Winter cover for an R20

[BrianTheSnail]

Getting very excited here as our R20 should be being built or even finished (for a Dec delivery). However it will live on the front drive under a large silver birch and get plastered with leaves and those little winged seeds that get everywhere.

Anyone got recommendations on winter covers? Liz is an excellent seamstress and has access to industrial machinery so if we could find the breathable cloth that the expensive cover manufacturers use then she could make a bespoke cover (and there might be a small business opportunity here). Another thought is to buy a larger caravan cover and re-purpose the material to again make something bespoke. Or perhaps it's just easier to buy one ready made and a good fit.

What do other folks do? Has anyone ever seen the 3 or 4 layer breathable cover material available by the metre?

Brian

[Graham]

Hi Brian

There is a cover for sale on the forum if you are interested.

One of our members Barry5 is selling it here is the link:
http://www.smallmotorhome.co.uk/foru...1949#post11949

[BrianTheSnail]

Thanks Graham I hadn't spotted that. Had it been for a hytop it would have been perfect and we would probably be planning our Roma's maiden voyage to Barry's house to collect it.

Not so sure about the fit of a custom-made Hylo cover on a Hytop - pity Barry wasn't a bit nearer so I could go and see (we're just outside Southampton)

Brian

[jayjay]

I don't know whether this is of any help to you, but I recently bought a cover for my little caravan off ebay for £43 inc. postage at £10! I've had to adapt it a bit to fit, but if you bought a bigger one (plenty there for sale) you could adapt in the same way.

Mine originally was made by Specialised Accessories
http://specialisedaccessories.com/ac...es_caravan.htm

but their prices start at £260 or thereabouts (so I got a bargain then!). Not sure if they also sell the material, but I can vouch for that at least, lovely stuff. I had a few little tears around the bottom edge to repair when I bought it (the seller was upfront about this) and I fixed it in about 10 mins on my sewing machine. So it's sewable material anyway!

I've also been inside to check it's not causing the van to 'sweat' or produce dampness and condensation, and I'm happy to report that so far it seems very good stuff. From what I've read about winter covers, they can sometimes cause damage from condensation, although I think that is most likely to happen when you close all the vents, they still need ventilation when covered.

I had to have a lot of sealing done on the roof of my caravan as it was leaking in several places. That's now done and all is well, but I wanted a cover to protect the roof and sealing job more than anything, so that my ex-hubby doesn't have to do it all over again after the winter and think he has a job for life!

Also nice to think that when the time comes for my first outing next year the van won't need cleaning!

ETA: Forgot to add, you can just buy covers for the roof of vans now, a lot of ppl seem to prefer those if just to keep the leaves & debris off the roof. They look like fitted sheets to me, but I don't know how they are attached. Just something else to consider.

[BrianTheSnail]

Thanks jayjay - we did take a look around on Ebay and I didn't find any real bargains locally and postage seemed to bump the price up.

However Go Outdoors had an extra 10% off last week which means their 14-17' caravan cover was £72 which seems a good price for a new cover. Liz plans to tailor it to fit the R20 neatly and add doors to allow access to driver's seat and rear door with the cover on.

Our silver birch shed loads of leaves last night so our little C1 car is polka dot this morning. And Liz will be vacuuming the house once again today to remove the little winged seeds - we have to sweep out the bath as the little beggars blow in in droves through the bathroom window. So getting the van covered as soon as it arrives is quite a priority

I'd chop the tree down apart from a) it has a preservation order on it, b) its holding up one end of my amateur radio antenna

On that note - I wonder if anyone here was the owner of the Berlingo Hylo I spotted at Kempton Park radio rally yesterday. I was two cars behind it in the queue to leave, so didn't want to wave/flash in case the intervening car thought it was for him.

Brian