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Regretfully I have to report that we have been the victim of someone who did not wish to pay for electricity. Returning late to a Caravan Club site to find that that our pitch electric post was being utilised by another camper who was not pleased at our return. He was very grudging in removing his cable.
We would not just unhook as we are more polite than that.
On a German stellplatz we were invited to hook up by a departing M/H to benefit from the remaining electricity on the coin operated post. We were also offered the opportunity to take water that was not needed.
Metered electricity on camp sites is very inconvenient as we also discovered in Germany. Finding someone to unlock the box and calculate the charge delayed us several hours.
We happily camp for long weekends on school fields, etc for kite festivals without facilities. A hook up does extend the gas supply which we find more difficult to replace as the 'light' cylinders have limited availability (a 40 mile journey from home) unlike standard ones which can be purchased from a nearby store.
Regretfully I have to report that we have been the victim of someone who did not wish to pay for electricity. Returning late to a Caravan Club site to find that that our pitch electric post was being utilised by another camper who was not pleased at our return. He was very grudging in removing his cable.
Joyce
Please do not confuse people who do not wish to use ehu with people who dishonestly try to aquire it - a completely different issue.
I am pleased you like using hook-ups. I too on occasions choose to connect to preserve gas supplies when these are restricted. But I have absolutely no need for electricity on many other occasions.
If I do not want to use hook-up it does not imply that I am too mean or dishonest. Simply personal choice.
Jed
______________________________________________________________ "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn´t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain
A little late in the discussion, but I am confused over the " resale " of electricity regulations. Surely, metering and charging for what has been used is " resale " ? Or is it to do with not charging the customer more than the actual cost from the grid ?
A little late in the discussion, but I am confused over the " resale " of electricity regulations. Surely, metering and charging for what has been used is " resale " ? Or is it to do with not charging the customer more than the actual cost from the grid ?
Any Linemen out there ?
I think your not allowed to sell it on at a profit although how that works I really dont know. So if you put meters in I guess you would have to charge the exact rate that your paying for it so there is no incentive for a site owner to put a meter in. If he just charges £12 for a pitch with EHU who is to say how much he is really charging for electricity. If the same site / CL didnt have EHU it might only be £7 so in effect he is charging £5 a night for EHU which I would assume he is making a profit on.
I have used the coin meters on German Stellplatz and I think they are pretty good. 50 cents seems to last a long time and often people feed them so you nearly always find one thats live! I carry a little tester to find the live ones and to check they are earthed properly which of course in Germany they always are.
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I have used the coin meters on German Stellplatz and I think they are pretty good. 50 cents seems to last a long time and often people feed them so you nearly always find one thats live! I carry a little tester to find the live ones and to check they are earthed properly which of course in Germany they always are.
But you're paying for the hookup either way though Barry, that's what seems to be missing from this whole debate.
If we accept that prices are in any way cost related (dodgy because it'll be what the market will put up with), then the cost of a hookup vs non-hookup pitch is the incremental usage of KWH + cost of the infrastructure to get a lot of power to a field (*) + maintenance costs, PAT testing, liability insurance for an outdoor power supply etc. Eddie is probably best informed to comment, but I'd wager that the incremental KWH of electricity directly used is at the minor end of the spectrum versus the total cost of provision.
So if a campsite owner moves to using a metered supply, all of the fixed costs stay the same (perhaps marginal decrease in capacity required on the inbound trunk), they can't be recovered in the metered pricing, so must be incorporated into the pitch fee.
Likewise in the case of CC, there may be an interesting debate in the case of new sites and extra pitches being squeezed into existing ones. But for most sites, the kit's already deployed and somebody needs to be paying for the amortisation of the capex of deploying it, and maintenance. A motorhomer not connecting to a supply will reduce the metered kWH...perhaps a couple of quid a night based on 10-15p/kWH, but won't make a dent on these other costs.
For me the whole debate is a bit like whether the price of toilets/showers should be included in a pitch fee, or if there should be coin slot on the door...
(*) think about it...100 pitch CC site @16amp, e.g. 66% load factor = 250KW supply unless my maths are wrong, which is the equivalent of a small housing estate.
Surely this debate is about whether we want hook ups or not.
It looks like there is a majority who say not.
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Are there any like us who are not fussed in high summer but prefer a hook up on long, sun-less winter days ?
I would support one of the mechanisms mentioned earlier for ensuring that only those who have paid can access the supply but I would not support more pitches being provided with no possibility of a hook up at all.
Hi all, as an ex Warden for the CC the comments on this discussion have given me some chuckles and brought some memories back. As we started with the club in 2000 we went through the period of change from charging for EHU to it being included in site fees we saw this changeover from the other side. One of the jobs we had in 1st year was checking who was using electrics and not paying, which meant going around in the evening checking if they had sneaked the cable in after the office had closed. Yes, you guessed it. Quite a few had.
Moving forward in time I have had many people tell me the trip had failed and they "had nothing on". After explaining that the trip is a switch and will only trip out through overload or an earth fault, we would re-set the trip and then wait for the next call out. This happened so frequently that I made up a lead to fit between the bollard and lead to check the amps used. I had this for a number of years but never had to use it as people suddenly remembered all the other things they were using!!
On a more serious note my last site had real problems coping with the electricity demands from the hook ups and would regularly trip out large areas of the site, especially in the evening. I was delighted when the club had the power supply and cabling upgraded, at a cost of £150,000. Glad I wasn't paying the bill.
Please have some sympathy for the Wardens and the CC, we tried really hard to give our customers what they wanted.
I can't beleive people have the cheek to hook up without paying for it! Don't these people have any shame? It's not like it's a fortune.
I like a freebee as much as anyone but I can't abide dishonesty. They should have a name and shame page in the cc mag or c&cc now that would be a laugh
______________________________________________________________ Hank the Tank has a website. Follow our adventures at http://www.hankthetank.co.uk
Thanks for your input Garry. I'm surprised at £150K to upgrade the site supply that they did not consider putting meters on each pitch. For £150K you can buy an awful lot of meters and by the accounts of those that have done so it halves consumption. I suspect it would not meet the approval of customers?
peedee
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France
Our thoughts are with you Chris and Graham. Fighting with Mavis and Ray 
