Caravan - project or not?

[Kayos]

So I'm getting older, and liking people even less and the appeal of a caravan is growing, would love to grab the kids and or the misses, or even none of them and get away for a weekend.

Naturally being from Yorkshire budget is a big concern, I'm not looking to spend big but even at my top end (£1k~) I'd want to replace things like the appliances, modernise the living space and most have hideous, hideous shower/toilet/washing areas

So why not buy a £200 "project" and spend the rest doing it up? I know damp and chassis rot are the killers but anyone done this?

I'd be looking at a 4 berth, probably plan to rip out the shower area and redo using wet room style flooring and walls, freshen up and modernise the cooking area and replace the upholstery and curtains etc ( and install a tv, games console etc for the kids)

 

[gaz1]

if you can find a good one its worth it kayos but most of the time the low prices are because its at end of its life

if you had said a caravanette rip out and start again it can be done as long as you keep costs down

kitted both of them out with my father and also redesigned them

we had the commer caravanette the kids slept above the passenger and drivers seat so you can guess where i was

parents bought a caravan it never went no where just sat in the garden only people to use it was me and the girlfriend other than that it was a store room for stuff

 

[brightspark]

buy one at the end of the season and u can pick a decent one up for not a lot of money .

 

[RonA]

I admire your ambition & Im sure the results of your conversion could be spectacular.
However, one thing to consider other than your conversion costs is the cost of actually getting away.
Slowly & surely the cost of campsite fees has risen inexorably.
What was once a cheap holiday option is getting to the point where it's almost a second mortgage job. Some campsites seem hell bent on pricing themselves out of punters reach.
RonA

 

[MrFluffy]

What kills most cheap coachbuilt motorhomes and caravans is damp ingress through the roof or joint areas etc. If your unlucky it wont be a small patch on the celling like it looks like on viewing but when you prod it, it'll have ran down inside the walls and rotted the whole structure out. At which point repair involves remaking the thing.
Horrible job, took me a age to rebuild the floor around the sidestep area because the water had got in around the original fridge vent areas. I'm with you on tv games console though, and satelite, in fact I'd find a solid one rather than wasting time rebuilding a wreck and just do those and put extra sockets and other niceties in, fit some solar panels for more extended wildcat use and other stuff. We've got the oldest van on site usually, but we certainly dont have the least comfortable one, nor the least practical.

 

[Kayos]

By project I don't mean a wreck, I mean something old and dated that needs modernising. I don't want to rebuild the structure, just the interior

 

[Barlidge]

Something to consider when picking a candidate will be its available user payload which they don't have a massive amount of, any modifications internally could eat into that if your not careful. There are still some cheaper sites around but as above the prices seem to be creeping up. I still enjoy mine though and the younger kids love it.

 

[bricol]

From limited experience, you'd spend more time rebuilding it than actually using it. So get a cheap one, use it, enjoy it (or not - you might not like the hassle, the cold, the heat, the noise of others, paddling to the showers in your flip-flops . . .)and flog it on later . . . sold mine to a bloke from Poland who came over with a flat bed and a flat trailer - bought two up here, taking both back to Poland to flog on.

 

[Tiggy_dorset]

( and install a tv, games console etc for the kids)

Save yourself ~£500 on consoles/video games/TV ect. These were banned when I used to holiday. If you're gonna spend time on these whilst on holiday, you might as well stay at home

 

[CompoSimmonite]

I've had two caravans and both got scrapped for same reason - timber frame rot. If I ever had another cheap / secondhand (ie £1000) I wouldn't consider anything other than a full fibreglass bodyshell - like a Freedom

 

[Mee]

How about something different? many years ago a mate bought 2 VW campers, one with an excellent body and dodgy engine/gearbox; and a second one with a good engine/gearbox and considerable floor rust and we swapped the engine/transmission from one to the other to give him a good camper.

The second one was rotten in the usual floor areas and it was cut out and replaced with a flat floor at the front and in the engine compartment to make it flat throughout, we made a beam axle and mounting points for the existing chassis and located a heavy duty axle in the middle of the vehicle and fitted some wheelarches, it had a towing point fitted and he used his camper for him and the wife, and he hooked the second one up and towed it if he had friends or family coming with him, and it got a lot of admiring glances and considerable interest from other campers when he went away in it.

That was a project.

 

[Kayos]

Save yourself ~£500 on consoles/video games/TV ect. These were banned when I used to holiday. If you're gonna spend time on these whilst on holiday, you might as well stay at home

It wouldn't be that much, plus it's more family orientated, iPads and phones are banned on holiday but stuff we can do together like a silly racing game isn't

 

[Rig Pig]

I had to rebuild the front and back of my caravan last year as the wet had got in. The worst thing is that the aluminium had corroded from the inside out, I mastic filled the pinholes so the van should have a few more years left.

 

[MrFluffy]

Save yourself ~£500 on consoles/video games/TV ect. These were banned when I used to holiday. If you're gonna spend time on these whilst on holiday, you might as well stay at home

Wow your kids must really love you on those 3 day endless torrential rain days drumming on the outside when your all sat wondering if holding out for it to break was a good idea or not

 

[MrFluffy]

By project I don't mean a wreck, I mean something old and dated that needs modernising. I don't want to rebuild the structure, just the interior

Im not saying your intentionally going to buy a wreck, I just mean most of the cheaper caravans and motorhomes out there have this to some degree, or they become the most expensive ones again.

 

[Tiggy_dorset]

Wow your kids must really love you on those 3 day endless torrential rain days drumming on the outside when your all sat wondering if holding out for it to break was a good idea or not

I was refering to when I was younger (Playstations were around back then) On rainy days we played cards and other games. Either we found ways to amuse ourselves, or we brave the rain and go into town to the arcades or something. Rain never stopped us fishing