Keith Gooden
Rockabye Matt Sims in his motorhome…
Matt Sims
That’s enough.
Keith Gooden
We are looking at how to get a good sleep in your motorhome. I am Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Matt Sims.
Meet Motorhome Matt at the Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show 2023
Keith Gooden
He’s the expert. This is the Motorhome Matt podcast. Now, straight in with the news. The February show!
Matt Sims
The Caravan, Camping, and Motorhome show is back from the 21st to the 26th of February at the NEC in Birmingham. And we’re there. Yes, we’ll be there. We’ve got our own little stand, so make sure you do come and say hello. We’ll be there with the team.
Lots of interviews again, talking to lots of interesting, exciting people. Lots of new innovations are coming next year, which will be interesting to see. So yes, if you want to get your tickets you can do so at www.ccmshow.co.uk.
Keith Gooden
What’s that address again?
Matt Sims
www.ccmshow.co.uk.
Keith Gooden
We’re going to be there. Make sure you are.
Matt’s top tips on getting better sleep in your motorhome
Keith Gooden
So in the main part of the podcast today, we’re talking about how to get a good sleep in your motorhome, Matt.
Matt Sims
Really important. Indeed. Really key, this is.
Keith Gooden
What are your top tips on sleeping?
Level up
Matt Sims
Number one, I would say level up. So get some levelling ramps. Guess what? We’ve got them in the shop! And they’re probably on sale as well. It’s like Allied Carpets, our place! But level up – what do I mean by that? Get level. Use a spirit level. We sell them as well! Or just use a phone with the spirit level app or a gin and tonic. That’s the perfect way of levelling up – put one on the table and make sure the liquid is level!
Keith Gooden
That’s how they built the pyramids, you know.
Matt Sims
Is it?!
Keith Gooden
Yes, that’s how they did it – with gin and tonic.
Matt Sims
Hendrick’s!
Keith Gooden
What they did, they’ve discovered, is they built long troughs and just put water in them and that’s how they levelled the land to build the pyramids.
Matt Sims
I didn’t know that.
Keith Gooden
Water finds its own level.
Matt Sims
It does! Well, there you are. So a glass of it on your table – keep an eye. Get level and drink it!
Keith Gooden
When you hop into bed to get a good sleep, you don’t really want to be going one way or the other, up or down or side to side. Get that motorhome or caravan level.
Matt Sims
Get it level. So use the ramps to do so and it will mean that your sinks and shower empty properly as well.
Ear plugs
Keith Gooden
I’ve got a list here of your top tips. Earplugs?
Matt Sims
Yes, I’ve heard you snore. Earplugs can be a really useful little addition. If you are with someone who snores, they can be a godsend. But also on a campsite, you can get some random noises. You could be on a farmyard and there could be a cockerel sleeping next door. It’s going to get up before you! What are you laughing at?
Keith Gooden
Random noises!
Matt Sims
There could be random noises. You could be near the toilet blocks. You don’t want to be there.
Keith Gooden
Feeling flushed…
Matt Sims
Well, you could be. So if you’re near the loo, someone else might get up in the middle of night and go to the loo and then all you’ll hear is them crashing around in the toilet block.
Keith Gooden
So earplugs are important.
Blackout blinds
Matt Sims
They are important. Blackout blinds too.
Keith Gooden
If you’ve got kids, blackout blinds are a godsend. They’re fantastic because especially with small children, their circadian rhythm means that they get up when the sun comes up and they go to sleep when the sun goes down. So in summertime when you’re out in your motorhome or caravan, the blackout blind is fantastic if you don’t want to be woken up at 5 o’clock.
Matt Sims
You can cue them into nighttime. Just check them before you go away, because they can tear really easily. They’re made of paper and they can get little holes in. Those holes can be really annoying. So make sure your blackout blinds are working and are in order. And as I say, don’t don’t park near the toilet block. I mean, just don’t go there. If you end up parked next to it, make sure you got your earplugs.
Bed layout
Think about your bed layout as well. So if you’re choosing a motorhome, if you choose a transverse double rear bed, that means one of you is going to be climbing over the other to get out if you need a wee in the night or when you’ve woken up just want to get up. So I remember one of the early motorhomes we had had an overcab bed. And I was always last to bed. And I climbed the ladder and there was the whole 16 stone of me going up the ladder.
The whole van was rocking around, waking everyone up, and then I was first up as well. And I was getting up and getting down the ladder, again, waking everyone up really early. No good. So if you’re choosing a motorhome and you want a good night’s sleep, and that’s really important to you, those kinds of considerations are important.
Keith Gooden
So what should you be looking for, then?
Matt Sims
If you’re sleeping with someone else and you are going to be getting up in the night, then I’d look at an island bed, where you can get out either side, or single beds. They’re not very romantic, although some of them are quite wide. But it means you’re going to get a better night’s sleep if you are getting up in the night. It comes with age, doesn’t it? Let’s be honest. How many times are you up in the night?
Keith Gooden
Never, funnily enough.
Matt Sims
Really?
Keith Gooden
Really.
Matt Sims
How much wine do you drink before you go to bed?
Keith Gooden
I hardly drink any wine at all. But with middle aged men, you get prostate problems – it gets bigger.
Matt Sims
What, the problem or the prostate?
Keith Gooden
The prostate.
Matt Sims
Yes, it does. It’s true. I’m getting up in the middle of the night.
Keith Gooden
Are you?
Matt Sims
Every night, almost. About one o’clock.
Keith Gooden
Yes, that’s quite normal for a middle aged man. You are middle aged, aren’t you? You’ve just had a hard life.
Matt Sims
Yes. It wasn’t that long a paper round. No, I am old.
Keith Gooden
It’s quite normal. If you’re getting up three or four times in the night, go and see your doctor, because you could have something called BPH, which is benign prostatic hyperplasia, which is a natural condition, which means your prostate enlarges and presses on your bladder. It’s not prostate cancer, don’t panic, and most men have BPH.
Matt Sims
Really?
Keith Gooden
Yeah. Your prostate gets bigger as you get older.
Matt Sims
What can you do about it?
Keith Gooden
They can give you some tablets. You could change your diet. I’m not a doctor. Don’t ask me.
Matt Sims
Okay, Dr. Keith. Good knowledge, Keith. Thank you. We’re a medical podcast now!
Temperature
Keith Gooden
And temperature, because that makes a big difference. Most of us sleep in cooler bedrooms. You know, you go to bed and the central heating is on and the radiator’s hot. You always turn it down. We seem to like having a cooler room and then getting warm under the duvet.
Matt Sims
Yes, true. I always wake up and the duvet is kicked off. And I wake up now and I’m aware how cold it is. I can’t sleep when it’s hot. So being cool in the motorhome is really important. Equally, trying to get to sleep in the cold is horrible, isn’t it? You just want to get warm. So depending on when you’re away, keep in mind the temperature. If you’re away in 30 degrees, then you know, consider an air conditioning unit or an air cooler unit.
Keep the blinds closed in the summer when it gets really hot. Keep that space cold, or as cool as you can. And then equally, in the winter, keep it warm. Make sure you’ve got the heating on before you go to bed. If you’re out for the evening, remember to leave the heating on when you go. When you come back to the van it will be toasty and warm. Consider an extra blanket if that’s what you need.
Keith Gooden
It’s autumn and early spring, isn’t it, where you’re going out and think it’s not going to be that cold and you get surprised by it. And actually you spend the night not sleeping or falling asleep and then waking up cold.
Matt Sims
It’s horrible. It ruins the following day, doesn’t it? It can knock you out for a few days, not getting a good night’s sleep.
Keith Gooden
And talking about that – the bedding. What sort of bedding should you be looking at?
Matt Sims
I mean, we take the bedding from home. We have a double bedded motorhome. And it’s lovely. It’s cosy. It’s familiar. That sounds daft. But, you know, it feels like your own bed. I’ve always said I sleep better in the motorhome than I do at home and it’s true. I do. I don’t think that’s necessarily about the bed or the bedding. I think that’s actually about being outdoors and connecting with nature and getting all that fresh air. I think it just makes you sleep better. There’s something about it.
The Camping and Caravanning Club, of course, did their Outjoyment Report, didn’t they, which unpacked that and proves the science of happy campers is definitely true. It definitely makes you happier and sleep better.
Better travel bedding with Duvalay
Keith Gooden
You’ve been talking to some of our friends at Duvalay, haven’t you?
Matt Sims
I have, yes. They are specialists in motorhome and caravan bedding, and I caught up with Elizabeth from Duvalay back at the NEC show. I had a really great conversation with her about Duvalay and its history and the products they make.
Elizabeth Colleran
So we founded the company in 2003. We had an innovative idea that we patented. And we now sell the products globally.
Matt Sims
That’s incredible. And now the kids are in the business as well.
Elizabeth Colleran
Yes, two of the children. We’ve three sons. Two of our sons are working in the business. One is the commercial director and the other is the financial director. Mostly it’s good.
Matt Sims
I call them kids. They’re not kids anymore.
Elizabeth Colleran
No, they’re not. They are mature men. Mostly it’s good, and I’m still a mum.
Matt Sims
So tell us what Duvalay does.
Elizabeth Colleran
So Duvalay helps people sleep on the move. We will improve any sleeping environment, whether it be a caravan, a motorhome, a tent or a boat. We can make people sleep anywhere. And that’s really important because a lot of our customers are coming up to retirement. They’re buying the vehicles of their dreams, but they still need to sleep. Historically, in caravans and motorhomes you’d sleep on the seats. They are not beds.
We can transform any area, any seat, into a luxurious sleeping area. But not only that, we make sure that we do it so the products are easy to use. When we designed the products we tried and tested every product with three children. We needed something that was quick. So all our products roll out. You sleep on them and sleep well, you roll them away and store them away so they’re easy to use. We are out to make people’s lives easier, not harder.
Matt Sims
Now, I can speak from firsthand experience. Our first motorhome was a rear lounge motorhome, our first coachbuilt motorhome, and it was nothing more than a really uncomfortable bed with no storage. And a Duvalay saved the day because it was just like sleeping on the Pyrenees with all those shapely cushions.
Elizabeth Colleran
It gets rid of all the lumps and bumps, and it’s also your bedding. And it’s just nice. It feels like your bed away from home. I’ve used all the products. We had a touring van, and I used to sit in bed in the morning with my cup of tea and my Duvalay and it was actually more comfortable than my bed at home.
Matt Sims
Now, you don’t just make mattresses that are cut to shape. So you do make them to fit any size and shape of bed, don’t you?
Elizabeth Colleran
We do. So we’ll do products for sleeping on the seats. They transform seats, but we also do mattress toppers for poor quality mattresses in vans that have got fixed beds and we also do the full mattress. There’s a wide range. We have an exclusive agreement with Swift. We make them a very lightweight mattress, which is memory fibre. It’s a fibre mattress so it’s very recyclable and it’s also very comfortable, but it’s light. So with this mattress you can get under the bed a lot easier and it opens up the storage under the bed. And it’s easier to get your bedding on. So we do a wide range of products, but that one is particularly designed for Swift Group.
Matt Sims
So you make them for island beds, French beds, and you have varying widths for single bed mattresses as well, don’t you?
Elizabeth Colleran
Yes, we do any width, and we have a vast library of sizes. So all the customer needs to do is email us and make an inquiry or place an order, say what van model they’ve got, what year and then our sales team will email them a drawing. We’ve got 99% of the drawings. They confirm it’s alright and we make it.
Matt Sims
That’s amazing. Easy.
Elizabeth Colleran
That’s what we want. We want to make people’s lives easier rather than harder. The whole process of buying is easy. It opens up leisure vehicles for people who would not normally be able to use them because they may be in a wheelchair. They maybe have a really bad back and they can’t sleep in those products and it enables them to. And it can be life changing for some people.
Matt Sims
Tell us about the Duvalay sleeping bag.
Elizabeth Colleran
The Duvalay sleeping bag is one cover with two pockets. In the bottom pocket you have a foam. You get a choice of thicknesses and qualities of foam. And in the top you have a duvet. Again, there’s a choice of duvets – winter summer. You roll it out. You’re not zipped in like a traditional sleeping bag. You can kick your legs out. Everybody hates being zipped in.
It’s a lovely polycotton sheeting so it feels like your bed at home. I will say in the way that people are using them, they’ll probably last forever. They may need another cover in a few years. And you have one for singles and you put two together for a double. They’re reversible. They’re easy to wash. There is no drawback with Duvalays. Everybody loves them.
Matt Sims
And they roll up into a really simple bag.
Elizabeth Colleran
They roll up into a small roll and they go in a storage bag and go away.
Matt Sims
40 degree machine wash?
Elizabeth Colleran
Yes.
Matt Sims
I sound like an expert. So tell me about Dragons’ Den.
Elizabeth Colleran
We were approached at an exhibition like this in 2003 to go on Dragos’ Den. We would have never applied but we were approached to go on by the team. We went for an audition, and we passed the audition.
Matt Sims
What was that like?
Elizabeth Colleran
Quite scary, but not half as scary as going on. They have to know that if they get you onto the programme that you are going to be able to perform on there. It’s a very high pressure environment with just the audition at the end. They throw some questions at you that really take you off guard. We passed that and then we were negotiating with them. I mean, they knew everything about our business. The dragons didn’t. The BBC did.
And then we went on. We were locked in a room for 12 hours. We got on at half past seven at night. So by that time we were pretty exhausted. We walked up the stairs and it was like walking into your television. They were all sitting there. So we got out with the pitch. We thought we knew everything that we needed to know, but of course Deborah Meaden found something that we didn’t know.
Matt Sims
Of course she did.
Elizabeth Colleran
The cameras came down, and she started to really tear into me, if I’m honest. So we had a little bit of a… which we didn’t see much on the telly. And then we got an investment from Hilary Devey. It was lovely. And she threw her whole team at Duvalay and it changed the whole world of Duvalay. We were even called something different before that, but we renamed the company Duvalay.
And we became great friends with Hilary and sadly she did die. I was great friends with Hilary. She was a superb, clever, bright and sassy woman who I was very fond of.
Matt Sims
Yes. And it’s now a global business.
Elizabeth Colleran
It’s a global business. We sell our products across different markets. We sell them in Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, France and Holland.
Matt Sims
Where can people find you online?
Elizabeth Colleran
www.duvalay.co.uk.
Resolve your French bed issues with Straight2Sleep
Keith Gooden
That was Elizabeth from Duvalay. How important are specialist companies when it comes to motorhoming and caravanning and camping?
Matt Sims
Well, we found this great company. They came to speak to us in Birmingham at the show. They’re called Straight2Sleep and they have an ingenious little product. Motorhome layout is a popular topic of conversation here on the podcast and we often get asked, ‘What is a French bed?’
Well, a French bed is a double bed at the rear corner of a motorhome where its corner is cut off, and it’s called a French bed because it was launched into the French motorhome market a couple of decades ago and was nicknamed that when it came here to the UK. It was very popular for some time. It’s had a bit of a renaissance but there’s one big issue with a French bed which Linda at Straight2Sleep had experience of and frankly, me too. And it’s that your feet fall out when you’re asleep and it wakes you up, doesn’t it, Linda?
Linda Turner
It certainly does. It certainly does.
Matt Sims
You have come up with an innovative, brilliant product called Straight2Sleep. Tell us a little bit more about what it is and how it fixes the challenge of the French bed.
Linda Turner
The French bed, yes, was an issue for me and for everybody that I know. I’m only five foot two, but I still felt my legs dangling over the side. You’re in a four foot bed. So obviously the sharing of the space is important. Whether you turn over either way your feet are a problem. So during lockdown, I came up with an idea to solve it and got it patented and trademarked. And it works absolutely fantastically. I get a decent night’s sleep. It’s easy to use. Yes, problem solved. I’m quite excited about it.
Matt Sims
The best products are the simplest ones, aren’t they? And this is definitely one of those. It’s simply a lever, like a shelf that you pull out of the bottom of the bed. Is that right?
Linda Turner
It is. It’s an independent item. It literally takes seconds to use, you slide it under the mattress on top of the bed frame. It’s the same colour as the bed frame. It’s got a lip on it. So you put your fingers to slide it out, put your foam infill in the shape desired and pull your fitted sheet over which fits perfectly as a standard four foot fitted sheet. When you want to stow it away, you lift up the foam insert, and you just push it and slide it straight underneath. And you can do that with your two little fingers. It’s that easy.
Matt Sims
It’s dead simple to use. And it’s universal, isn’t it? It’s left or right.
Linda Turner
Yes, we’ve uniquely done it design wise so that if you’ve got your left hand bed or your right hand bed, it is universal with the lip on that front edge. You can take it wherever you want to go. So if you sell your motorhome, you can take it with you. Or you might want to sell it with your motorhome as a nice attribute from a selling point of view for the French bed.
Matt Sims
Is the foam infill custom made? Because obviously French beds have different dimensions, don’t they?
Linda Turner
It is, yes. If you’ve got certain models, obviously, we know the sizes for those certain models. So we have a template within the extender and you would then fit your extender, give us those dimensions and we get that sent directly to you.
Matt Sims
How much does it cost, Linda?
Linda Turner
£450 including VAT. That is for the aluminium bed extender and the infill as well. And that’s including VAT. We get the infill sent directly to you. And we can either directly send the extender to you, or if it’s in outlets, you can go and get it. It’s online on my website, so it can be purchased in that way.
Matt Sims
And tell us where people can have a look at it, buy one and find out more.
Linda Turner
Because we’re in the early stages, we do have it exhibited in the showroom in MG Caravans in Royston. They did exhibit it for us at the NEC show in October. And it was in the 510 caravan and obviously we made a couple of sales from people seeing it. I think it needs to be seen. The video is on our website so you can see it in action. We are going to get it in as many outlets as we can, so bear with us at the moment. But if you want to go on the website and have a look and purchase it, you can do.
Matt Sims
It’s worth saying that this is a brand new product, isn’t it? It was launched in October 2022. You’re weeks into this, so yes, it’s brand new. There’s a lot more to come. And this works on an island bed as well, like a peninsula bed.
Linda Turner
Island beds again, apparently – I’m hearing reviews coming back from friends and family that have got them. The island beds are okay. But again, if you’re two tall people and you’ve got the rounded edges-, I think my issues are with the French bed, and again, from what homework I’ve done, they tend to be more into a bedroom which actually cuts off your whole area of living so you’re cocooned into a box at the early stages as you go in the door and then you’ve got a bedroom.
Well, the only time you need your bedroom is when you go to sleep. And so the island bed, I feel, is wasting that glorious space with all the windows around your motorhome or caravan to be able to see out. So with the French bed, you’ve got all that lovely air space, which is huge. And you only pull out your extender when you go to sleep. So you still got the full range of the space and everything about it.
Matt Sims
But if someone’s got an island bed where there are big corners cut off, so one of the new Roller Team models, the corners are really aggressively cut to enable you to get around it. You could potentially buy two of these and make a square or rectangular bed.
Linda Turner
Yes, they would work exactly the same way. They would stay away either side, because with the way the bed width is and the way the extenders are, you could fit two, one either side, and it still would then fit to the middle under the mattress and then you would then slide out to create that square bed.
So again, your standard fitted sheets would fit. Yes, you can buy the unique sheets to fit the shaped beds, but I understand they’re not cheap. But if you’ve got standard sheets and you’ve got your bed extenders, then you’re happy to go.
Matt Sims
So, Linda, just tell us the website where people can find out more and place an order if they want to order from you directly.
Linda Turner
If you go on to the Straight2Sleep website, there’s a film on there to show you how to use it. But yes, it’s www.straight2sleep.co.uk.
Matt Sims
And it’s, ‘Straight,’ number two, ‘Sleep.’
Linda Turner
It is. It was very important, the number two, because we felt with the design of the Straight2Sleep logo, the 2 and the shape of it symbolises the person curled up with their knees under their neck to go to sleep. That’s how we came up with that idea that’s quite unique to Straight2Sleep. www.straight2sleep.co.uk is the website. It can be purchased from there.
Hire a motorhome to find your perfect layout
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
Matt Sims – he’s the expert. What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing when it comes to motorhomes, caravans and camping. Try before you buy – what is that all about?
Matt Sims
I think it’s a great idea. I always say this to people looking to buy a motorhome or change from one particular layout of motorhome to another. Go and try one before you buy one. It is so important. We’ve talked about different bed designs, French bed, island bed, single bed, overcab bed – there are so many. And people say to me, ‘What should I consider when I’m choosing a motorhome?’
And one of the first questions I ask is, ‘How do you want to sleep?’ And it’s the last thing people think about because they think about the adventures and the journeys they’re going to go on and the places they’re going to visit. They think, ‘Why are you asking me how I’m going to sleep? Does that matter?’ It’s really important. It’s the one time you spend eight hours in one place. For the rest of the day, you’re going to be up and about and out and about doing various things. Sleep is so important. If you compromise it, it’s going to spoil the entire experience.
So think about how you want to sleep. Do you want to share a double bed? Do you want single beds? Do you want to be climbing over each other? The shape of the bed is important. If you’re not sure, go and try one. Go and hire those layouts. www.motorhomeholidaycompany.com – I’ll give a plug for our own team. We’ve got a range of different layouts. We’re based in the south west. And you are very welcome of course to come and try lots of different layouts.
Just go for a weekend. Try a French bed, try an island bed, try a rear lounge that converts into a bed. Is it the case that you’ve got this really lovely living area, or have you just got a really uncomfortable bed and no storage? What’s going to work best for you? So go and try lots of layouts or the layouts you’re considering buying before you invest your money.
Keith Gooden
So you don’t have to go to the dealer in your pyjamas and say, ‘I want to spend the night. Don’t set the alarm.’
Matt Sims
Exactly. Yes, ‘I’ll be here a while.’
Keith Gooden
Thanks very much for that, Matt. So that’s how to get a good sleep in your motorhome.
Audience Q&A
Bob: ‘How can I fit extra seat belts?’
Keith Gooden
Let’s dive into our audience Q&A, the questions and the answers from the people like you who watch and listen to the podcast. Bob has been in touch. He says, ‘The Auto-Trail chieftain has only two belted seats. AL-KO, the chassis manufacturer, says their chassis, which takes a belted seat for the Arapaho, needs a supplier for a two belt seat.’
Matt Sims
So thanks for your question, Bob. So you need a supplier of the seat belts. So you are quite right, you can fit extra seat belts to an AL-KO chassis. It’s really important that the layout you’re choosing, though, has forward or rear facing seats. Those are the types of seats that you can fit a belt to. If you’re looking for a supplier for a seat belt, you can Google it.
There are a number of places online that will supply a seat belt. I have used and can recommend Towtal. They are in Stoke-on-Trent and they will fit seat belts for you and advise you on how it can be done. It’s really important that the seatbelts are fitted directly to the chassis. Now, that may mean drilling through the furniture, drilling through the wooden carcass. It might mean breaking into a gas cupboard which then needs resealing, but however you do it, it must be fitted directly to the chassis.
There’s probably going to be some sort of metalwork and welding that’s going to be needed. The other thing to check of course is that you’ve told the DVLA you’ve added extra seats, and you need to check your payload, but we’re not going to unpack that one today. But you can have those extra seats in the motorhome so that it can take the weight of extra people.
Keith Gooden
If you want to know more about payload, we did do a podcast specifically on that subject a little while ago so look it up wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.
Ian: ‘What are the top five things to think about for a four berth motorhome?’
Keith Gooden
Ian says, ‘My wife and I are thinking of buying a four berth motorhome. What do you think are the top five things-,’ not one, not two, not three, not four, five things-,
Matt Sims
Only five!
Keith Gooden
‘- we should be thinking about?’
Matt Sims
That’s easy. So congratulations and welcome to the clan. I would say the number one thing, as I’ve already said, is sleeping. How do you want to sleep? Layout is so important. It’s going to be the thing that spoils it for you if you get it wrong. So number one is layout, and how you want to sleep. Number two, I’d ask you, then when are you going to use it?
Are you going to use it all year? Are you just going to use it in the summer? If you’re going to use it in the winter, it needs to be a properly insulated motorhome and it needs to be one that’s winterized. So perhaps you want to consider one with a freshwater tank that is inside the motorhome rather than underslung.
It’s worth noting that many British manufacturers put the freshwater tank underneath the van, which means it will freeze which means you lose all your water, whereas a lot of European manufacturers – and some UK manufacturers, it’s worth saying as well – will put the freshwater tank inside. Some put the wastewater tank inside the floor as well. So it’s sort of inside the motorhome. It stops it freezing. There are heaters that can heat up your wastewater tank as well so you keep your wastewater warm if it’s outside and you can stop it freezing.
So these things are important as to when you’re using it. If you’re going to use it all year round, those are things to think about. Where are you planning to use it? Are you going to use it in the UK? And if the answer is yes, and you’re going to use it all year round, you need a large seating area, because it’s going to rain. So you might want to consider a rear lounge layout, if that lends itself to number one, how you want to sleep. And that’s going to give you somewhere to sit.
If you’re going to be using it in the summer and you’re going to be using it on the continent, then you’re going to spend most of the days outside. You’re not going to be spending much time in it at all. Number four, how long are you using it for? Are you planning a weekend trip on the odd week or are you going on a nine-month adventure? If it’s a longer trip, then you need to consider storage. So I would consider, for a long trip, a big garage space. You’re going to value that storage space.
Choosing a real lounge layout with minimal storage, I think, is going to compromise your trip, because you’re not going to have anywhere to put your stuff. If you’re going for a weekend and you’re into kiting or boating and you take a lot of stuff with you, you’re going to need storage then. So how long you’re using it for and what you’re going to do when you’re away is really important. And then I’d consider your budget. So are you going to be looking at new or used? Most people think, ‘Oh, how much have we got to spend? That’s the number one factor.’ I’d say at the point of deciding it is the least important.
Keith Gooden
There you go, Ian. You got your money’s worth there with five points answered.
Nicky: ‘How can I go about organising a trip to Spain?’
Keith Gooden
Nicky’s in Dudley. ‘We’re thinking of going to Spain with our caravan and don’t know where to start.’ I’d recommend outside your front door. ‘What would you recommend? How do you go about organising a trip?’
Matt Sims
That’s a great question. So yes, if you’ve never done it before, it can be quite daunting, can’t it? I would say start at home with YouTube. There’s loads of advice on YouTube. Andrew Ditton’s channel is really useful. He has been touring around all over the place in a caravan and motorhome. Lee Davey has also done some big epic trips with a caravan in partnership with Bailey. So I’d start with those guys and look at their YouTube channels.
There’s so much more content out there. Wandering Bird as well – Kat’s got loads of advice for travelling to Europe. And there’s lots and lots to download from her website as well. Lots of useful trips. And then you can, of course, approach one of the trip planning companies. MandA is one of them, and they will organise a trip. So if you’re going with a motorhome particularly, then they will organise a trip.
I notice that Nicky is looking at buying a caravan. So you could then nonetheless buy a trip. That will help you work out where the campsites are. And there are people that will do that for you. So Google is your friend, I’d say. That’s the best place to start.
Keith Gooden
Fantastic. And remember Spain is a hot country. And so you have to obviously plan for that as well because you’re going to be in a metal box for a lot of the time. So make sure you’re well prepared.
Matt Sims
Take an air cooler unit.
Craig: ‘Are there any all-electric motorhomes now available?’
Keith Gooden
Is it Atherstone or Atherstone? I ask because Craig is there. He’s asked this question. ‘Hi, are there any all electric motorhomes now available-,’ ring the bell. Ding ding!
Matt Sims
There it is.
Keith Gooden
‘- as there is plenty of room for battery packs, etc.’ Well, he says there’s plenty of room for battery packs. This comes up time and time again – electric motorhomes.
Matt Sims
Constantly! It’s such a massive topic. I’ve said before, I’ve got so many questions about this. We will definitely be covering this in 2023 and beyond. And it’s a topic that we will be watching very, very closely. I just can’t get any answers to this. There is an all electric campervan, a small motorhome made by a Dutch company called Tonka. It’s €140,000 or something. It’s not cheap. There are some innovations around electric campervans. There are a few of them about, but they’re very, very few in number.
Bürstner have just developed an electric motorhome as a prototype and to make it they took the batteries out. That’s a big job. And to keep their team safe while they were assembling it, the batteries were removed and then put back in. So by an all electric motorhome, I assume that Craig means an electric hob, no gas. So it has an electric hob, an electric oven, electric heating – everything is running off the battery and there’s no need to hook up separately. You just plug in your big recharge plug, and it does everything.
Then you’re into the questions of infrastructure. If you’re down in a remote part of Scotland, can you get electricity to recharge the engine batteries and run the campervan?
Keith Gooden
Because if you’re just plugging into somebody’s mains in the farmhouse or the clubhouse, you know, you could be sitting there for 24 hours if you’re running everything off the electricity.
Matt Sims
Probably longer. Yes. And if there are 20 people in a field all wanting to do that, something’s going to trip out, isn’t it? It’s not going to last. So yes, lots and lots of questions. We will definitely be having a few guest appearances on the podcast next year. Some fairly big names and people with a really deep insight into this.
Keith Gooden
You have got together with one of your friends. And you’re going to be making, from the ground up, an electric van, aren’t you?
Matt Sims
We are. It’s already happening. Yes, you leaked that one recently. Well, we’re making an electric campervan. So we’ve bought an electric van and we’re converting it to a campervan. But it will probably have a gas hob. It’s not going to be all electric.
Keith Gooden
I mean, converting electricity into heat energy is one surefire way of draining any battery really, really quickly. So doesn’t it make sense with an electric motorhome, considering that you want range out of the thing, not to expend power where you have an alternative? And a hob is the obvious thing, isn’t it?
Matt Sims
A gas hob. Yes, I think so. Yes, that’s what we’re going with. I mean, I think the challenge is big enough to recharge it when you’re on holiday somewhere. We’re exploring the possibility of solar on the roof to recharge the engine battery. Now, that’s proving to be a bit tricky. But it’s thought that a long sunny day could give us about eight to ten miles. That could mean we can get to a charger point.
Keith Gooden
So the things which come up all the time with electric campervans are the idea of the range – we’ve talked about how far you can travel on a charge – weight, the cost, and as you say, charging. Those are the perennials, aren’t they?
Matt Sims
Yes. But I have a concern about this. We’re suffering massive supply chain issues at the moment. And we know that the manufacturers of the chassis are very focused on electrification, and they’re less focused on combustion build. So, you know, there are big issues of the supply of motorhomes with diesel engines. What’s going to happen in the future? So in 2030, all new vehicles have to be hybrid. And then in 2035, they have to be pure electric.
Keith Gooden
So hybrid has got an electric element to it. It’s charged from the engine. If you’ve got an engine and you’ve got batteries-,
Matt Sims
A combustible engine.
Keith Gooden
Yes. So what happens is, when you drive on the motorway, you mainly use the engine, and that also at the same time charges the battery. When you’re doing lower speeds, then the battery kicks in. And so you save on diesel.
Matt Sims
Yes, and they don’t need to be recharged. The battery can be flat when you get to it in the morning and it will just run on the engine. We have a hybrid car, and it’s lovely. We love it. It’s great.
Keith Gooden
So you say from 2030 it’s got to be hybrid.
Matt Sims
So the UK Government has introduced this rule. All vehicles must be hybrid by 2030. Now, what’s that going to do to motorhomes? I haven’t seen a hybrid powered chassis that a motorhome manufacturer has built on yet. And I’m not aware that there’s one imminently in the pipeline. Now, if you bear in mind that motorhomes are planned several years in advance – as we record this, it’s basically seven years away.
So in the next few years, we need to see a very viable fit Peugeot, Citroen, Mercedes, whatever the make is of chassis that’s hybrid, being able to be built on as a motorhome. Now, if we don’t, there will be no supply of chassis has to be made into motorhomes. I think that’s a real issue.
Keith Gooden
So you’ll just have to rely on the secondhand market.
Matt Sims
Well, yes. You could potentially buy a motorhome that’s diesel next year and have it for seven years and you could possibly get your money back. If there’s no supply of new at all, because there is no diesel and there is no hybrid that’s viable, then, you know, that’s going to just push the used market up even more, isn’t it?
Keith Gooden
So another question that has to be answered about this 2030 date.
Matt Sims
Indeed, yes. I watch with great interest. And I’ve no doubt that manufacturers will be on this, but the van market, the parcel delivery market, is way bigger than the motorhome market. And that’s where their focus is going to be. It’s going to be on payload for deliveries, range for deliveries – it’s not going to be on people using them and recharging them in remote locations.
Keith Gooden
For leisure purposes.
Matt Sims
Yes, exactly. So the van delivery people, you know, they have a circuit, they start their base, they do their round dropping their parcels and they go back to their base where they can recharge on a proper charger. I was talking to the AA, someone very senior who manages the entire fleet of vehicles for the AA. And they are right now still in a quandary about what vehicles they want to run on their fleet as recovery vehicles. What’s their van going to be powered by? Is it going to be a battery? Is it going to be hydrogen?
And interestingly, they’ve just created a van which is a recharge station for electric and hydrogen. It’s live now. There’s one of them. And it’s a recharge vehicle ready to go and recharge a vehicle that’s flat. They are still in a quandary about how they’re going to run their fleet. You think about a relay truck – it picks you up in Bournemouth where you’ve broken down, and you want to get back to Inverness.
That vehicle is going to go so far. It doesn’t go like a DPD van. It ends up going from A to B and B could be anywhere. How does it get back? How does it recharge?
Keith Gooden
Not only that, but specifically with the AA, RAC and other rescue organisations at the moment, you know, they have a spare tyre or take you somewhere very quickly but for a spare or they fit it for you or they might have a spare battery on board which they can replace, or they have a little bit of fuel.
The thing is with electric cars, any electric vehicles, is that their service is going to have to change. Because if somebody is getting halfway to their destination and suddenly they’re out of charge, they’re going to call the AA and expect a charge from the AA. So all these things are coming to the fore, aren’t they? And there’s no answer.
Matt Sims
The other thing that came to light the other day-, there was an unfortunate traffic collision outside our business here. We had an open day, and just as we opened, three cars hit each other and closed the road. Great timing. No one was hurt, thankfully, but one of them was a very new-, this guy had waited nine months for his car. It was a two-week-old BMW, and a big van went up the back of it.
And the fire brigade – we’d never seen anything like it. There was no real damage to the car. The back end was dented. But because it was all electric, the protocol the fire brigade had to go through – chocking the wheels, closing the road, covering the road in-, I didn’t know what they were spraying it with. Some kind of foam. I was like, ‘What are you worried about?’
And I think they were actually genuinely worried, and this is just their protocols they’re following, that if anything went wrong with that battery, there could be an explosion, or some big catastrophe. And it just delayed everything whilst they followed their protocols to treat that scene. It was fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Keith Gooden
So lots of questions to be answered there on electric vehicles. That was rather a long answer. But it’s always going to be when we’re talking about electric motorhomes. Stand by. Keep listening to the podcast and watching the podcast – lots more to come on this and we will hopefully answer your questions as they arise. But as I say, keep watching and listening.
Matt Sims
It is definitely a theme that we’ll see thread through next year and beyond.
Keith Gooden
It’s going to be the dominant theme, I think.
Matt Sims
Yes, definitely for the next five or six years. And I am confident we’ll get some answers because we keep coming across all these questions. And I’m not afraid to ask them. So if you’ve got questions, very specific ones about this, we’d love to hear them, because I’ll add them to the list. And it’s a long list.
But believe me, I’m talking to people way above my paygrade, people who’ve got very, very big crystal balls in research and development into electric vehicles all across Europe. And we’re constantly reaching out to them and asking them these questions. So, you know, join the campaign, let’s get some answers and try and figure out what on Earth the future is going to be for motorhomes because at this moment in time, I’m not sure.
Get in touch with Matt and Keith
Keith Gooden
So if somebody says, ‘I’ve got a burning question,’ how do they ask you?
Matt Sims
Dead easy. Just go to www.motorhomematt.co.uk/askmatt. You can type it in and send it, or we’d love it if you’d hit the little orange button and record it. And then we can get your voice on the podcast, which we love to do.
Keith Gooden
Absolutely. So we’ve been talking about sleeping and answering your questions as well. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the podcast. Join us again next week on video and in audio. How do people stay in touch and find more about you and www.thatleisureshop.com?
Matt Sims
You can join us on the website, www.motorhomematt.co.uk, where you will find all the links to our socials. We’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram and we’re on YouTube as well as motorhome Matt, so do check us out there.
