How Will The Current Energy Crisis hit Holiday Park Home Users?

Despite the latest price cap, we are all going to be feeling the pinch when it comes to paying for our gas and electricity bills this winter.

While many holiday parks close over the deepest winter months (December and January), that still leaves several months over the winter when the holiday parks are open. Don’t forget that even in the summer months, how often inclement and unpredictable weather can require some form of caravan heating to take the chill off.

There are also still thousands who enjoy year-round living in full-time residential parks, so ensuring that your caravan is warm and inviting without burning through huge budgets is important.

We’ve highlighted several ways you can make a real difference to the temperature of your home. Fortunately, compared with traditional brick-and-mortar homes, it doesn’t take long for the static holiday homes to get snug and cosy, no matter how far down the outside temperatures are dropping.

With the updating of British Standard legislation BS3632 regarding park homes, the construction of all Allens Caravans static holiday and residential homes meets the stringent requirements of these standards. These standards relate to the basic requirements that make a home habitable, which include:

• Central heating
• Double glazing
• Walls, roof, and floor cavity insulation

As a result, your home is deemed suitable for cold weather habitation and in the normal course of events keeping them warm and dry during the winter months is relatively cost-efficient. However, the increasing energy costs will be putting pressure on even the most frugal of residents to find ways of cutting bills and keeping warm in more economical ways.

Check the windows and doors

If your home is relatively new, it will be fitted with thermally efficient UPVC windows, which are designed to be energy efficient. However, if you have had your caravan for a number of years, it might be worth investigating the cost involved in replacing the older windows with more advanced alternatives.

Today’s generation of double- or triple-glazed windows will not only keep in the warmth while ensuring your caravan is properly ventilated, but they will also keep it cooler in the heat of the summer.

Should I switch off the central heating in my caravan?

To save money, you might want to consider switching off your caravan central heating system, but this might actually be a false economy in terms of keeping it warm. Leaving the heating on in a static caravan but at a much lower temperature will help to maintain a more consistent temperature in a more economical way and ensure that any damp or condensation issues are eliminated.

Have you checked your energy appliances?

In older residential holiday homes, it may be worth checking the energy rating of your kitchen appliances. If they are more than a decade old, it may be worth budgeting to replace them with something which is more energy efficient. The most efficient are rated A+++. If you have a C-rated fridge (which it probably is if it’s more than a decade old), changing it to an A+++ rated fridge freezer could save you £113 a year on your electricity bill.

Other ways to preserve the warmth during the colder months which don’t cost the earth include:

• Carpets and rugs: thick carpets and rugs that are cosy on the feet are an excellent low-cost way of keeping in the warmth and adding a cosy element to your home. In many hot countries, rugs are taken up during the summer, then re-laid during the winter to help stave off the chillier temperatures. Following their lead will give you a great cheap way of introducing an extra layer of warmth and insulation to your home.
• Blankets: there’s nothing like snuggling under a soft, fleecy blanket to keep you warm and cosy while watching the seasons change outside your winter. Pile your sitting room high with bright, colourful blankets, which also add warmth and texture to your interior décor. The blankets are also ideal during the cooler summer months, too, when you want to enjoy those summer evenings when there’s a real chill in the air, but you’re not yet ready to go inside.
• Thermal curtains: we forget that window dressings not only add to the look of your static caravan’s interior, but they can also help reduce heat loss by up to 25 per cent if you have hung proper thermal curtains. They don’t have to cost the earth either, with a wide variety of attractive, modern designs available off the shelf in many home decoration stores throughout the UK.

If you would like to discuss how an Allens Caravan residential home could save you thousands on your traditional home’s heating and energy costs.