Rollin' Home

I’ve bought my first home. It cost £3000, or 1.8% of the average house price in the UK1.  There was no need to get a mortgage out on it. It’s single storey and was built quite recently, in 1997. I’ll be moving in on 15th April. Admittedly it is on the small side, being twelve foot long and six and a half foot wide, but more than makes up for it by having wheels, thus allowing me to choose my neighbours. 

For those who care about such things my new home is an Abbey Iona, a name redolent of a life lived far from the madding crowd. It appears to have been well looked after by its previous owners, there being no damp patches or much evident wear and tear. Inside it has all the modern recluse might need: comfy long seats that turn into a double bed; a narrow fold-away dining table; a kitchen with a sink, a fridge and a gas oven with four hobs and a separate grill; a cosy shower-room with toilet and fold-away basin; a wardrobe that might accommodate one or possibly two changes of clothes; a radio with inbuilt speakers and a modicum of storage space.  Any swung cats would require immediate hospitalisation.

The caravan dealer threw in a second-hand 110Ah battery which in terms of juice stored is relatively big, clearly a key consideration for someone with no mains electricity. Its job is to power the lights, the radio, the water pump and the two-pin 12V DC socket for appliances that can take direct current.  There are normal AC sockets as well but they only work when hooked up to the mains, so I’m having to buy adaptors that will let me charge my mobile phone and laptop from the DC socket. 

And when the juice begins to run low, as it surely will?  Solar power to the rescue. I’ve got myself a 180W photovoltaic solar panel for £270 from AKT Solar, the biggest they do (158cm by 81cm), and hooked it up to the battery via a box known as a charge controller which acts a bit like a referee at a boxing match, protecting the two participants from each other when things get out of hand. A light goes green on the box when the panel is sending current to it. At first this light stayed off which was disappointing to say the least. I put it down to it being a cold grey afternoon. The next day was sunny so I hooked it up again and this time the light flickered into life! Free power from the sky. I checked it again on another grey day and it was still on, so it doesn’t only work in full sunshine. Fingers crossed, it’ll be enough to keep things ticking over. (OK, to calm the worriers, I’ve done the maths as well as crossed my fingers).

The caravan came without a gas supply so I bought a small cylinder second-hand for £31 from a local woman, a red one capable of holding 6kg of propane LPG, which in fact it was doing. Buying one of these new would have set me back £55. This will just be my back-up supply - I’ll be buying one of the huge 47kg cylinders when I get to Wales.  I had already bought a propane regulator (£7) which screws backwardly onto the cylinder and lowers the pressure to a suitable level, so on Wednesday I was able to test the oven and the space heater. Thankfully they work just fine, so I can look forward to eating hot meals whilst basking in the warmth. Hot water is the next to test, then I’ll be ready to try out a night in it. And then, an entire six months.

Inside my mansion

1. The average UK house price in Feb 2013 was £163,600 according to Halifax Building Society.