freezer compartments in there as well so it still does all of the same things so again one of probably the very very first things really is trying to figure out once we’ve got our layout right right um we found something that sort of we think is going to work it’s got all the right things that we want in there it then comes down to can our car actually tow the Caravan that we’re looking to buy um so we need to know what our car can actually tow first and then we need to work off what the mtplm so the maximum weight of the Caravan compared to what the toe weight is the Caravan we don’t work off the empty weight the Mr uh we need to go off the mtplm and that then is what we compare to what our car can actually toe on your V5 it will give you a maximum brake trailer weight and that is just the law basically if you get pulled over and you turn something heavier than that um there’s a good chance that you’re going to get into trouble and also get points uh and if anything were to happen insurance is going to be void we have got a video that’s popping up now and that will go into the toe weight so it will give you a bit more information on those toe weights if we’re looking at a slightly older Caravan we might find a caravan and the heating system system is like this so very much the same as that newat truma unit that we just looked in um does the same thing basically but it just means that we’ve got a fire in the actual front area of the Caravan so if we put this on the gas all the electric we can put no blowing air heating on and we’ll just have heat coming out the front of the fire so um just gives us if we’re in the front area of the Caravan it just gives us that sort of warmth feeling from the fire we can put it onto the blown air again so it’ll have the blown air vents throughout the Caravan and it’ll hait all of the Caravan up 99% of the Caravans that are out there are going to have your front Lounge like this and then to make this up into a bed it’s literally just pull our front seating out our back cushions then will go into the middle uh and that is essentially what we will make the bed up normally would turn these cushions over so again we’ve got the nice flat section um and then that makes a nice comfortable bed so again nice easy fairly quick if you don’t want a fix red Caravan it’s a fairly quick routine to go through to put that bed up and down if you have got a fixed bed obviously uh you’ve got all the storage underneath of the bed under the fixed beds we do get a nice big area to store things and if the bed is over the axle it’s not so bad but if we’ve got the fixed bed at the back of the Caravan we have just got to be careful how much weight we’re putting at the Caravan cuz more weight that we put at the back of the Caravan the lighter that we’re going to be on the front end and the more chance of actually getting swaying Etc when we’re [Music] [Music] to no again 90% of the new Caravans now uh from anywhere from about 2008 upwards are going to have fly screens and blinds on the Windows probably 80% will have the fly screen on the door so again through the summer we can have our door left open and we’ not got things coming in and again our roof lights again are going to have the fly screens and the blinds on there for a nighttime I was just walking around I thought he’s going to go mad he’s been round all this morning again clean all the floors making but to be honest with you it’s been it’s been really busy so we’ve had a lot of people walk in so it’s they’re already dirty again so um it’s not our fault no not our fault can’t can’t be blamed um so sometimes if you don’t want to go for the fixed bed we’re going to have a side diner or a bed at the back or a seating area at the back and we’re going to have a like a metal frame like we’ve got here now that’s actually a bunk bed that comes up so on this particular one our bottom section will make into a bed there’s a little board that will go into here and then our cushions open up fold over so we’ve got a bed at the bottom like so and then our other set of cushions are for our bunk bed so again nice and easy pretty quick to put up and down these will hold about 11 stone for smaller adults or bigger children and again they just fall out and then the other set of cushions then will infill into ha and that will make us another bed and as I said that’ll take about 11 Stones so a good child or small adult can actually use this as well so some people have um said about using the the front seating area uh as single beds and then you’ve got obviously another couple of single beds here or if it’s just two of you you can leave that bed at the front and you’ve got a nice little seating area as well so it works quite well again on the six birth layouts where you’ve normally got bunk beds at the end one side will normally be like this and if it’s got steel frame on the side that will work exactly the same as what we’ve just done there so um pretty easy pretty quick to put those up and down again if you’re looking for different layouts as I say different reviews different Caravans have a look at our new YouTube channel again that’s popping up um have a look at our website the Caravan place.com um because again stock is changing all of the time um but hopefully that give you a brief sort of overview of different things to look at different things to think about obviously Towing weight is a big one so making sure that your car can actually tow what it is there’s no um laws anymore on uh what you can tow up to so even if you passed your test after 1997 you can still pretty much T anything out there now even if you’ve got a big four before um you’ve got no restrictions on what you can actually tow anymore so that that LW is all changed so hopefully PL sockets don’t work on the battery do they no so again we’ve had this a few times yet uh if you’re just on battery and you’ve not got the mains electric plugged in obviously your 23 volt plug sockets aren’t going to work and fridge isn’t going to work on Main’s electric the ha won’t work on Main’s electric and if you’ve got an electric ring that’s not going to work as well so keep uh an eye on our Channel if you’re liking our Channel hit the Subscribe button hit the like button drop us a comment if you’ve already huged the Caravan uh if you’re looking to change let us know your thoughts in the in the comments if there’s anything that you sort to think oh actually somebody would have told me this again let us know in the comments cuz it lets everybody see and helps them as well so hit the Subscribe Button as I say hit the like button check our website and go over and check our other channels thanks for watching I’m Mark at the Caravan [Music] place