Keeping clean

One of the things about camping is keeping clean and it seems to be a topic that fascinates people. When we brought Bertie lots of people said things like you can’t use the shower, in fact get one that doesn’t have a shower it’s a waste of space, or you can only use the loo for number 1’s.  This is a rule for our camping loo in the tent just like many other people. So how do we deal with hygiene matters?

Shower

The van has a 10 litre hot water tank and it heats the water to 60 degrees, so nice and hot.  The first shower was had by John.  It soon ran cold on him, so learning from his errors we have now got this to a fine art.  I never run the shower on full power. The shower is very powerful so I turn it down. I do still have it way too hot, much hotter than most people can stand.  I wet myself all over, turn the tap off, soap down then turn the tap back on and rinse. Remember I have a lot of long hair so I take about 4 times as long as John to wash my hair.  I find the shower roomy. It is well designed. It looks tiny although bending down for the soap is a challenge. I certainly feel clean. We do get dry in the kitchen, which with the blinds up on the windscreen could be interesting for passers-by and something we may have to amend on a busy campsite!  I do miss standing under the hot shower until the house water tank runs cold, this was a key thinking time for me. But I now use our shower rather than the campsite showers.

Loo

Well the loo sort of does its job. You don’t have much room and if you were of proportions that result in large hips you may struggle to fit on the seat.  I would rather have mine at home, but I’ll use ours rather than a bar’s loo. Mind you in France nearly all loos are unisex and men simply cannot aim, which is not good for us ladies who then have to sit on the seat.   For the unmentionables in a motorhome loo you just add water to the bowl first, but you do have to clean down afterwards, something you get used to and nowhere near as bad as changing a baby’s nappy. Also we empty out loo everyday. Not the nicest job in the world.  We have a SOG unit on our loo, this works well, it keeps any smell out of the van and means we do not have to use any nasty chemicals, but it does mean it is slightly more unpleasant when emptying the toilet.

Washing and drying

We purchased a small camping washing machine.  It takes 3KG (about 2 T shirts). It’s proving really good. It’s a like the old fashioned type where you add the clothes in the top and it agitates them.  We don’t use the spinner which fits in, the only bit we didn’t find worked well. It fits on the kitchen side when we use it. It does of course use a reasonable amount of water about 15 litres once you have rinsed everything out, but it is saving us loads of money and is convenient to use.  When we get to a campsite we use their facilities to wash the big items like bedding. Drying the clothes is the main issue, if the weather is good then we just hang them out (and sometimes they freeze solid), but often we have to have them hung in the shower.

Getting Water

The issue here is that on aires you have to move the van to the service point.  A typical service point has a borne,a bollard type thing with a few taps, a drain to empty the loo and then running at 90 degrees from it a long drain that you position the van over and empty the grey water into.  The concrete around the drain is normally sloped slightly so the van doesn’t have to be in perfect position. Our van holds 100 litres, which with the washing and showers lasts us about 2 days. The main issue is you have to move the van to the service area which means making most things are secure.  Filling with water takes about 10 mins and we have now purchased a special lid for the water filler that you fasten the hose to, this stops you having to hold the hose all the time. Which given the taps are always push button taps take the filling of the van back to a one person job. On French campsites you normally have a tap on your pitch, but we haven’t got an extension for the grey water so we have to empty it into a bucket and then pour it down the drain.

Cleaning the van

It is stunning how quickly it gets dirty, having the front door into the living area doesn’t help, but sweeping out takes about 10 mins, the bathroom a similar length of time.  I did a thorough clean in about 45 mins the other night but excluded the widescreen which takes a long time to get good. The van has not been designed with cleaning in mind, there are so many places dirt can get trapped, but it’s not a particularly time consuming job.