I Need Help To Answer A Question (1 Viewer)

[ManTheVan]

In our experience, most sites we’ve stayed at have EHU posts which are on and unlocked. You choose to pay for EHU or not and it’s done on an honesty system. Other sites have EHU-specific pitches. You only get an EHU on those pitches and not elsewhere.

 

[PeteH]

That's sounds a bit ominous.... Power supplied FROM the streetlights.

That been done too. I understand all it needs is a Hand drill and heavy duty rubber gloves? Bingo! free lecky!.

One site we stopped on outside York.Had electric. But was thinking of putting meters in.In the winter they we losing money due to campers leaving heaters on 24 hrs a day.Talking to a fellow motorhomer and mentioned this to him.His reply was a shrug of shoulders. I have paid for it so i will use as much as I like.

It was the reason that La-Manga campsite in Spain, installed metered power, Heaters left on in awnings night and day!. Some folk will always take the pee. They monitored it by computer from the office. You had a "free" daily allowance. and paid for anything over that.

Watt do you need to know?

"James Watt (19 January 1736 – 19 August 1819) was a Scottish mathematician and engineer. He did not invent the first steam engine, but he did modify it to work better. There were other patented steam engines (such as the Savery and Newcomen steam engines) in use by the time Watt started his work on them. His major contribution is in developing the modern form of the steam engine. The Watt steam engine is credited for driving the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. James Watt was a brilliant engineer and he also transformed the Newcomen engine.

Today, most people honour him by naming a unit of power, the watt, after him."

His work also led to the phrase "Balls Out" when referring full power / speed.

I'm nothing if not helpful .

His major contribution, was the Watt governor. you see them on every steam loco, the purpose of which is to provide a stable speed for purposes such as Threshing and power generation.

Even relativlely modern "governors" use this principle as the underlying basis of regulation. Only fairly recently has this been "microelectronically" superseded.

 

[steve69]

Sorry. Stupid question. Whatdoes 6amp cover?

TV
Heating
Fridge I havn't a clue.

It's just about enough to heat your curling tongs...

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[Odd job]

We often stay on a site with 6 amps, it is OK for everything apart from heating

 

[nicholsong]

We often stay on a site with 6 amps, it is OK for everything apart from heating

Do you mean electric heating or gas-fired heating with electric blown-air?

 

[tonyidle]

His major contribution, was the Watt governor.

Hence "Balls Out"

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[Mrsambulancekidd]

Our local one has low amp hook up @ £12 per night, but not toilets yet. They close over winter.

The one we went to last w.end has excellent hook up & toilet/shower facilities for £16 per night. This one is open all year round.

 

[Paddington]

In my experience ehu isn't essential in summer, but that depends on what other power sources you have. If you don't have solar, lpg then you might want ehu. It makes things more pleasant in winter though. Not 6amps....you want to be able to get heating otherwise it's pointless. Buy tokens from a machine for so many units of power. I've been to aires in France where you pay say €4 for 4 hours of electricity. I don't like this system as you put the heating on for half an hour when you first get into bed and then turn it off when you get too hot. Then at 6am you're cold, but the 4 hours has run out even although you hardly used the power. So I think charging by units of electricity would be a better way to go.

 

[Puddleduck]

in England it is illegal to charge more for electric than is being charged by the supplier

whitch is why EHU pitches might have a picnic bench or tap or drain or be gravel or hard standing but non-EHU pitches are just grass. You aren't paying extra for just the electric but for all the other amenities.

The CL we use near my parents is/was £15 in the summer and included EHU and £10 in the winter and electric was charged by reading the meter. Water and grey drain on each pitch that has EHU, Elsan at the far side of the field, no toilets or showers. Works for us Obviously we haven't been this year.

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[Minxy]

movan poki a rough explanation.
First it's easier to convert amps into watts, a figure that's quoted on the back on almost every electrical appliance. Go look
Mains voltage is meant to be 230volts in Europe. To convert we multiply the mains 230 X the Amps 6.
230 X 6 = 1380 watts.

1000watts is also know as a KW kilowatt.

So as long as you don't power anything up more than that it should not trip the breaker.
When you look at so called "camping appliances" in shops they are just low power units.
Example a travel / camping kettle will often be 1000w your house kettle could be 2-3000w.

If you had a 10amp supply. Same maths. 230 X 10 = 2400 watts to play with.

you have confused me even more now, i dont understand any of it

silvia

An easy way to remember is think "Watts the answer to the question?".

 

[TonyEmm]

Not a direct answer, but it might help
Many marina set ups have a prepaid card type meter.. Having recently been asked about servicing them I discovered the meters were less than £70 to buy..
The cards could be sold at a local shop ?

But a caveat
I have no idea about the laws in Jockland but here in England it is illegal to charge more for electric than is being charged by the supplier

Actually, I seem to remember a few years ago that a ban was introduced on reselling electric, full stop. As a result, the clubs included it in their pitch prices. Not sure what the situation is now though!

 

[Jaws]

whitch is why EHU pitches might have a picnic bench or tap or drain or be gravel or hard standing but non-EHU pitches are just grass. You aren't paying extra for just the electric but for all the other amenities.

The CL we use near my parents is/was £15 in the summer and included EHU and £10 in the winter and electric was charged by reading the meter. Water and grey drain on each pitch that has EHU, Elsan at the far side of the field, no toilets or showers. Works for us Obviously we haven't been this year.

Sorry mate but plucking one bit of info from a post can be misleading.
I was replying to the OP and there was only mention of how electric usage is monitored / controlled
I made no opinion as to what CLs /CSs charge for a pitch as I have virtually no experience of them

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[Minxy]

Actually, I seem to remember a few years ago that a ban was introduced on reselling electric, full stop. As a result, the clubs included it in their pitch prices. Not sure what the situation is now though!

Its to do with metering I believe ... if electric is metered on each pitch it has to be charged at the exact cost as the site pays, no profit can be made on it.

If, however, it's included in the pitch fee they can add what they want for its use but this of course is open to abuse by those who use it 24/7.

A caveat to this is that if they DO have metered outlets but choose to charge an inclusive pitch fee it may then be difficult to charge extra if someone abuses it unless it is completely clear that this would happen after X amount of electric is used.

As the existing club sites would have had EHU points already which were not metered obviously replacing them with metered ones would be expensive and then going through the hassle of applying the cost for each user to their bill could be onerous especially on busy sites.

I remember when the Caravan Club changed from giving a choice of EHU or not on pitches with EHU bollards to ALL being charged regardless of need with the only exception being if they had non-EHU bollard pitches (rare!), we rarely used EHU and as they preferred MHs to use hard standings we often had to pay for EHU pitches even though we didn't want it.

 

[Odd job]

Do you mean electric heating or gas-fired heating with electric blown-air?

Electric heating, 6 amps will do everything else but not all at the same time,so the hot water has to go off before the kettle is put on etc. If you forget them it's a trip to the post to reset the breaker

 

[Baggydave]

Street lighting will be connected to a very capable supply. I doubt it would notice a few hook-ups.

Many many years ago when I was a kid in London, back of Clapham junction station, the street had no electric in the houses.
our neighbours being a bit clever hooked themselves up to the street light & passed it through an upstairs window. We had another lead over the back fence. as far as I remember it was only for lighting but worked fine till we moved & the houses were demolished.
happy days, I think!

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[PeteH]

Many many years ago when I was a kid in London, back of Clapham junction station, the street had no electric in the houses.
our neighbours being a bit clever hooked themselves up to the street light & passed it through an upstairs window. We had another lead over the back fence. as far as I remember it was only for lighting but worked fine till we moved & the houses were demolished.
happy days, I think!

We couldn't do that. The street lighting was still gas lamps!. Only changed them in the late 50`s. By replacing the gas heads with electric adaptions.

 

[Ian Bosman]

1kw - one bar fire is usually about the max for 6 amps. You will probably be ok to add the fidge. Truma electric shower is probably not an option

Remember that Amps times Volts equals Watts so 6 amps is 6 times 230volts in the UK equals 1380 watts. But do remember that there will always be losses. BTW we changed in the UK from 240volts a number of years ago to save energy consumed in generation

 

[Ian Bosman]

I've been asked the following question but don't really frequent campsites or CLs so hopefully some of you can answer this. Its for an aire style parking area in Scotland.

A quick question – If we put in electricity hook up points – how are they normally monitored at other sites and how is payment taken and access given to the supply to motorhome owners?

I have seen a whole bank of meters on a couple of German campsites connected to the EHU points and you get charged according to usage. Most sites take the easier route of charging a set amount per day and it seems that this year at least all the German sites we stayed at were 16amp.

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[Ian Bosman]

We couldn't do that. The street lighting was still gas lamps!. Only changed them in the late 50`s. By replacing the gas heads with electric adaptions.

Off topic a bit but in my childhood we lived in. arose which was lit by Calor gas and the bungalow we moved into, newly built in 1950, was lit the same until the farm was wired to the mains in 1954. The pipe work was still there in 1963 to my knowledge when I last lived there. We had two very large tall cylinders round at the back of the house on a manifold so that when one ran out we could change over easily. The lights were noisy and gas off a blueish/greenish light if I recall correctly

 

[Langtoftlad]

An easy way to remember is think "Watts the answer to the question?".

...and cue classic Abbott & Costello skit:



though they apparently improvised a better answer to Watts & Volts in a movie
Best version I could find



So that make it all clear eh

 

[gwyntaxi]

What they do will depend very much on how the place is to be operated. If someone is only going to come round once or twice a day to collect money then this will be open to abuse if they intend to charge extra for electricity. Folk might wait until they have done their round, saying they don't want electricity then connect up as soon as the "warden" has left.

My suggestion would be to include an element for electricity (6A maximum) in the price whether they use it or not. This would be much easier to manage. Price might need to be higher in the winter as demand likely to be greater, for example because MHs with solar who wouldn't need it in summer may do in winter. The price will probably have to be adjusted in the light of experience based on usage.

I rarely use ehu and if it were included in the fee I wouldn’t use the “Aire” why should one be charged for something one does not want and will probably not use, sounds like one of the reasons Motorhomes don’t like using sites, I.e. having to pay for facilities they neither want, need or intend using.

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[funflair]

On a German Stellplatz at this very moment, €8 per night with 6A electric, having a combi inverter/charger with network compensation means that I can leave the ALDE on 1kw (less than 5 amps) and set the incoming mains limit to 1 amp and then the electric kettle microwave etc all come off the inverter and LiFePO4.

 

[Spriddler]

I rarely use ehu and if it were included in the fee I wouldn’t use the “Aire” why should one be charged for something one does not want and will probably not use,

That's interesting. I pick where to stop according to location, preferably beside a harbour, canal or river and a quick look on Google Maps to be sure it's in a reasonably peaceful area. The price and whether or not there is EHU or how it's charged never crosses my mind.

 

[two]

No heating, no kettle, no coffee maker, no toaster, no microwave.... basically nothing with a heating element unless specifically low-wattage.

- and then only one at a time.

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[two]

My guess is that the cost of installing a metered supply would take a very long time to recover.
My view is that Brit tuggers (and some M/Hs) view EHU as an “eat as much as you can” feast (they’ve paid, so are entitled to it) so I wouldn’t offer 16A inclusive EHU unless it was very closely monitored.
A very difficult decision: If you charge too much, you’ll scare them off (they want “cheap”).
At most, go for 6A only and allow for £3/n in the fee.
It won’t be as bad in Summer but that’s when demand for pitches will be higher and you can get away with a little overcharging more easily.
It seems that most of the CSs and CLs in the major clubs are moving to provide EHU to draw custom because that’s what’s become expected in this country.

 

[dulvil]

surely you only need enough electricity to charge the batteries, gas is the best for heat e.t.c.. i can’t understand why you even need an electric kettle, gas is one of the cheapest things in running a motorhome.(my thoughts) everyone has theirs

 

[DBK]

What have you done irnbru? See what you've started?

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[two]

surely you only need enough electricity to charge the batteries, gas is the best for heat e.t.c.. i can’t understand why you even need an electric kettle, gas is one of the cheapest things in running a motorhome.(my thoughts) everyone has theirs

... but not a lot of people seem to know that.
... and, if the 'leccy is at no additional charge, you can understand the consequences.

 

[Reallyretired]

I find I can run pretty much everything off a 6A connection. It will run the charger and fridge. The other items run off the inverter and the batteries recharge from the ehu while they're off. Also have 400w of solar so not needed at all in the summer.

 

[bigalw35]

Sorry. Stupid question. Whatdoes 6amp cover?

TV
Heating
Fridge I havn't a clue.

a bit late but this is how it works
wattage divided by voltage = amps
therefore
3000w/240v=12.5amps 16 amp supply required
1500w/240v=6.25amps 10 supply required
1000w/240v=4.16amps 6 amp supply required

if you add ALL the appliances you wish to use (AT ANY ONE TIME !!) this would give you the total wattage/amps required

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