Those who were thinking of living in a static van last year?

i lived in one for three weeks for a WE placement and it was quite nice - the shower was . . . something else :L but if you were going to live in one permenantly you could sort this mine was just Temp. i had a little heater that kept it quite warm and an electric blanket is essential but yeah i could live in one again but i would sort the shower out! the one luxury i cant live without. i NEED a good powerful shower!!
 
My Yo lives in a static/holiday home and I house sit. All the comforts of home but on one floor. Bit noisy in bad weather and loses heat like billyough (?sp). Still I would be quite happy in it and so is YO, hubby and child. She does call it the rabbit hutch though! :)
 
hehe, yeah we already live in a rabbit hutch, our house is actually not as wide as a static. And we will be next to the ponies, its only whilst we save to buy a house but with rent so high we dont want to shovel money into some strangers pocket for another few years.
 
I would say go for it, they can sell on nicely too. YO has lived in it for years, no probs :) and next to ponios what more could you want? :p
 
We lived in one for 2 years while the house was being done. We survived 2 winters with temp down to -15 at one point. As others have said they do lose heat quickly. We had a built in gas fire in thee living room and portable heaters for bedroom and kitchen/ hallway. Our shower was OK too.
It was sooooo cheap to run and when we sold it on we lost only £500.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pleased to get into the house, but it was a great cheap option for a couple of years.
 
I lived in one for about eighteen months and it was ok. mine was two made into one somehow so it was quite big. it had a solid fuel burner with a back boiler which heated a couple of radiators so was never too cold. my biggest problem with it was damp as it was old. i would certainly live in one again though.
 
I lived in one for 10 months while we renovated our house. It is 36foot by 12 foot.

It was quite cold as no double glazing, that makes a big difference, but apart from that it was fine until Monty dog ate the soft furnishings :-))) - except in gales (then it was awful!), but then this is NE Scotland on top of a hill, overlooking the Cairngorms......

It wasnt damp despite no CH, it did have a gas fire and we had electric heaters, expensive to run but v cosy!

If you can, get boarding around all the framework below the caravan, makes it a lot warmer. And also lag any pipes very well underneath.
 
We lived in one for three and a half years whilst we renovated our house. It was great at first but the novelty soon wore off. Winters were exceptionally cold. The floor, in particular was freezing as the cold wind was sucked unterneath it. We also withstood an earthquake (the largest the UK had seen I believe). I remember waking up in bed and the whole van being shaken in a sort of sieving motion.

We were lucky in that we converted one of the outbuildings into another bedroom with shower and toilet, to give us some privacy from the kids, and the tackroom had plumbing for a washing machine. So not quite so bad as it could have been. Trouble is I always ended up going back to the caravan to sleep as didn't want to leave the kids on their own, so it meant hubby and I slept under two different roofs for those three and a half years. It was a bit cold though trotting between buildings and caravan in my nightwear.
 
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Interesting reads as my husband is trying to convince me on the next house move we should do up a wreck and live in a static home.... I may need more convincing!
 
I lived in one for a while in the middle of winter. I had no hot water and no heating, I would lie in bed and see my breath in the air it was that cold! Apart from that, I loved it!
 
I lived in one for 2 years while house was being done. Was dreading it but it was actually fine! Good electric heaters on timers are a must, as is lagging on pipes and we blocked up the vents aswell. Main problem was damp as they were wet winters but with the heaters it was fine.

I would recommend it though, very cheap and comfortable - and like you say, why line a strangers pockets for years with renting!? :)
 
My OH didnt help (he was working away) by telling me when I rang him in tears convinced that caravan on top of the hill in the Cairngorms was about to be blown across the field " No that would never happen...what would happen would be the roof would be peeled off and then the walls would rip off"...

...we are still married...!!

(ps reason it would not happen is that he had staked the caravan down with a LOT of angle iron and also built an earth bund to protect against the worst of the wind).
 
lol thanks all, we will hopfully find one with double glazing as have a decent budget then after we move out of it my parents will resite it for holidays, deffinately will be boarding it around the bottom as heard that before, although we will be neat their house we dont want to get under their feet to much lol
 
We did it for 8 years whilst building a house (husband had intended to renovate then tore the whole thing down :eek:) it's honestly not that bad. You see on renovation shows people whining and moaning about spending one winter in there - get over it! We had two over the years, both were two bedrooms, one bathroom plus large combined kitchen/dining/lounge and were really quite spacious. If living in a caravan for a year years enables you to eventually have the home and lifestyle you aspire to, go for it and you won't regret it, OH and I certainly don't.
 
I lived in one for a year - loved it. You can tell exactly what the weather is doing without getting out of bed - if its windy you hear it and feel the van moving, if its raining you can hear it and as for temperature if you stick your foot out of the covers you can get a good idea!!!! Oh and if its warm you really know about it.
My dog used to sleep in the lounge area and a few times he woke me up dreaming as the lounge area wasn't too far away from the bedroom!
 
I live in one, have done for 5 years now. I love it, I am warm in the winter even when it's -20* although it does get a bit warm in the summer. The only problem I've found is pipes freezing in the winter but I am lucky in that my LL lives on site and I just use her shower/washing machine and I fill buckets of water for flushing the loo/washing up/cooking. The longest I've been without water was 5 days. It is just me and the dog though - may be a bit cramped with more than 1 person.
 
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