Adjustments for living with limited space and resources

At home, we're all used to virtually limitless electricity and water. In a Motorhome, electricity and water are the two things that are particularly limited. This means that unless you are in sunny climes with a large array of solar panels and more than one leisure battery, or in a campsite with hookup (and sometimes even then), electricity is a very precious resource.

There will also be a limit to the amount of water you can fit in your Motorhome's water tank.

None of this discussion attempts to explain the technicalities of different types of batteries or electrical systems. I'm keeping it simple by addressing the implications of the equipment you're likely to have.

A change of mindset - fuelling appliances

For the purposes of this section, I'm going to assume you have a typical Motorhome, rather than one that has been specified or modified / improved for extended off-grid living.

It's impossible to be specific, as the equipment in every motorhome and the way they're used will all have an impact, but as a very rough rule of thumb, in a typical motorhome without any specific modifications to extend off-grid living, you can expect a bottle* of gas to last a lot longer than your leisure battery or your water. Gas is likely to last for weeks in normal use; leisure batteries and water probably only 2 or 3 days.

*NB: Some motorhomes have a built-in LPG tank, rather than exchangeable gas bottles, but the basic principle that gas will last longest still holds true.

Batteries

Most Motorhomes are built with two different types of batteries - the normal vehicle battery that the original vehicle had, which powers your headlights, windscreen wipers, etc., just as it would in any other vehicle. This battery will be of a type which is good for surges of power (such as that required to start the engine), but unless it's constantly kept topped up - as it will be while you're driving - it's not well suited for long term power. You have probably found out the hard way at least once in your life that you don't have to leave your headlights or car radio on for very long to flatten your vehicle battery.

For the habitation area (the part of the Motorhome that equates to the Caravan-type accommodation), you will have one or more separate leisure batteries, which have different characteristics making them better suited to providing longer term power, but less good for surges of high power. To keep a leisure battery healthy, it's advisable not to let it drop below 50% of capacity, or you will decrease its ability to hold a charge.

Some motorhomes have been equipped with additional leisure batteries and/or solar panels to make your batteries last longer, but you're unlikely ever to be able to treat electricity as the limitless resource that you have at home.

Gas, not electricity

For anything that takes a lot of power, you'll be wise to think in terms of using gas for power, rather than electricity. That really covers anything that involves generating heat, i.e. all cooking, heating and hot water in the 'van.

Many people are surprised to find that their domestic electric kettle is probably the piece of equipment in your kitchen that needs the highest amount of power (with the possible exception of a tumble dryer). Even if you're on hookup, the amount of power to the bollard varies from site to site and from country to country. You'll find yourself very unpopular with your temporary neighbours if switching on your kettle trips the fuse for the entire bollard. That's not to say it's impossible to use one, but you need to be aware of the limitations if you do - check the power supply for the site and the wattage of your kettle, and don't use it at the same time as other electrical equipment. Microwaves may not take as much power once they're running, but they do need quite a lot to start up.

In contrast, a whistling kettle will work wherever you are, whether off-grid or on hookup, and makes use of the most abundant of your limited resources - gas. I always like to carry enough water to be able to make a cuppa no matter where we are. People often ask about 12V kettles, but you can be halfway through your cuppa if you use the gas hob by the time a 12V kettle has boiled enough water for 2 hot drinks. Or to put it another way: most 12V appliances (with the exception of TVs) are rubbish - don't waste your money.

The easiest way to minimise the amount of fuel (and time) that it takes to boil a kettle is to only put the amount of water in it that you need. A typical mug holds about 300ml of water (0.3 of a litre). Our larger insulated mugs can hold 400-425ml. The vast majority of whistling kettles and domestic electric kettles can hold about 2.5 litres - over 8 normal mugs or about 6 large insulated ones. So if there are only two of you, you only need a 1 litre kettle. Even for 4 hot drinks at a time, you only need 1.2 to 1.75 litres. I'm rather ashamed to say that it took over a decade for me to realise that the succession of whistling kettles we'd owned over the years (including some that were likely to scald anyone pouring boiling water from it) were far bigger than we needed. A few years ago, we bought a 1.6 litre Vango whistling kettle with a folding handle. I can't recommend it enough - it's lightweight and small, so tucks away in a small space, and is still plenty big enough for us.

In over 15 years of Motorhome ownership, we have never felt the need to take an electric kettle anywhere. Why waste space taking two, one of which will only work on hookup?

Another option for heating is a diesel heater (Eberspracher is the most well-known brand).

12V, not 240V

Another thing that often surprises newcomers to motorhomes is that their 3-pin 240V sockets (and sometimes some of the interior lights) won't work unless the 'van is on hookup.

Even if they did work (e.g. if you have an inverter to convert 12V DC to 240V AC), you'll soon run your leisure battery flat by attempting to power the majority of household appliances. Sorry ladies - that means no hairdryers or curling tongs or straighteners - or at least nothing worth having (see my comment about 12V appliances above). If you really must have a hairdryer, the toilet/shower blocks in many larger campsites will have one available to use. Or look for tongs or straighteners powered by gas cartridges, or rechargeable ones that you can charge up before leaving home. Or embrace the wild look, or a hat or headscarf.

On the other hand, most of your electronic devices (phones, tablet, laptops, etc.) actually require DC power, and at home our 240V AC has to be converted to DC to charge them. This means that you can take advantage of USB sockets (or cigarette lighter sockets, or two-pin 12V sockets, depending on the age of your Motorhome) to charge most of your devices efficiently without having to convert from AC to DC.

Using an inverter to charge or power such equipment is doubly wasteful, as every conversion will always involve a certain amount of loss of energy (because ... Physics). So converting from your 12V DC leisure battery via an inverter to 240V AC and then back to DC again via the appliance's power cable is the least efficient way to do it. And that means it will flatten your leisure battery more quickly too.

Water

This is another very limited on board resource. You'll find mixed opinions on whether to have fresh water in the tank when driving. At one extreme, the advice is to travel with an empty tank (assuming you know you can fill it on arrival at your destination) to reduce the overall weight to improve fuel efficiency. At the other extreme, if you're going to carry any water at all, fill the tank right up, so that it doesn't have room to slosh about, affecting the handling for driving.

Even if we're going to a campsite where we know we'll be able to fill the tank with water (and especially with Covid-19 increasing the importance of hand-washing), I always like to have enough on board to be able to make a cuppa and wash our hands without worrying about running out. It would be possible, of course, to carry a separate container for this if you don't want it sloshing around in the main fresh water tank, but doing it this way it will make hand-washing more of a challenge.

If you have a larger vehicle and/or a fixed awning, and prefer to leave it on site when you go out for the day, you'll probably need to have the kind of water barrel that caravan owners use to top up their tanks. And some kind of pump to get it from the barrel to your on board tank too. We rarely stay more than a couple of days without driving the motorhome for at least a day out, so can always fill up again when we arrive back at the site.

Don't expect everybody to be able to have a long refreshing power shower every day - you'll run out of water very quickly if you do that. Instead, you'll want to make use of a trigger handle, so that you can wet yourself, turn off the water, soap yourself clean, and then turn the water back on to rinse yourself down. Or you can opt for a strip wash instead. If you're staying at a campsite that has them, you can use their showers rather than your on-board one.

For waste water, it's helpful to make sure that all waste water is as clean as possible when it goes in, so that you don't accumulate a smelly sludge at the bottom of your grey water (waste) tank. Wiping crockery, cutlery, pots and pans as clean as possible before washing means that the food waste will go in your bin rather than the tank, and also means that you'll need to use less water to get them clean. Definitely empty the waste tank at every opportunity when it is responsible to do so - but don't just let it drain onto a pitch or public ground.

You'll find some people recommending all sorts of "cheap" options for cleaning your fresh water tank. This is one area where I don't understand people penny-pinching, but many do. The correct product to use is called Puriclean, which is designed specifically for the job of cleaning caravan and motorhome water tanks. Remarkably for a camping product that appears to have a complete monopoly, it's not expensive, and unlike many other things that people suggest, such as Milton or bleach, it's designed not to damage the water pipes or your boiler. Repairing or replacing those when they get damaged is going to cost far more than the pennies you'll save using something that isn't designed for the job.

The same is true for toilet chemicals. People will recommend laundry pods etc., rather than the chemicals intended for toilet cassettes. Personally, I hate the strong smell of the blue toilet chemicals, but there are a number of eco-friendly green alternatives, which are far less heavily perfumed ... and for me, the fact that they're biodegradable is a big bonus. You should also be aware that there are some sites (e.g. those where the chemical waste goes to a septic tank) where the use of the blue liquids is not allowed.

Related articles

• Getting to know your Motorhome and your needs

• Storing your belongings

• What else do I need?