Keith Gooden
Welcome back to the Motorhome Matt Podcast with me, Keith Gooden, and the star of the show, Motorhome Matt Sims himself. Anything you need to know about the industry, hiring a motorhome, going on holiday in a caravan or campervan, Matt knows and we’ll tell you. It’s sponsored today by MHC Storage – safe and secure storage for your boat, caravan, campervan or motorhome. And we are talking today, Matt, about storing your motorhome.
Matt Sims
Indeed.
Keith Gooden
Okay, let’s start at the beginning. I’ve got my motorhome, it’s parked on my drive. A couple of dodgy characters have been looking at it as they pass by. They might be dodgy. They might be just people looking for another motorhome. But I’m getting a bit itchy.
Matt Sims
They’re probably your friends, Keith.
Keith Gooden
Probably family. I want to store my motorhome somewhere safe and secure. But it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg. Store my motorhome for a reasonable cost – can I do it?
Matt Sims
Of course, you can, yes. Putting on your drive is easy and convenient. It makes it easy to jump in and go away. What’s the downside of that? It is not necessarily as secure, perhaps, as being in a secure facility or a storage facility. You also tell the neighbours you’re on holiday every time it’s not there, which makes potentially your house a bit vulnerable. And not everyone can store it at home.
Increasingly, there’s a big housing development near where we are right now, and there are deeds of covenant that you can’t park a motorhome or caravan on the drive for more than however many hours it is, but definitely not overnight. So for those folks who can’t store a motorhome or caravan at home, a storage facility can be a good idea. Choosing one is really important.
Considerations for choosing the right storage facility
Matt Sims
There are lots of factors to consider. Location is key. Do you store it near home, which could be convenient? Or do you store it near your destination?
I own a storage business, which is MHC Storage. And we have customers from all over the country. We’re here at the gateway to the southwest, near Bristol. Lots of our customers in storage go to Devon, Cornwall, and South Wales, the best parts of the country, I think. But they live in Kent, they live in the northeast, and they travel down by car and they hitch up the caravan. And then do the last bit of the trip from us, where we are storing the caravan.
Keith Gooden
So they might live in London or Birmingham as you say, but they’re storing here. And when they go down to Cornwall, the motorhome is always halfway to the destination already. Which saves on fuel. So when they come here in their car, you’ll park their car up for them.
Matt Sims
Yes, that’s right. Yes, so they leave their car with us while they’re away. We also offer a service where we get the motorhome or caravan ready for them prior to arrival, which is a charge for service of course.
We will clean it every month. We will fill it with water so it’s ready for them to go. And it’s a convenient service. It’s almost a concierge service, if you like, which is quite unusual. And most storage businesses that store campervans, caravans and motorhomes don’t offer that. I don’t know why. We’ve been offering it for years and lots of our customers love that because it takes all the hassle away for them.
So where you store it’s going to be really key. Close to home? Most people most of our customers are local to us. And they can pop in and go and get something from the motorhome. But a word of warning – it is worth asking the question of your chosen storage facility or proposed storage facility, ‘How easy is it to get in?’
Many of them will want 48 hours’ notice to get into the caravan or motorhome. They want you to pre-plan it. Now, here we are outside. It’s beautiful today, the weather has turned really sunny, it’s actually quite warm. And it’s beautiful weather. So you might decide, ‘Right, tomorrow, let’s go.’ If you’re in a storage facility where you’ve got to give them 48 hours’ notice, that’s not happening. You may not be able to go.
The other thing to consider is, ‘Can I get to the motorhome? Can I go in it and get my wallet that I left in there at the end of my last trip?’ And many of them will say, ‘No, you can’t.’ What about servicing and repairing it if there’s a repair you want to do to it? ‘Can I do that whilst it’s in storage?’ Many will say ‘No, you can’t.’ So there are lots of rules and regulations around storing a motorhome, caravan, campervan or even boat. So check what the restrictions are before you commit.
Costs of secure storage
Keith Gooden
What’s all this going to cost me?
Matt Sims
Prices do vary. It really does vary around the country. You’ll be looking at £400 to £500. The old school way is a pound a day. That seemed to be the norm. But increasingly, operating costs have gone up. We charge £499 for a year.
Keith Gooden
For a whole year?
Matt Sims
For a space, yes, and that’s for a motorhome or caravan.
Keith Gooden
But that doesn’t include the concierge service, that’s all extra on top. This is just the parking of your motorhome.
Matt Sims
That’s having a secure storage space in our facility. As we record this, that’s the price. Whilst you’re away you can leave your car in the space if you’re taking a motorhome away. And that space is yours for the year.
Features of security facilities to look out for
Keith Gooden
So tell us about some of the security solutions that storage facilities have. You’d expect it to be more secure than parking it on the drive at home. But how much more?
Matt Sims
Yes, indeed. So storage facilities usually have fencing rhynes. So they’re the ditches around them. We’re surrounded by rhynes, fences, CCTV, floodlighting and electric gates. They’re all facilities that most storage facilities have.
One of the things to check is whether they are regulated by Cassoa. Now, that’s the Caravan Storage Association. We subscribe to that. We’re part of Cassoa. And that involves a regular inspection of our site, and an insurance inspector will come and we score points based on features of security that we have. And the more points you score, the higher award you get.
Cassoa starts with bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Platinum is a new award, which only came out in 2021. We are a silver site. Now, we don’t have a perimeter fence. We’re surrounded by fields. We have a ditch or rhynes surrounding us and some fencing. It is a very secure site. We’re by no means impenetrable. Very few storage facilities are.
We are in a part of the country where caravan and motorhome theft is lower than it is in other parts of the country. So we are a silver site, which means we’re recognised by the insurance database. Many insurance companies will say, ‘Well, you want to put your caravan here. We need to know if it is a Cassoa site,’ and they won’t insure you unless it is stored in a Cassoa site. And that means that that site is recognised by them on their database.
So a farmer’s barn, indoors, great. And some storage facilities are indoors. Farmer’s barn is great, but it’s not on an insurance database. And it may be that you can’t get insurance for it while it’s there.
Keith Gooden
Just in passing, I was doing something else a couple of weeks ago and happened to be on a farmer’s land and there was a barn there and the door was slightly open. And I was parking in a public car park outside of his boundary fence was just there. But, through the crack in the door, I could see a very nice E-type Jaguar was parked. He was clearly renting that out. But if I was a professional thief, I’d be on that quick.
Matt Sims
Yes, you would. So people often ask us, can we come and have a look at the storage facility? And our default answer is no. We say, ‘No, you can’t do a viewing for reasons of security.’ We have a video of our facility, which we’ve edited deliberately so we’re not revealing too much about it.
So doing a viewing is difficult because people want to see where their motorhome or caravan is going to be. It is difficult and trying to see inside is fraught with risk for the other customers that are in there. So don’t be surprised if a storage operator says, ‘No, you can’t come and have a look.’
Keith Gooden
Yes, it’s all about keeping it secure, isn’t it, and keeping the ne’er-do-wells who do want to steal things from casing the joint, which is what any sensible professional thief will do. As you say in this part of the world, the southwest, it’s not such a big problem.
Matt Sims
It’s not such a big problem. It is a problem. Caravan and motorhome theft is on the rise. There’s a shortfall of motorhomes and caravans and recently a large dealer near us was broken into and they had I think 5 or 6 motorhomes raided. These are motorhomes for sale, so they didn’t have valuables in the sense of watches and wallets. The thieves actually took the front seats, they took the cooker, they took the ovens, and grills and they took fridges.
These were people, who were very considered, then carried these heavy parts over a really substantial fence and gate. And we think they’re being stolen to order for converters, for people who are converting vans and just can’t get the parts. There are long delays on parts coming out of all of Europe and beyond. And so if you’re converting a campervan, you might have to wait a year for some of these parts.
These parts are valuable now for a whole new reason. Boilers, for example – you arrive at your caravan and the boiler’s gone. Well, you’ve got no hot water. I shouldn’t laugh, you’ve got no hot water. It’s not funny. You’ve got no hot water, you’ve got no heating and you’ve got the mess that they’ve left where they’ve levered it out. I guarantee they’re not going to unscrew the screws, they’re just going to take a crowbar to it. And then of course the damage they did to get into the caravan.
So yes, we’ve done a podcast on security. And that’s definitely a factor. If it’s in storage, I would still say fit all the security you’ve got, wheel clamp, hitch lock, everything else. Go and check out that podcast for some ideas on securing your leisure vehicle. But I would secure it as best you can. A cover is a great idea.
Now, they’re contentious, because people say, ‘Covers make the caravan sweat and you get damp and mould.’ My experience of covers – and I must admit I did subscribe to that view, and also they can scratch the paint – I have to say as an operator of a storage facility and someone with a caravan… Yes, I have a caravan as well. Did you know that?
Keith Gooden
I didn’t know that.
Matt Sims
I’m a multi leisure vehicle faceted individual. So we have a cover on our caravan, and it hasn’t scratched the paint and it hasn’t made the caravan damp, and it hasn’t made it mouldy. Really good caravan covers are breathable and you can buy a cover that goes over the whole thing. And I think they’re a great deterrent to it being broken into or even stolen because a thief can’t just get into it and get it. So they’re just going to, frankly, look at the next one, as horrible as that sounds.
Keith Gooden
They’re going to go for the easy one.
Matt Sims
And if you don’t want to put a full cover on it, you can now – and they’re quite new – just put on a topper, so it just covers the roof. And you do get bird lime and tree sap. If it’s in storage for a while the roof is going to go green.
Even if there aren’t trees in the immediate vicinity, you’re going get grease and just debris on the roof. And a roof topper is a great idea just to keep the roof clean and stop, again, damage from anything falling out of the sky. A bird dropping something on it, for example.
Keith Gooden
Well, that’s the thing, birds dropping things. I live near rookeries and I can tell you, it’s an issue.
Final tips
Keith Gooden
Okay, anything else we should need to know about the storage of our motorhomes?
Matt Sims
Do your research, read reviews, and do a good Google. Do as much research as you can. Try and meet the owner-operator. You’re going to go into a relationship with them, they are in the way between you and your holiday. So you want to make sure that they’re amenable, you can get on with them and that if anything did go wrong because it could, you believe they are going to act in your best interests and help you sort it out.
Keith Gooden
People aren’t just carting them off into a middle of an old field somewhere and saying that they’re doing all these wonderful things but not actually doing them.
Matt Sims
Absolutely. And once you’ve signed up as a customer, you’re going to be able to see the facility. And it may be they will let you see the facility. We do break our rule of, ‘No you can’t come in.’ We do let people see it and we are assessing the customer as much as, hopefully, they are assessing us. And the team will let them in to have a good look because people are very genuine and they are very serious. And they have genuine concerns that we would want to alleviate.
So go and meet the storage operator. Do your research and then, before you pay them any money, make sure you’re completely happy. And ask any questions that you’ve got. As you always say, there’s no such thing as a daft question. You always ask them – just make sure you do. It’s only the questions you don’t ask.
Keith Gooden
Okay, that’s the Motorhome Matt Podcast – ask questions and all. This week is sponsored by MHC storage safe and secure storage for your boat, caravan, campervan or motorhome.
Matt Sims
And make sure you look us up on Instagram – @motorhomematt.co.uk. And on YouTube – hit subscribe and hit the bell and then the gods of YouTube can tell you when there’s a new episode to watch.
