StuartO

Bearing in mind your statement that this is a contingency plan for rare circumstances, I don't think this is a remotely sensible or practical idea either. And the inverter necessary to carry the electrical load would be a big lump of otherwise useless kit to be carrying around too.

Lots of garages offer air con servicing and repair, including specialist firms who should have extra skills. I’ve had a failed electro-mechanical clutch in the compressor unit (expensive) and simple leaks, which on one occasion led to replacing a specially shaped pipe (from Fiat, over £200) so unless it is a simple gas depressurisation, which only costs £50 to depressurise, brace yourself for a costly repair.

Wouldn't you think that among all the EU requirements and regulations for construction to meet the relevant standards, there would be some requirement for all motorhomes (and indeed all vehicles) to have an effective towing point?

I haven't bothered trawling back through this old thread to see what's already been said so forgive me if this is repetition. But there have been changes in roaming phone and datra services recently, with more to come. We use a smartphone on the Three network, which gives us unlimited data and our full ration of included calls in most of Europe and this has worked well for us. France. Spain, Austria and Italy are definitely covered; not sure about Germany yet. You can't tether the smartphone to use your laptop on this service but you get good speeds on the smartphone and I find it adequate for domestic purposes. If I really need to use the laptop I seek out a McDonalds, where there is always free wifi on the Continent. Prior to the availablility of these "free" services I used an SFR dongle thingy in France and that cost 30€ per month to a max of 1 or 2Gb (can't remember which) which wasn't bad - and I could use my laptop with that. Not sure about building websites that way but if you do the work off line and then upload only occassionally it might be adequate. I doubt if satellite phone technology is likely to be affordable.

Been reading this thread with interest. My anti-frost dump valve is the original electric type, so as long as it lasts I should be able to fill up with water when the MH is very cold, simply by switching on the heating, which overrides the dumpvalve and forces it to stay closed, even before the MH has started heating up. But the electric dump valve has been superceded by a non-electrical and completely independent one, which presumably is not held closed when the heating is switched on. If you have one of these you will need to heat the MH up to provide an ambient temperature around the valve above the critical temperature before you can fill the boiler with water. Is that correct?