campervan no longer being used as my daily driver

[andy greenwood]

To cut a long story short our campervan will no longer be my daily driver. This means is will be parked up outside for long periods of time and only used for our camping trips. With it being parked up for long periods of time, what can anyone please suggest that i should to prevent any issues ?
should I give it a tick over once a week?
how do I prevent damp, especially over winter ?
will the leisure battery get damaged if it isn't being used regular ?

 

[roadtripper]

You should make sure that both batteries get a maintenance charge - ideally you have a decent multi stage charger on your EHU already for the leisure battery so just leave it hooked up - starter battery you can either fit something like the AMT-12 to trickle it from the maintained leisure battery or you can plug in a small maintenance charger from CTEK/NoCo/Victron inside the van (given you will have EHU on) and connect it to the dash 12v socket by the gear (which on most vans is connected to the starter - but not later T6.1)

Don't do tick over, diesel engines (and I'm assuming you are) do not like running unloaded at all and it can cause soot and bore varnishing. Much better to just take it for 20-30 minutes drive instead and get everything warmed up and moving. With our Caravelle when we are not roadtripping for a bit I often take it for a bit of drive around the weekly supermarket run for instance.

If you're on EHU and find damp being an issue you could use a dehumidifier. You might just need a few of the "rechargeable" silica gel damp bags in the cupboards that are at risk, remember to leave cupboards, drawers and especially the fridge ajar to let air circulate, a couple of towels or blankets you may already have in the van works a treat. I have 2 damp bags on the dash and 2 tucked into the rear kitchen pod (which gets cold and air doesn't circulate well) and check them whenever I take the van out.

 

[Salty Spuds]

To cut a long story short our campervan will no longer be my daily driver. This means is will be parked up outside for long periods of time and only used for our camping trips. With it being parked up for long periods of time, what can anyone please suggest that i should to prevent any issues ?
should I give it a tick over once a week?
how do I prevent damp, especially over winter ?
will the leisure battery get damaged if it isn't being used regular ?

Our van is parked up for weeks at a time. We are fortunate enough to be able to park it in the garden, so we leave it plugged in on EHU from the house. We have an opening rear window that we leave just cracked open for trickle ventilation. We leave the internal blinds in to keep the sun out, in winter we have a small oilfilled radiator set at 5 deg to keep the frost out. I have an AMT 12 to keep the starter battery topped up. I don't run it between uses, IMHO this causes more harm than good, as unless you get the oil up to temp to boil of the condensation, you just compound the issue. Short static runs don't help the EGR or DPF either, if you're going to run it, make sure it's a good one, get it on a motorway & give it a good blast.

 

[Stay Frosty]

Our T6 camper has always been a second vehicle so pretty much holiday trips only.
We use the camper at regular intervals and in between fart around keeping an eye on the starter battery and popping the top to make sure we've not got mushrooms growing there but in five years of this light touch maintenance we haven't come unstuck.
Apart from seeing if the battery will start the engine I've never run the engine to warm it up as it's bound to do more harm than good clogging up the EGR and DPF, our camper has never been garaged as that's car sized so it's the outdoor life but regular cleans and carnauba wax polishing.
Edit and the lithium leisure battery and solar is isolated unless we're using them.

 

[drinfinity]

If you have a diesel heater these apparently benefit from running up to full blast every month to stop it seizing. Best way to do this is to go on a trip somewhere cold and enjoy a brew in the comfort of your toasty warm van.

 

[dubber36]

 

[andy greenwood]

You should make sure that both batteries get a maintenance charge - ideally you have a decent multi stage charger on your EHU already for the leisure battery so just leave it hooked up - starter battery you can either fit something like the AMT-12 to trickle it from the maintained leisure battery or you can plug in a small maintenance charger from CTEK/NoCo/Victron inside the van (given you will have EHU on) and connect it to the dash 12v socket by the gear (which on most vans is connected to the starter - but not later T6.1)

Don't do tick over, diesel engines (and I'm assuming you are) do not like running unloaded at all and it can cause soot and bore varnishing. Much better to just take it for 20-30 minutes drive instead and get everything warmed up and moving. With our Caravelle when we are not roadtripping for a bit I often take it for a bit of drive around the weekly supermarket run for instance.

If you're on EHU and find damp being an issue you could use a dehumidifier. You might just need a few of the "rechargeable" silica gel damp bags in the cupboards that are at risk, remember to leave cupboards, drawers and especially the fridge ajar to let air circulate, a couple of towels or blankets you may already have in the van works a treat. I have 2 damp bags on the dash and 2 tucked into the rear kitchen pod (which gets cold and air doesn't circulate well) and check them whenever I take the van out.

Thanks for your reply, a run out to the supermarket is a good idea