Van Life
So you've heard all about the adventures so far and the skiing videos but what about Homer, what's he been up to I hear you all say? This post isn't perhaps the sexiest but hopefully it gives an idea about what it's like to live in a motorhome in the Alps and shares the day to day activities. Maybe, as well as recording these activities for us it's of interest to some other readers too and possibly even inspire you into the wonderful life of motorhoming (or camping car as they say in France). P.S. it's a bit easier when not in sub zero conditions!!!!
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Firstly I thought I'd tell you all a little about Homer. He is a 2.8 litre diesel engine left hand drive Hymer with Fiat Ducato base. He was first registered for use in England in 2002 so he's now 21 years old but still going strong. We bought him from Colin and Shelna who kept him in great condition and are now our good friends and often help us with questions we have about him. To help with tips we are also members of the Hymer Owner Group on Facebook which is incredibly useful as a place to go to share both places to visit and some of the technicalities (eg the 90 day rule in Schengen countries) as well as specific Hymer tips. And members of the Winterised Motorhome group on Facebook as they all visit skiing resorts in their vans and again share some great tips on where to go and things to help.
Examples include (1) putting a clothes peg on the boiler extractor fan (see pic below) so the condensation does not drip down your van in sub zero temperatures and then freezes over the under van storage door below (it's a great tip) (2) the idea of leaving your waste water drainage tap open, with a bucket underneath, to stop it freezing inside the van and (3) someone on there also shared the idea of taking a sled so you don't have to carry heavy things (we used this to bring water back in the morning at our first campsite as it was over 100m away).
Homer is a winterised van, in other words he is built to be used in all four seasons if required. He has a boiler which pumps hot air into the van as well as heating the water for the shower and washing up and he also has his water tanks (clean and waste) in a cavity under the floor which are also heated by the boiler. The energy supply for the boiler is LPG gas and we have refillable gas canisters which we fill up at petrol stations who offer it - they are a bit more common in France than in England. Homer also has a gas hob and oven (although that doesn't work too well) and the gas can also provide energy supply to the fridge if needed. But of course the gas can and does run out - especially in the sub zero conditions when we tend to have the heating on 24 hrs a day - not only to keep us warm but also to stop the water from freezing and pipes from bursting (we had that on the way down to France if you remember and it cost a bit of money to sort it out 😓). We had asked Colin and Shelna about this and they suggested he can last a week in skiing resort as they have been to Alps with him before. But we didn't know for sure and the first 3 or 4 weeks involved a fair bit of trial and error and I can safely say even now if I wake in the night I always check to see if the boiler light is still on green!!! Partly this might be because during our third night here in Samoens the red light came on the boiler at about 2am in the morning. Damn I thought we have obviously used all the gas because it's so cold, I didn't get up as I didn't want to wake Melle and worry her and there wasn't anything I thought I could do anyway. Even though I wasn't cold I could feel that the air in the van was colder than normal too, it was more than -12 degrees every night back then. Of course I didn't sleep too much more that night and I immediately checked the gas locker in the morning and when I turned the gas off and on the boiler just restarted. I couldn't see why it had gone off in the night and it's never happened again thankfully. The other energy that Homer uses is electricity - he has two leisure batteries and solar panel which drive the lights but he can also have electric hook up (EHU) which campsites and some Aires supply and of course these can drive 240v appliances. We have an electric air heater (pic below) that we use in the van in the day and evening when awake, as it makes quite a noise we turn it off at night, we also have a one pot Air Fryer hat we cook with when we can as well as a little electric kettle to boil water for drinks and washing up. This helps us to limit the use of gas as it keeps costs down and one of the other reasons we're quite protective of the gas is that it's about 30mins away and down the mountain to get to the nearest petrol station that sells LPG gas. So far, though, we've not had to refill Homer any more than once a week. The week we went to Geneva it actually lasted 11 days!! 😁
Homer is 6 metres long (and 6 cm) and about 2.4 metres wide which makes him reasonably nice to drive and not too difficult to park - he can fit in most car parking spaces the only thing you really need to be careful with is height as some car parks limit to under 1.8 metres (Homer is 2.2 metres). Inside you might expect him to be quite limited for space but often people are surprised. Partly this is because he has a drop down bed over the cab, I've posted a couple of photo's below so you can see how this works in action.
The other picture (below) is looking back from the cab - so you can see the living, kitchen areas and the bathroom at the end. We have to try to keep it tidy, which is bit harder for me than for Melle 😟and there is not much table space but we manage.
In this pic above you might have noticed we have a TV screen? Because we set Homer up with his own wifi router last summer and we have a sim only contract from the UK which still allows us to use our unlimited data in Europe (it was a job to find one who did this) we can watch UK TV and Amazon Prime (we also have an Amazon firstick to let us do this). So we're pretty up to date on Call the Midwife and I have also been watching the Six Nations when not skiing the last couple of weekends. TBH not sure that's been the greatest experience but that's not because of Homers TV system. 😒
The other thing we do when in very cold conditions is put a silver screen on the windscreen - essentially I sleep right next to the windscreen and the silver screen helps to retain heat (and not freeze me in my jimjams!!). I've also added a large tarpaulin using bungees to reduce the cold air coming into the van through the engine - we also have some old quilts that we stuff around the foot pedals and in the foot well on the drivers side. Whilst setting up these things makes living in sub zero conditions a bit warmer it does also make setting up and moving the van a bit more time consuming and usually freezes my hands in the process!! 😢
As well as emptying the bucket of waste water, there is usually a dumping point / drain in each campsite to allow you to do this, we also need to regularly top up with fresh water. And because it can be a bit of a pain, taking down the silver screen and tarpaulin (see below) and taking Homer off the chocks to do this on days we're not moving anyway we fill up using a camping water cannister (the one on the sled in pic above) and a converted plastic water bottle. We have perfected our showering to the point where we can now both shower and wash up using one 5litre fill up!!💦😉
But of course the greatest thing about Homer is his ability to move and take us to some amazing places. The last two pics here show you one of the brilliant images we've had from our kitchen window in Sixt and the car parking space next to University athletics stadium where we stayed for two nights in Geneva for only 14 euros in total.
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