Keith Gooden
In today’s episode of the Motorhome Matt podcast…
Matt Sims
We find out if bigger is always better.
Keith Gooden
Why Matt went from an A-class motorhome to a panel van conversion.
Matt Sims
And in the news, reports of dangerous activity on garage forecourts, and we’ve got our first Alan Rogers campsite of 2025.
Keith Gooden
And we answer your questions about leisure batteries running out of juice, a smelly water heater and sodium ion leisure batteries. Welcome to the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
Industry insights and expert advice for the world of motorhomes, caravans and campervans, all brought to you by www.thatleisureshop.com.
Matt Sims
Now, we always ask you to do it, but if you’re listening on your favourite podcast app, please would you click follow? And if you’re watching on YouTube, then click the little bell and click the subscribe button. Brought to you by www.arobasecreative.co.uk.
Issues with refillable gas systems
Keith Gooden
Let’s delve into the news, shall we? And we’re talking gas.
Matt Sims
We are indeed. We’ve got a leak! Gas is back in the news. This is serious. Listen. Gaslow have issued a press release. Carl Orton, technical manager at Gaslow International, has stated…
Keith Gooden
“We are witnessing a huge rise in unlawful installations and hearing some very alarming stories about how exchangeable gas cylinders are being refilled. Exchange cylinders must only be filled in a dedicated filling plant by the gas supplier or their authorised filling contractor. They should not be filled at LPG filling sites such as petrol station forecourts.” That’s the man of 1,000 voices, me – everyone the same. So I was Carl there, but what is he talking about, Matt?
Matt Sims
So people are taking exchangeable gas bottles, so for example, Calor gas or Flogas, and they’re taking it to a fuel station and refilling it themselves, which is a really dangerous and silly thing to do.
And the reason is because when you’re refilling an exchangeable bottle, you don’t have the over full sensor inside. A gas bottle should only be 80% full. You have no way of knowing when it’s full, and the risk is you over fill it and gas just goes everywhere, which creates a massive risk of explosion.
And this is a really stupid thing to be doing, and what Gaslow is stating is that there are more and more reports of people trying to do this. Why? Because they’re trying to save money. So an exchangeable bottle is £30 odd to exchange. Filling a gas bottle of a similar size is probably £5 or £6. So it’s a lot cheaper to refill a refillable bottle, but exchanging it is more expensive.
Keith Gooden
But you’ve already paid a deposit for the bottle that you’re taking back, and you’re saying it’s going to cost you £30 for £5 worth of gas.
Matt Sims
Six kilos of gas. Yes, £35, thereabouts. It fluctuates around the country, but you’re paying for the privilege of Calor or Flogas and others as well to refill the bottle for you and then issue you with a full bottle.
Keith Gooden
Yeah, I understand that.
Matt Sims
So if you’re buying a refillable bottle, so something like a Gaslow bottle, the deposit on a Calor is £60, you’re going to spend £1,000 for a refillable gas system. And that’s the problem with refillable gas. There is a big outlay at the beginning, but once you’ve done it, it’s much, much cheaper to run.
Keith Gooden
You’ve got a refillable bottle, haven’t you?
Matt Sims
I’ve got one. Yeah, someone’s very kindly just gifted me a Safefill bottle, and I wanted to go and refill it. And years ago, I used to have a V8 car that ran on gas, and I went to our local Autogas point and would fill it up.
And I wanted to use it again, but I’ve no longer got an account. It was called Countrywide, and now Flogas have bought them. So I approached them to apply for a key, and this interestingly was the response I got from Flogas.
Keith Gooden
“Regrettably, due to commercial considerations, the changing landscape of the automotive market, and with a growing emphasis on electrification, we have made the decision not to install any new key sites or accept new applications for Autogas. While we appreciate this may not be welcome news, this decision is in alignment with our long term sustainability strategy.” So – rearrange these words into a well known phrase or saying: hike a take.
Matt Sims
Basically it was a “Dear John…” So I can’t get an account with Flogas to top up my Safefill bottle, and the next nearest for me is over an hour away, so I’m not going to be doing that. So I’ll be filling it maybe when I’m on a trip.
But actually, it’s really inconvenient for me to have a refillable gas bottle now, or at least to get to a refill point. And this is a problem, and I’m seeing this throughout the country that increasingly gas refill sites are being shut down. So I had a conversation with Gaslow about their press release about this ludicrous behaviour of people trying to refill them on the forecourt.
Keith Gooden
It is just dangerous.
Matt Sims
It is really silly, and we’ve invited them onto the podcast, and Carl has kindly agreed to let me interview them. And we’re going to talk about the future of gas. What does it look like, and is a refill bottle worth investing in? So stay tuned.
Keith Gooden
You can leave a note in the comments, so you could drop us a message at mhmp.info/askmatt.
Alan Rogers’ Campsite of the Month
Matt Sims
It’s time for our Alan Rogers campsite of the month with Alan himself from Alan Rogers. Good morning, sir.
Rob Fearn
Morning. How are you?
Matt Sims
I’m very well, Rob. It’s great to see you again. Right. Where are we going this month?
Rob Fearn
We’re going to Switzerland for the first time. Yeah, we’re going to camping Jungfrau.
Matt Sims
Oh, okay, tell me more.
Rob Fearn
Yeah. So obviously, Switzerland’s a beautiful country, and this site is part of the Camping Lodge group. We gave this the Progress and Innovation Award for 2023.
Matt Sims
Progress and innovation. What does that mean?
Rob Fearn
So we award this to sites which have invested heavily in infrastructure. So it’s sites where they’ve put things on solar panels, all that sort of good stuff that we want people to do.
Matt Sims
So kind of modernising and future proofing the site?
Rob Fearn
Yeah, excellent sanitary facilities. Obviously, given that it’s Switzerland, they’ve got a room for winter sports, they do a shuttle bus to the local lifts. If you’re familiar with the area, Grindelwald and Wengen are very close by so there’s some really great skiing in the area.
Matt Sims
So it’s open all year, is it?
Rob Fearn
It’s open all year. They’ve got about 250 pitches all with electric hookup, and about 50 of them are fully serviced. So those are the pitches that have got electric, water and waste disposal.
Matt Sims
Have you ever been skiing in Switzerland?
Rob Fearn
No, I’m more of an Austria guy.
Matt Sims
Yeah, same. I’ve never actually been to Switzerland. I’ve done Austria like you, and France and Italy, but yeah… my knees wouldn’t cope with it.
Rob Fearn
That’s the problem, isn’t it, when you get to our age. Obviously, there’s stunning scenery. Staubbach waterfall sits above the site. That’s one of those world famous things that you see everywhere.
You’ve got a visit to the Jungfrau railway, views of the Eiger and the Mönch range. Yes, it’s perfect if you want to head to Switzerland. Obviously you can book directly via the Alan Rogers website, or you can book through the Caravan and Motorhome Club.
Matt Sims
Fantastic. And where are we in the Alan Rogers pricing matrix?
Rob Fearn
In the pricing matrix, we are towards the top end. Everything in Switzerland is towards the top end.
Matt Sims
Unsurprisingly.
Rob Fearn
So you can be up towards the equivalent of 50 euros per night. Obviously it’s Swiss francs over there.
Matt Sims
So just tell us the name of the site once again.
Rob Fearn
That is Camping Jungfrau.
Matt Sims
Fantastic. Thank you very much, Rob. You can find out more about all of the Alan Rogers campsites – just head to mhmp.info/alanrogers.
Why the size of your motorhome matters
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
And it’s brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com. Now, the main part of this week’s podcast, it’s motorhomes by Matt, Matt’s motorhomes. It’s a Matt, and it’s a motorhome, and Motorhome Matt -his motorhomes. It’s all about Matt’s motorhomes this week.
Matt Sims
There’s a lot of Ms in there.
Motorhome Matt’s motorhome history
Keith Gooden
Yes, yes. So Matt, you’ve owned a lot of motorhomes. Why have you owned so many?
Matt Sims
I have a bit of a problem. Yeah, it’s true. I often get asked, is it, Matt, because you’re so rich? No, it’s definitely not. If I didn’t own too many, maybe I would be. I guess being in the trade has meant that I’ve had access to lots of motorhome choice.
And we’ve taken things in part exchange, and I’ve kind of thought, well, that’s a nice van. I’ll keep that. And so I’ve been able to use a lot personally, and there are nearly 20 of them on the list of motorhomes that I’ve used personally and owned myself.
Keith Gooden
19?
Matt Sims
Yeah, yeah. It’s nearly 20! There are a few not on this list. So it is, yeah, around 20 motorhomes, which is too many. I mean, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?
Keith Gooden
For a man who has never even owned one, yes.
Matt Sims
It is a lot. So I guess we started out with a big American motorhome. And I, at the time, thought why would you spend… I guess we were probably looking at £50,000, maybe less. And that much money, and you get this tiny European motorhome, when you can spend the same amount of money on an American one, and you get all this space.
Keith Gooden
So they were the same amount of money?
Matt Sims
Yeah, I mean, American ones were the same price. They really packed a punch in terms of value. So at the time, I think we were probably spending about £30,000 back in the ’90s, and the same amount of money would buy me a huge, 30 odd foot long American motorhome with the sides that would slide out. One of them had a corner bath.
And I thought, why would you spend all this money on a European one? It’s so small, it’s ridiculous. And that was my mindset. And I know lots of people have that mindset, and I do remember – I probably quoted this story before – going to Ladram Bay, which is in Devon, in a big Fleetwood motorhome, a big American one.
We were towing a car, and this guy was coming up the hills in a narrow road, and he wouldn’t turn around. He said, “In the Highway Code, I’ve got right of way.” So I got out and said, “Look, I’m really sorry, but I’m towing a car. You can’t see it, but for me to reverse, I have to unhitch the car, park it up, reverse the RV, and let you pass, and then hitch it all back up and carry on. So would you mind just reversing back up there into that farm gateway and we’ll all carry on?”
He said, “No, I’ve got right of way.” So I said, “Well, you do what you want. I’ve got weeks’ worth of food and drink in there.” So I got back in the RV, crossed my arms and sat down. The kids said, “Dad, what are you doing?” I said, “We’re just going to teach this man a little lesson.”
Sure enough, 10 minutes later, he reversed back, and on we went. But driving one of those around Cornwall is fun, shall we say? It can be quite treacherous on narrow roads. And we soon realised this, and thought, you know what? We’re going to downsize. And so we did.
And then we ventured into European motorhomes, and we got into coachbuilts. The kids were quite young at this point. Initially we had a rear lounge motorhome, which I thought was a great idea, but it was never anything more than a motorhome with a really uncomfortable rear bed and no storage. That was our big issue.
So then we thought, well, we’ll buy a bunk bed motorhome. That lasted a year. We had to sleep, mum and dad, in the overcab bed, so in the Luton bit. The kids were in the bunks. I hated it. Hated sleeping in an over cab bed. It’s like sleeping in a coffin. So that didn’t even last a year.
Keith Gooden
I imagine you waking up going, “Oh!”
Matt Sims
Hands clenched on your chest!
Keith Gooden
Put up a little sign saying, “Don’t panic.”
Matt Sims
I really didn’t enjoy sleeping in that. The problem is I was last to bed and first up, and every time I climbed the ladder, I woke everyone else up because the van would rock. So that didn’t last long.
Then we bought probably our ultimate coachbuilt, which was an Adria 660. So I had an over cab bed where we put the kids and a transverse double bed where mum and dad slept and the lounge made into a bed as well, because by this point we had four children, so we needed six seat belts, so the classic kind of six berth layout. And then we had a whole range of coachbuilt motorhomes that service the kids.
Keith Gooden
So why did you change them?
Matt Sims
Partly opportunity, and I guess the fact I could, because one came along… I was a bit of a magpie, I suppose.
Keith Gooden
So you didn’t think, “I’ve bought the wrong thing here,”?
Matt Sims
I did at the beginning. We definitely did. We actually had six American motorhomes. Not at the same time, all different layouts. And the thing is, I was given the opportunity to sell them. So they were usually parked at work, and someone would come in say, “Oh, how much is that one?”
And, you know, everything has a price, and so I’d sell it, and I’d go home and say, “I’ve sold the van, but we’ve got another one.” Yeah, six American RVs. And then I kind of lost my love for the American… I mean, I still would have another one if we were…
Keith Gooden
But the roads in this country…
Matt Sims
That’s the challenge.
Keith Gooden
They’re not built for it.
Matt Sims
No, they’re not really.
Keith Gooden
And the parking spaces.
Matt Sims
And I think that’s the thing. So people say, “Why did I go…” because I then had an A-class. So we then bought an Adria Sonic. And again, the opportunity was there to buy one. We were an Adria dealer, so I could buy one at trade price.
We bought it. We used it for a bit. It went on our hire fleet, so we had an income on it as well. I must admit, I did get a bit petrified every time someone drove it off on hire. I probably had that for a couple of years, and we loved that. It was automatic. Really lovely. When you arrived on a campsite, people would turn their heads and go, “Wow.” This thing was silver. Very smart.
Keith Gooden
Wow! Or another W word?
Matt Sims
“Look at that idiot!” I just perceived they were saying, “Wow.” I just saw the W on their lips. And and we loved that van. But again, it was big. And the big fear for me, with an A-class, same with the Americans, is the cost of wing mirrors and windscreens. And if you break either of them it’s expensive.
Keith Gooden
What is it, £10,000 for a windscreen?
Matt Sims
Well, probably now, yeah, I remember at one time we spent £7,500 on a new windscreen for a customer. And wing mirrors are, you know, four figures, over £1,000. And the challenge with a European A-class, certainly, is if you break a wing mirror off, you are breaking the wall of the motorhome, because it’s coachbuilt all the way to the front. And that plastic, essentially, whatever it’s made of, the GRP, often rips. So you’ve got a huge repair cost. It’s not just bolting on a new wing mirror. You actually damage…
Keith Gooden
Because you’ve also got to restore the structural integrity.
Matt Sims
Yeah, that’s right. So we had an A-class on our hire fleet, and someone did do that, and it actually caused loads of damp in the wall because unknowingly, they cracked it, water got in, and ended up with a £2,000 damp repair on top of a £1,200 wing mirror. So that’s always my fear with A-classes.
So I’m very cautious about having another one. I do love them. They are great. And so then we kind of went into smaller vans. The kids got older, and Mrs. Motorhome Matt and I just found ourselves going away on our own.
And so we’ve ended up now going through a whole range of coachbuilt layouts, island beds, French beds, where the corner’s cut off and the bed’s off to one side. You remember we talked about that before.
And we’ve got smaller and smaller. We’ve ended up with an Adria twin. And people always say to me, “Why have you ended up in such a small van from this big stuff?” And it’s about what we do in it. So now it’s just the two of us. We tend to go away for short trips. We do a lot of weekends.
Keith Gooden
And you’ve been married for a while as well.
Matt Sims
I’m a bit boring now. Now it’s time for a bigger van, and I can go at the back, and she can be in the front, have her own room. We’re like the Royals – we can have our own bed. So no, we do still share a bed, although you’d never know!
But the Twin is really maneuverable. So we went all around the Outer Hebrides. We’ve been all around corners of Cornwall, Liskeard and so on. I would no way want to drive an American RV or even the Adria Sonic around some of those. It’s just too big, too wide and too long. We went to a place called… I think you pronounce it Hushinish. It’s on the Isle of Harris. What a place and what a road to get there.
You’re doing that in a long seven and a half meter motorhome – you’re brave. I probably would do it, but I would take a deep breath before I did it. And having done it, I definitely would favour our little van over anything else.
So it’s about what we do in it now, and it’s ideal for where we are. Jude and I were discussing this, that if we were going away for a longer trip, so perhaps two or three months, we’d probably crave a bigger space.
So we’d probably go for a coachbuilt motorhome. And if you’re going down into Spain, touring Europe, where roads are easy, they’re wider, there’s a lot more space, then yes, a bigger motorhome might be appropriate. But for what we’re doing right now, we love our Adria Twin. It’s ideal.
Keith Gooden
So if you’re listening to this right now and you’re thinking of upgrading or thinking of buying your first motorhome, then that’s the advice, isn’t it? What are you going to be using it for? What do you need it for? Maybe plan a couple of years, maybe three years ahead.
If you haven’t had a family yet, once you have a family, what are you going to do if your family is getting older and they’re turning into teenagers, and they’re not really that keen on coming with you right now,and in a couple of years, you anticipate it’s just going to be you and the missus, or you and the mister? Or you could take it and drop the mister and, you know… woohoo!
Matt Sims
That’s another factor as well, because Mrs. Motorhome Matt will drive the Adria Twin. She wouldn’t drive a big coachbuilt. And, yeah, I’m trying to encourage her to go off on her own, not because I want her out of the the house, but she wants to go on more motorhome trips.
I don’t always have the time because of work and commitments here, but she is very keen to go off on her own, and she is tempted to do that in this smaller van. So it means it’s accessible for her as well, and she’s got the confidence to do it. Hopefully this year, she will.
Keith Gooden
Let me ask a final question. Forget the business side of it. Don’t approach this as a businessman. Personally, with that turnover of motorhomes that you’ve had, I understand some of them, you know, you’ve got leads from businesses. You can do deals and get them at cost price and all the rest of it. But generally, have you made money out of that turnover of motorhomes, broken even or lost money?
Matt Sims
That’s a good question. I mean, made money, I’d say, because I’ve always tried to sell them for more than I paid for them, or I’ve tried to sell them for what I paid for them, and we’ve had a period of time of use out of them.
Generally, I keep a motorhome for a season, and then I’d sell it. Or it goes on a hire fleet for two or three seasons, and then we’d sell it. It used to be the case we were selling it for less than we paid for it. At the moment, we’re selling them for what we paid for them. You know, whatever – you paid £40,000 in 2019 for a motorhome. Here in 2025 it is still worth £40,000.
Keith Gooden
So you can make investments and chop and change a little bit, and still, if not quids in, certainly you’ve got the money you started off with.
Matt Sims
Yeah, we’re into a different topic now, but depreciation is definitely back. So used motorhomes are definitely under price pressure right now. They haven’t been for the last four or five years, but we’re definitely seeing depreciation back.
So it used to be the case that you bought a motorhome brand new retail and you lost the VAT. So 20% went straight away, and that was what it was worth for a year or two, and then you lost another 10%. I think we’re going to see that back again.
Now, I was fortunate enough to buy them at trade price, and I could claim the VAT back, because I was buying them through the business, and then using them myself, and then using them in the business on hire as well. So it’s a different model for me. I had an unfair advantage, if you like. But yeah, if you were going to be buying retail for retail, and then selling, I think you can expect to probably be losing money.
Keith Gooden
So make sure you get that layout right as early as possible. But I suppose the point I’m making is, don’t come back to us in a year’s time saying, “Matt said I could!” He’s not saying that at all.
Matt Sims
No, I’m not saying that at all. Definitely not. In fact, my advice would be, go and try one, go and hire one first. I hate the phrase, but it’s so true. You don’t know what you don’t know, and then you go and hire one.
And then you know what you don’t know, and then you’ve got to go on this frustrating learning curve, which is why we launched the podcast, really, to help take you on that journey. So it really is about trying to find out what works for you. And what works for you now may not work for you in six months or 12 months, and that’s one of the reasons I change so often.
Audience Q&A
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
Brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com. We’re into our questions and answers. We do it every week. You ask the questions, and Motorhome Matt, the expert, gets the answers for you. If he can’t, he will ask somebody who does know, but that doesn’t happen very often! First of all, Mark Astbury.
Mark Astbury
Hi, Matt. I bought a motorhome last year and found that when we were traveling long distance the leisure battery was actually reducing right down. In fact, it ended up being damaged. I found out that this was because the fridge was on.
But the alternator is a smart alternator, and only works when the engine isn’t under load, and also the fact that you have the stop start when you stop at traffic lights, which then means that the fridge is then running off of your battery. I’ve got to a bit of this where we need to fit a DC to DC charger. But I just wondered if all motorhome manufacturers have really got their head around this. It would be interesting to hear what their thoughts are.
Keith Gooden
So what’s Mark actually saying? That smart alternators aren’t smart?
Matt Sims
Well, they are for charging the engine battery. So they detect the starter battery voltage, and when it’s full, they stop charging it. The problem is it’s being used to recharge the leisure battery as well, but it’s not picking up the voltage there.
So Mark, I’m guessing you’ve got a compressor fridge, because you said your fridge runs off the battery. So an absorption fridge won’t run on the battery. It only runs on the alternator. So I’m guessing if it is running on the battery, it’s a compressor fridge. So it’s probably a newer motorhome. And this will be an issue.
We had the same issue on an Adria Matrix Supreme that I used to own. It was on a Renault Master, and it was, gosh, probably back in 2012. So this issue has been around for a long time, and the Renault Master has a smart alternator. It’s probably one of the first commercial vehicles to have it.
We were regularly arriving after a four or five hour drive, and the leisure battery was totally flat. Really annoying, especially if you’re not going to hook up. And it was simply because the smart alternator saw the starter battery voltage, and saw that it got to, you know, 12.7 volt, or whatever it wants to get to, and stopped charging.
Meanwhile, the leisure battery is just going flat. So you’re right. A DC to DC charger is the answer. Go and search the AWS. You can find out more at Motorhome Matt Approved about the AWS workshop scheme.
Go and find a local mobile to you or local service centre and get them to fit one for you. Or an auto electrician will be able to do it. Don’t undertake this yourself, but by fitting a DC to DC charger, it means the smart alternator will pick up the voltage on the leisure battery, and when that gets the voltage and the starter battery at voltage, only then will it stop charging.
Keith Gooden
Graham McEwan’s in Preston. “Hi, Matt and Chris.”
Matt Sims
Oh, there it is. It’s going to take us into 2025, this joke.
Keith Gooden
“Hi, Matt and Chris. I have heard of a new sodium ion leisure battery, but can’t really find much info to support them. Could you do a podcast review on pros and cons of potentially upgrading to these as opposed to lithium? Many thanks.”
Matt Sims
Well, when these are readily available, which I don’t think they are at the moment, I probably will. But until then, we’re going to stick with lead acid and lithium. I am watching these technological advances very closely and will keep you informed.
Keith Gooden
Fantastic. Can’t stand losing you, you know, Matt?
Matt Sims
Why not?
Keith Gooden
Andy Williams is in Newport. “I turned the Truma heater onto heat water after not using the water heater for some time, and it smelt a bit. Not burning, but just a bit hot. The heater was set to use gas and electric. Is this normal? Internet posts suggest this is a normal thing when heating water after a period of not being used. The heater is only two years old.”
Matt Sims
Yeah, that’s right, it is absolutely normal. There’s no need for panic, Andy. If you are concerned, then take it to a habitation center and get them to inspect it. But it is quite usual, so don’t panic. We have the same issue on our van.
But remember, the Truma boiler prioritises heating your hot water over the heating. So at the moment, it’s quite cold outside. It was minus three last night. If you want to heat the van, you need to turn the hot water off, and then it will heat the van.
And once the van is at temperature, it will then heat your hot water. If you ask it to heat the hot water as well, it will do that first before it heats the van, so make sure you’re managing that for you.
Keith Gooden
There you go, Andy, hope that helps. Sorry about the cheap joke. Andy Williams, though, you know.
Ask Matt
Keith Gooden
How do people get in touch?
Matt Sims
We’d love it if you did. Just head to mhmp.info/askmatt. Please remember, if you are recording your question, tell us where in the world you are, or you can fill out the form. And Keith and I will read it for you.
Keith Gooden
And when he says, “Where in the world,” don’t say in the living room or my bedroom. Where you are! If you’re looking for trusted brands and services, make sure you visit the Motorhome Matt Approved directory. It’s at mhmp.info/approved.
Matt Sims
And would you help us by leaving us a review? It helps spread the popularity of the podcast. You can do so at mhmp.info/review.
Keith Gooden
And you can subscribe on YouTube. And of course, the YouTube vids are sponsored by www.arobasecreative.co.uk.
