# M/H And water ??



## kezbea (Jan 5, 2008)

We have a good friend that runs lovely C/L in Devon and all the bits go with it E/H toilets, showers, laundry room, tv hook up
and all for £8.00 a night.

The problem he has is that m/h are booking in for one night and then filling up with full tank of water and as this is on a meter he makes no profit on the night stay.
He doesn't want to upset his customers but what else can he do. 
suggestions would be appreciated.
Dave


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## coppo (May 27, 2009)

Yes, a difficult one this.

The Stellplatz German/French Aires system is good where you pay and a set quantity of water comes out.

He will have to bite the bullet and risk upsetting some people by limiting the amount you can have, poster up maybe on the water point, but then he has the problem of how many nights you have to stay before you can fill up.

A lot of people fill up, us included, before we leave a site.

Put the site price up to compensate?

Paul.


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## gromett (May 9, 2005)

How much is water per ltr? I thought is was around 0.2p per liter?
If so my 150 Liter tank would cost £3.00 to fill. My tank is rather large. Most are between 70-120 I think so £1.40-£2.40.

I would have thought leccy would be more expensive to be honest?

Are people travelling to your site, stopping one day filling up and leaving with a full tank and this is the majority of your visitors??

The quick answer is if Costs > Charges then he needs to charge more.

Karl


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## Rosbotham (May 4, 2008)

It's better than that Karl...you're out on your calculations.

United Utilities is £1.45/cubic metre, and a cubic metre is 1000 litres, i.e. 0.145p/litre. If your tank is 150 litres, that's 21.75p for a fill up. To be fair you can probably double that because the water company assumes you put the same down the sewers.

If a campsite owner really wants to have the 20p off me, I'll let them have it....

Paul


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## bognormike (May 10, 2005)

basically he's not charging enough! Electric, showers, toilets all for £8? I would have thought the water supplied was insignificant compared with electric.
our water company charges 63p a cubic meter. apparently there are 1000 litres in a cu.m , (just found that on wikipedia!) so that makes it £0.00063 a litre - 100 litres fill up would be about 6.3 pence.


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## bognormike (May 10, 2005)

you beat me to it, Paul. I knew our water was cheap, and that confirms it!!

Obviously if you factor in the waste water charges it goes up, but still not significant.


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## cobaltkoala (Sep 11, 2006)

Just recently calculated this on our 70L tank and the cost to completely fill Water tank + toilet tank (7L) is 4.7 pence in Bristol.

Not sure how an £8 a night can go from profit to loss on such a small charge unless his profit is based on 4p a night to start with. LOL


Nor interested but filled up at my Mums on meter and she thought it would cost pounds. not pence.


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## DTPCHEMICALS (Jul 24, 2006)

Hi I think your friend has got his sums wrong.
Mind notthing wrong with having a basic price and 50 p for a fill up is there.

Dave p


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## JeanLuc (Jan 13, 2007)

A more logical business model would be £8 per night including water. Additional charge if you want use of the showers and EHU.

Is the problem that your friend feels a bit put out that motorhomes are using water from him for another location? If so, that is the reality of motorhoming. His MH customers are probably arriving with water on board which they have got somewhere else, and using it on his site. This contrasts with the caravan customers who arrive empty then fill those roly-poly things (several times) then leave empty.

I suggest some gentle explanation might make him see that the motorhomers are not out to "rip him off" by taking water off site.

Philip


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## Suenliam (Mar 22, 2006)

Hi Dave - I too think £8 is so cheap for what is really a small fully fledged campsite. Other than not having hoards of others around, from your description sounds like a campsite to me rather than a simple CL.

Sue


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## Penquin (Oct 15, 2007)

It sounds like he is offering too much for too little........

As regards the cost of water - we now have a (VERY) metered system in France, last summer we filled up the swimming pool, 25,000 litres and used water throughout the time that we occupied the house - say a total of 12 weeks.

Our annual bill for water was €130, which we did not consider to be excessive considering a washing machine was run most days, we washed up several times a day with more than one bowl of water, we showered or bathed every day - with sometimes 5 people using the shower and of course we flushed some away to the septic tank.

So our annual €130 charge is about €11 per day to include the cost of the water for the pool - hardly a massive amount.

The cost of electricity is a much more significant charge both at home and for the MH - and if the site is open during the cooler months (June, July, August for recent UK summers! :lol: ) then undoubtedly some people will have been using electricity to heat their vehicles when they were in them relaxing ("well we've paid for the electric we might as well use it"  )

That is much more likely to have made the difference between  and  as regards cashflow IMO.......

Dave
(Not an economist as you may well realise  )


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## Sonesta (May 10, 2005)

Oh deary me - it does sound like your kind hearted friend is being too generous and not using his business head! 

Some small campsites charge a flat rate for the pitch and then additional fees for water and EHU etc. Maybe this would be a better idea for your friend to try? That way everyone (including your friend) is hopefully happy and everybody is then being charged a fair rate applicable to the services they wish to use or need.

Keep us all informed with what your friend decides and how his customers respond to the changes.

Sue


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## Solwaybuggier (Mar 4, 2008)

Basically I'd agree with most posters about your friend's charges - the days when CLs all charged £3-8 seem to have gone, those with EHU seem to be £8 min, while more campsite-like facilities (toilet, shower) seem to bring charges to at least £10. (Or at least that was what we found recently in Yorkshire.) Shame, really, but most of us like the extra facilities I suppose.

I'm sure there are cheaper CLs around still, but the normal range does seem to have gone up significantly.


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## Rosbotham (May 4, 2008)

Got to be honest and say I hate that style of pricing Sue. Nothing worse for me than a site that prices at £8 then wants another £2 to be on hardstanding, £X to have EHU, inexplicably £1 each for the dogs, a charge to roll out my canopy, charge because I've towed my car etc. Even if it works out as cheaper than all-inclusive, I always think of it as just penny-pinching and wonder whether the owner's got CCTV watching my every move for using something that hasn't been paid for. I once saw one which looked good value at £12, but when I worked out would be £25 for us...no thanks.

The site is under-priced....going rate around here is between £12 and £15 for a CL with EHU, toilets & showers. May be a bit more in Devon. I'm surprised the CC didn't help them on this - owner of my fave site was saying recently that they'd initially intended to charge £8 (indeed that's what the book says), but CC inspector had told them they were selling too cheap.

Paul


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## 747 (Oct 2, 2009)

The water costs that have so far been put forward will be Domestic rates. As a Business user, the site owner will probably be paying a whole lot more and then I suspect there will be other issues and costs on top of that.


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## Andysam (May 10, 2005)

Sounds like a well specced CL. Charge £8 per night and £2 for electric. Sorted.

You'll have to go some to use £2 of electric in a "camper" unit, the water really doesn't even come into the equation.


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## Mrplodd (Mar 4, 2008)

Name the site !!!

At that price I think I will full-time it there :lol: :lol: !!!!


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## kezbea (Jan 5, 2008)

Mr plod

On a C/L you cant full time and yes its a C/L
Dave


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## Rosbotham (May 4, 2008)

747 said:


> The water costs that have so far been put forward will be Domestic rates. As a Business user, the site owner will probably be paying a whole lot more and then I suspect there will be other issues and costs on top of that.


Don't know about Devon, but metered rates are the same for resi and business for United Utiliities - see business, residential, £1.457/cubic metre. Sure there are lots more fixed charges for business, but the owner needs to pay them regardless of whether someone with a motorhome fills up or not.


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Presumably his water is metered so he knows how much he is paying for it. If his water bill is very high then maybe there is a leak somewhere in the system. No matter whether he is being charged as a business or as a private user filling the tank in a van could not cost more than a few pence. A leak running at a constant trickle would soon waste a few m3. It's quite possible for there to be a leak but no indication of it on the surface, especially on sandy soils.

When I was young I worked on a 20 acre nursery with irrigation everywhere and miles of buried pipes. One water bill was huge and we could only assume a leak, eventually after much digging and following pipes we found it and cured the problem, Alan.


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## Jezport (Jun 19, 2008)

I suggest he puts a coin meter on the shower, say 50p to offset against the cost. Or he could also add on £2.00 for EHU


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## Ken38 (Mar 24, 2009)

This all seems a little strange. It's perception overriding facts.

One would expect a nightly stay to use showers, toilets and EHU, so charges must reflect that. If I were to be charged extra for the shower I would wonder why I was on a campsite.

I would probably expect to top up water every fours days, so if I were staying on a campsite for one night I would fill up at one in four campsites. With the actual cost of water being around 50p for 200 litres I would expect that to included in the charges.

I cannot fill up on every 1 night stop and its random where I need to do that. So I would expect one in four MHs to be filling up.

So it's a perceived problem not a real one!

If he feels it a problem charge £9 for one night and £8 per night for two or more.


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## Caggsie (Aug 19, 2008)

We tend not to fill up until we get somewhere. But we only fill up what we expect to use for the duration of that stay. Ie weekend. If it's a longer hol then we fill up at the first and then as and when required aiming to be close to empty by the time were due to go home. But sufficient for flushing and washing of hands on return journey. I would have thought having a meter in the shower may be a way of recouping costs, alternatively charge £10 a night, still be cheaper than the commercial sites and they are making £2 more, which is more than the cost of the tanks of water according to the calculations.

I agree with previous poster that we can't be using/filling up much more than caravans, who at the end of their stay will have to ditch the water to move on. Now that is wasteful. We take it with us and use at other locations.


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## silkcut1105 (Aug 7, 2010)

well come on where is this place in devon at that price its worth a look .why dont he put a time meter on tap like they have in garages for air at 50p


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## Freddiebooks (Aug 9, 2008)

Sorry if someone has already said this, but i'm pushed for time to read them all.

Some sites for example may charge £10 pernight and £60 per week. This way some of there long stay regulars won't be stung too hard by the fly by nights.

Freddiebooks


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## Pard (May 1, 2005)

I suspect the angst about the water charges in particular is due to the fact that South West Water's charges are the highest in the country, and that its residents, 3% of of England's population, pay to keep the waters off 30% of its coastline clean substantially for the benefit of all those visitors from cheap water areas who visit to surf and swim. The economic benefits to individual households are less than crystal clear to all. However, I'm inclined to agree with other posters that, with a site which can take no more than five vans at a time, of which I'm guessing only a minority will be motorhomers filling up, his maths may be a bit off the mark.


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## kezbea (Jan 5, 2008)

Thank you all for your advice, must put some of it to him.
but the C/L is just a hobby and not a business and he loves doing it

To look it up go to page 342 caravan club book 20011 / 2012 at
Crediton Mr/ Mrs pengelly.

Don't be upset if it goes up to £10


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## Andysam (May 10, 2005)

For CC members: http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/planni...cated-locations/site-detail?Id=26223&pgrf=map

Location and site specs are superb. I don't think anyone would grumble with £10 per night.

BTW, if he is having expensive water meter readings he has a leak and should get it investigated.


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