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USEFUL TIPS


Clive

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Having had a bottle of Soy sauce fall over with a loose top in a cupboard above a winwow resulting in a L O N G brown stain down the blind and flyscreen we now store all pots and bottles in those gallon size ice cream cartons. Added security and its easy to lift out all the jams in one box for breakfast or all the sauces for dinner in another box.

 

 

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Okay, Clive's started with his tip, so I'll continue with some of mine:

 

Wine and lemonade bottles:

These are bulky items to store at the best of times. I've got a long thin cardboard box which is approximately 18 inches wide, 5 inches deep and 12 inches high (an old envelope box from work). I strenghtened it with some gaffer (duct) tape and it fits tightly between the rear of the driver's seat and the cupboard behind it, nice and snug. The 2 fixing 'bolts' in the floor push up into the base of the box so hold it in place at the bottom. I can get lots of bottles of wine, lemonade, milk, orange, oil etc in this and it's nice and easy to grab what you want.

 

Fixed beds - storage hints:

Fishing around under the fixed bed for bits and pieces is a pain in the bum sometimes so I have several ways of keeping things in place, the first is to use the stick/clip on pouches that you can get for use in car boots, this is the long thin holdall type thing that has several pockets and usually press-studs or velcros to the back of the rear seats in the boot. I've put ours along the side edge of the underbed storage (the side you go into it from). We use it to keep hook-up leads, varoius connectors, tent pegs, a small tarpaulin, virtually anything you want that you may need to get at easily, to hand.

 

I also have several of the small cargo type nets - the type that you can use on the back of bicycles and motorbikes etc that have several hooks on them - which I hooked onto the slatted base of the bed, I can slot in lightweight items such as frying pans, trays, small plastic table, games rackets, whatever you can think of that's not too heavy (remember you still have to be able to lift the bed base!). I also have some bungee straps stretched across parallel with each other and within these I can put longer items such as walking poles, umbrella etc. It keeps them accessible and saves an awful lot of scrabbling around in the 'cavern' that is the bed base - if you've ever fallen into it looking for something once you won't want to do it again! Apart from the fact that you feel a right pillock, it's bl**dy difficult to get out again!!!!

 

Bed Shelf:

If like me you like to have a cup of tea in bed in a morning but didn't have anywhere to rest the cup then I found one solution. You'll probably have seen some of the cheap plastic tea, coffee and sugar sets in the pound shops etc that sit on a nice little plastic shelf, I had a spare set of these in a nice grey colour so put the shelf up at the head of the bed (make sure you put it to one side so you can still sit up to enjoy your cuppa!), it attaches with 2 small screws which you put onto the wall first and then just hook the shelf on to them, as the shelf has a lip if you knock your mug the shelf will catch the spillage and it has the advantage that you can easily take it off again to wash it.

 

I also use one of these sets of tea/coffee/sugar/shelf above the entry door, it saves having to rummage around in a cupboard for them when I want them and also saves storage space and no, they do not jump off whilst travelling, in 3 years of use they've never committed suicide once, one thing to watch out for though - make sure you can lift the canisters over the lip of the shelf when you are deciding how high to put them, one thing I nearly forgot about!

 

If I think of any more bits I'll put them on here, I assume someone will find these useful?!?!

 

Mel B

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Hi All, another tip, if you have a HOPE SAFE-T-BAR back bumper [very good to deter 'tail-gaters'] If you pull the plastic end off, a 6 pole canvass wind dodger rolled up tight, will slide inside, specially good if it is wet, then pop the end back on as a little door/lid.
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Underseat/bed lockers can be divided up using plastic boxes of an appropriate size. I have a number in my MH, one holds shoes/boots, another spare linen and towels, another large bottles. They are easy to lift out and take into the house for replenishing etc.

One top locker is divided up with icecream tubs to hold bottles,jars which may leak or break.

Socks, underwear and other small clothing items are stored in net bags.

 

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We carry our wine in one (or two if we're thirsty!) of those square wicker baskets made for 4 bottles. They have a good centre of gravity and rarely tip over, and are available at the bigger garden centres, I think.

 

Another tip... for those of you with small campervans and one of those collapsable water containers for grey waste... to keep the container fully extended and hence use the full volume, I purchased one of those "for your garden" long iron spikes with an ornamental candle from the gardening centre. Dispose of the candle bit, bend that end into a hook and drive it into the ground at 45 degrees to the container with the container handle being held high by the hook. Feed the container with a short length of hose.

 

Regards, mom

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I find the telescopic net curtain rods which are tightened up across a high level locker opening ideal to stop cans and other thing droping out when the door is opened. They can be bought in brass or white finish in a variety of lengths the small size about 24" long cost about £1.49 each from most stalls or shops selling net. chas
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'baby bum' wipes,

can be used to wipe hands, bums, surfaces; act as quick cooling wash when you're hot n sticky; great for removing small stains from clothes; and spare packs can be used to stop stuff rattling around.

 

B-)

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Yes Chas, brilliant idea, I use a similar idea in the bathtroom cabinet as the first opening on arrival on site was usually followed by a shower of littlle bottles, tubes of tooth paste, spare soap,spare loo rolls etc etc. Now everything stays where it belongs. I like Mels under bed storage ideas, unfortunately our under bed store is a huge drawer on runners, dodgey on roundabouts if not locked. Keep the tips rolling in ! ! ! What can you do with clothes pegs ? ? ?
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docted - 2006-07-09 12:12 PM

 

Wine bottles: best not carried if its not good enough to drink on the spot its not good enough to take for later/home. (lol)

 

Would have saved on having to up the tyre pressures on our last trip back from france, but would have been hell of an hangover (lol)

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Baby wipes, or husband wipes! Mine uses them to give his feet a wash down when they get a bit pongy! They are also very good for wiping the sink and toilet down to keep it nice and clean and smelling sweet and they're cheapter than the 'proper' ones.

 

Clothes pegs, what CAN'T you do with them is probably easier to say! And what can you do with Velcro!!! It's great for keeping a table cloth in place on your dining table which protects the surface and means no more bowls sliding off into your lap- sticky backed on the table itself but use sewing type velcro on the material (unless it's plastic and you can make sure it sticks well) - don't whatever you do try to sew the stick type onto material, I've tried and you just end up with your threat getting constantly stuck, a very sticky needle and sore fingers! .A couple of strips of velcro make a great way to keep bits together, such as wind breaks, simply cut so they just go round then unfasten them, put one round the wind break and the use the other to fill the gap, you can get them really tight and keep the thing together, to avoid loosing them when you use the wind-break, sew one end of the overlaping pieces together and then fasten one end of it to the windbreak (staple or sew depending on the material the windbreak is made of). Similar 'straps' can be made for a wide variety of uses.

 

Washing line - if the weather isn't good and you've got a few wet towels to dry what do you do with them? I've got a piece of washing line cut down to a size just big enough to stretch across the width of the van, on each end I've put the 'hooks' off an old bungee cord, I then open 2 top hinged upper lockers, one at each side of the van, and hook the hooks over the middle of the hinges, works a treat ... and you can use clothes pegs to keep them on as well if you want!

 

Small stacking racks, like small vegetable racks, make excellent additional 'shelves' for lockers.

 

To stop mugs and glasses rattling, go and visit your local office furniture store and ask if you can have some of the protective 'stockings' that they put on the swivel bases of office chairs, they use them to protect the 5 star base from damage in transit - they are like plastic stockings and cut in half with a small slit for the handles if required, easily slip on and off and allevaite the problem. They also work well on bottles.

 

Crockery - use paper plates (on top of normal plates to keep them rigid), it makes cleaning up much quicker and easier and saves on washing up (and using water reserves).

 

Shoe storage - get one of the material shoe hangers and put it in the wardrobe, makes getting at your shoes much easier than scrabbling about in a locker. You can also use it for storing clothes as well if locker space is tight.

 

That's it for now!

 

 

 

 

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I can think of only three motorhome-related wrinkles we've come up with that might be novel. The rest (like sewing loops on all 4 corners of towels so that they can be hung to dry from self-adhesive plastic hooks stuck around the top of the shower-compartment walls) seem fairly obvious things to do.

 

Two 'tips' involve storage of crockery. All our flatware is melamine and, on our Herald, we kept 4 large plates, 4 small plates, 4 cereal bowls and 2 egg-cup thingies in a custom-sewn set of cloth pouches based on the shoe-hanger principle. These were fixed to a thin plywood backing-board screwed to a wardrobe inner side-wall. Virtually no space was taken up and the crockery didn't rattle. The Herald had a semi-useless cocktail cabinet that I managed to store 3 wine-glasses in (horizontally!) and our 4 melamine mugs hung from purpose-made padded hooks at ceiling height behind the wardrobe door.

 

We transferred the in-wardrobe pouches concept to our current Hobby motorhome, but this has no dedicated drinks storage and hanging the mugs in the wardrobe was impractical. I've got all sorts of things I've acquired over the years including some thick rubber/cork composite industrial floor-covering. I cut some of this to fit the base of one of the high-level kitchen cupboards and then cut through the floor-covering 4 holes the diameter of the tops of our 4 swanky new acrylic wine-glasses, plus 4 holes the size of the bottoms of our mugs. I made three of these 8-hole shapes and stuck them together to form a piece a good half inch deep that sits on top of a layer of non-slip material. This has proven entirely successful: the glasses/mugs are handy for use, don't rattle and stay in their individual 'holes' on even the roughest roads. A reasonably thick piece of high-density foam plastic/rubber should work just as well, if not better, than the floor-covering, while foam polystyrene would be OK except for the inevitable 'crumbs'. Clearly the practicality of storing crockery in a wardrobe will depend on the latter's location in relation to the kitchen and the design of the wardrobe itself.

 

The 3rd tip involves magnetism. Our Hobby's layout mirrors that of a Hobby caravan and includes two horizontally-sliding tambour doors in the upper part of a sort of room-divider. These whizzed from side to side on every corner: fine in a caravan, infuriating in a motorhome. The sliding doors have weak magnetic strips in their outer vertical edges but the room-divider centre-section prevents them meeting (!!) I needed something similarly magnetic to fix to the room-divider centre-section and found vast quantities of it in the door seals of the redundant freezers and fridges dumped at our local recycling centre. If the door seals are cut at the corners with a sharp knife then the magnetic strips can easily be extracted. Worked a treat on our Hobby's doors and is totally unobtrusive.

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Yet another idea I have incorperated in the bathroom of our van is the shower curtain rail which goes around 2 of the walls which incidently is very firmly fixed, I have attached 4 spare shower curtain split rings which are ideal for hanging wet pac-amacs and damp bath towels etc, I thought of using self adhesive hooks but feared they may not stick to the vynil paper walls, and may leave marks if they did fall off or needed to be moved. The rings slide along and work a treat. chas
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I daresay you all have those solar garden lamps outside the motorhome during the day well why not bring one in for the bathroom for little trips during the night. It avoids waking up other people by putting lights on plus its quite a sexy light. lol

Mr Bev

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We too use a flat plastic see through 'shoe' thingy on the rear of the wardrobe door and it holds socks and undies etc and one compartment has the rubber gloves for using when emptying the toilet cassette (oh no - please don't splash) :-S

And 's' hooks on the shower rail for light wet waterproofs etc.

Carol

 

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Oooo, that's just reminded me of something else:

 

I have a large melamine tray that I use as a draining board when washing up, the only problem is that it's a bit big to store. Answer? Drill a couple of small holes in one end (no, in the lip you twit, not the base!!!) and then mark these holes on the inside of the wardrobe door, now screw a couple of small hooks into the wardrobe door and hook the tray over them, a bit of blue tack on the bottom stops it swinging in transit. Another couple of hooks below the tray are used to hang one of the small washing-up plate racks on. Easy to get at when you want them.

 

Lights - how many of you don't like the little lights shining on the control panel at night but you don't have a choice but to have the switches on? Sometimes they can seem like a 100w bulb is glowering at you! Just put some blobs of Blu-tak over the lights but remember to switch off those that you don't need on anymore in the morning. Make sure you stick it on well though as if it drops off in the middle of the night into the step recess it don't half give you a scare!!!

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Guest starspirit

Useful Tips.

 

Go to your local £1 shop and buy a few rolls of non slip matting (or your caravan dealer and pay more for it). Line all your shelves and cupboards. This will stop things moving and rattling.

 

Use empty ice cream tubs for storing bits and thingys in, and without a lid for standing tall things in. The more flavours you try the more different sizes and colours of tub you will have. With lids they stack to help fill overhead lockers. Ice cream is good for you too!

 

Line all your floor lockers with off cuts of carpet and this will stop rattles and provide a small degree of noise and heat insulation too.

 

I use either one of two lengths of water hose, one 10' and one 20', all fitted with snap on connectors according to how far away from the tap I have to be. I also carry a wide range of tap adaptors to fit almost (but not quite) every type of tap you can find.

 

Carpet pads (about 4" square) twixt cooker top (when cold) and glass lid stops rattles.

 

Bulldog clip your oven shelf to it's rack to stop rattles.

 

Use an old pillow slip to wrap grill pan and gridle in to stop rattles.

 

Stick cut outs of rubber mat on Peugeot boxer cab door steps as they are slippery - more so when wet.

 

Fix lengths of curtain wire with sliding pegs on in the loo to hang flannels or smalls over the sink to dry.

 

If you don't take suits or posh coats try shelving out a wardrobe in a small van to give lots more clothes storage.

 

If there are only two people and the huge or heavy or fixed table is not needed for the bed get a smaller lightweight table and use an island leg with either a fixed 'hole in't floor base' or a more portable tripod. The table is easier to handle and store and lots more room is feed up in the van.

 

I use incontinece pads or doggy training pads as a dog bed base. Better that than lots of smelly towels if a doggy leakage occurs and also no doggy smells get on to carpet or seats. If soiled just chuck 'em out (responsibly please).

 

No doubt I will remember others drekkly.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

;-) Overawed by range of useful tips so humbly offer a simple few:

 

1. Paper plate placed in non-stick frying pan during storage prevents abrasion from pans etc. placed on top.

 

2. Cut 1 litre square-section plastic milk containers in half to make an open-topped container but leave one side a bit higher so that it can be stapled / screwed/ velcroed onto wood cabinet side. Olive oil, soy sauce and other potentially threatening bottles can be dropped into the containers without the risk of spillage. The effect of 500mls of spilled olive oil onto upholstery is worse than one could imagine after a long, hot day's drive in Southern France....

 

3. Keep a small plastic wallet with hotel small shower-gel bottle, beer towel, travel toothbrush and toothpaste in door pocket to take onto ferry / service station etc in case of finding free shower!

;-) ;-) ;-)

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As an owner of a Auto-Trail i found that the catches on the under sink storage cupboard wouldnt hold the doors shut if something hit them as you turned a corner. The contents ended all over the floor.

The simple solution was to purchase those elasticated loops with the plastic ball on the end they fit through the handles and secures them.

A simple ten pence fix.

 

Pete

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Just got back and remembers another thing to add to this:

 

Toilet & Wardrobe doors - to save having to push the buttons in and out for the door catches on the toilet and wardrobe when on site (it does get tiring after a while!) I put some of the small magnetic catches door catches on them, now the doors stay closed and it saves me having to do all that strenuous pushing all the time!!! Just remember to push the buttons in before driving off otherwise they do wave about a bit!!!

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