Dandy wanted

Hi all

I have had a trailer tent in the past but found it a real pain packing them away when wet then having to get it dry again, then i discovered the Dandy and this seems a perfect solution as i need to camp in winter as well as summer for the sport that i do. Hence i am looking for a winterised Dandy, not to worried about the cosmetic appearance but must be safe and working order, please please email me if you have a Dandy for sale minimum 4 berth i only want to spend about £1000 but will go over that if its a great Dandy. Im in the midlands and im happy to collect.

thank you

Claire751

  to the forum,when you see winterized stated make sure the walls are double skin as well as the roof,some sellers dont understand what it means.

Welcome to the forum Claire, we're only to happy to help 'your' Dandy find you - because I think people on here will agree that's what they do.

Make sure you keep an eye on the Dandys for Sale thread because if/when people spot them that's where they post the details.

Hi Claire and welcome to the Dandy Campers, I'm sure you'll find your Dandy finds you soon enough x

Claire.

Hello and welcome.

I'm sure everyone will help as best we can but try to have a bit of a read through here as much as you can.
Though not overly capacious for those of us with an XXL sizing the beds on all the Dandys are doubles (OK then ³/₄qtrs) or within 4 " of that. So all Dandys have at least 4 berths. If you need a more definite 4 Berths we will need to discuss your requirements.

Okay I've come across a 1996 designer and my understanding is that this particular model has insulated walls and roof as standard? Does that mean it's winterised? Usually I,ll be using it for weekend stays in fields in winter so unlikely to have hook up facilities very often? Although I would like to do longer stays on campsites during the summer. Riva leisure are also selling a 1990 discovery for about the same money what's the pros and cons if each model? I've also been offered a winterised 1997 destiny slightly out of my price range? Also I might have to move and erect this thing on my own at times, thought on what would suit me best would be greatly appreciated :-)

Winterised isn't standard, Dandy's were made to order so some are winterised and some aren't ........ it all depended on what the buyer wanted at the time. They all have insulated roofs but insulated walls were an add on as were underfloor heaters and even awnings or sun-canopy's, some don't even have the brackets to fit either of these.

If I were going in winter with no EHU then I'd be looking for fully winterised with an underfloor heater, Designers are my favourite of all the Dandys   The beds can be quite heavy to lift over on your own so look for something with gas struts or you could get some fitted when your ready, now would be a good time to buy a Dandy as prices can shoot up in the spring, they tend to come down again later on as more become available.

Thanks Helen, I was looking on rival leisure at the models and it was on there that it said the walls are insulated as standard on the designer unlike the destiny which is optimal I was also to,do the heaters can be dangerous and told you can plug in a heater which will run off the battery? I am leaning towards the designer and it's at the right price

I know of a couple of designers without insulation and my daughters discovery didn't have it either, we have never had a problem with our heater and love it as do many others on here. So long as you blow it through with a compressor every now and then to service it.

The Riva site is talking about the later models which were dark blue. These were fully insulated as standard but by then, they had discontinued the underfloor heater. The modern gas heater has a fan and needs 12volt power from a battery or mains hook up. This is considered noisy by some and runs the battery flat if used for a long time. At your budget you can only afford a light blue or earlier, so probably best to go for a light blue and many of them were fully insulated.

When you look at one, if the inside PVC walls at the foot & head of the bed are white inside, it is insulated. if the inside is light blue at top and bottom and white in the middle is not. In other words, if the inside is the same coulur as outside it's not. probably the majority of insulated light blue dandies also have the underfloor heater. The discovery at Riva is not insulated and you can see the wall colours in the photos.

The discovery is the same size as the designer but has a long bench forming a settee instead of the table in the designer. It also has an extra locker to the side otf the kitchen. I think the discovery has more internal storage than the designer, but the designeer's table is useful and I think, looks nice. There is room for a free standing table in a Discovery as the floor space is 4 feet wide.

We have a dark blue designer with sun canopy and an underbed skirt. This is easier to put up than a full awning, yet still gives us outside covered space and storage.

If you want an awning, make sure you get one with the dandy as it coluld be a long wait before one comes up for sale in your colour and dandy model type. You may find the awning a bit much to put up on your own, but although I haven't tried it, I think I can put the sun canpopy up on my one with a bit of thought.

Good luck in your search. We bought ours in about May. Early in the year there weren't many for sale and they went for high prices. Then more came on for sale and the prices gradually dropped until a point where people just refused to sell them any more at such low prices. If you can get one now, it will probably be a good price but by February they will, be sky high again.

claire751 wrote:Thanks Helen, I was looking on rival leisure at the models and it was on there that it said the walls are insulated as standard on the designer unlike the destiny which is optimal I was also to,do the heaters can be dangerous and told you can plug in a heater which will run off the battery? I am leaning towards the designer and it's at the right price

No Claire don't look at the rival sites stick with looking at Riva. (Predictive text or overactive speilchicker I presume)
I go pretty much with what navver said. If you look at Ian's (Riva's) Dandys for sale you will see a 1990 Discovery. This is the same size as a Designer (as already said) as you can see this one is not winterised.
Who expressed concerns about the heater? This is not some antiquated internal fire where the power of the heater had to be gauged against the room size and the ventilation like this sort of thing.    

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They are an externally flued heater that takes up no room space.

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See [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The only heaters that "run of batteries" are gas heaters that require batteries for fans and various sensing circuitry, like [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] If you think about the amounts of energy involved then heating has to be through mains electric or gas. There is no battery that could supply several hundred watt for an hour let alone kilowatts for several hours per night.

Personally I would take an uninsulated Dandy with a heater rather than an insulated one without. Why? Because the standard Dandys level of warmth is way above that of a canvas trailer tent. Think about it there is no wind at all passing through the fabric. So no wind passing through also there is the difference between when the wind passes through dry canvas and wet canvas. The Dandy doesn't suffers from wind chill as well as there is no wet  canvas to chill the interior through [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] This or any additional insulation still doesn't make a cold tent warm. Be it a chill at the end of an evening in summer or minus five (or -15) a heater makes all the difference. The benefit of a gas heater possibly combined with a gas fridge is that they free you from reliance on mains electric. The cost of the electric is not just the £3.00 to £5.00 charged per night for the electric but the fact that the cheapest sites tend to have limited EHUs or no hook ups.If your sport comes complete with an area to pitch your Dandy and the possible use of electric then you may elect for an electric heater, otherwise the Riviera heater is a prime accessory.

If you can Claire try and have a go erecting a Dandy. They are not the lightest of beasts. You may be fine, you may then consider gas struts on the beds or you may be put off completely.

The above piece about the heater was meant to offer information and not to be bombastic. Please tell us what concerns you have heard of?

Hello and   claire751

As you have probably realized there is a wealth of help and information here.
Good luck in your search for your Dandy, it will find you, they always do.  

Ok ive been to look at a Dandy Destiny 1997 today which is winterised but has no heater, there is no leisure battery with it but otherwise it looks good and i helped the guy pack it away so i decided to leave a deposit, whats the best way to heat this camper money is short as the camper is more than i planned to pay and i plan to camp at the beginning of Feb and there will be no electric hook up, im feeling very nieve about how everything works?

ps i was only told that the vent can become hot with small children? not that it was actually dangerous :-)

I have to say I have stood on the grill of our underfloor heater in socks with no problems and it's never marked the rubber soles of any of our shoe's either, the dogs have also spent years camping with us and one was old and daft and we had no problem either. We have a granddaughter but she hasn't tried to stick her fingers in there ....... yet   I found our younger dog 'avoids' the heater. the old daft one passed on a few years ago and that wasn't because he fried on the heater but because he was 17   I will stress that we don't have the heater on full but only ever use it as low as it can go because it gets far too warm inside if we have it any higher. Perhaps the grill would get hot if we didn't use it as low as we do but we haven't had to have it on any higher   

Congratulations on finding your Dandy, as for heating without EHU then I should imagine you'd need some form of gas heater and they get hot too, we have used gas lamps for years and they give off heat but get seriously hot to the touch ..... I know because I burned a hole in my old sleeping bag when making the bed ... sort of stuck it to one of my lamps  

Thanks Helen I was hoping i could just plug in a small oil filled radiator that i have? but do i need a leisure battery to make the sockets work if so how do i source and fit a battery?

I'm not sure any leisure battery would run a heater   

ok thanks anyway hot water bottles and lots of sleeping bags and duvets it is in February it is then! lol the chap said i can run the fridge off gas or electric is this correct?

You can run the fridges off 12v, gas or electric   don't take my word for not running a heater off the battery, I just don't think you can   

Hi Claire & Welcome,

I read your thread and was a little puzzled at your reference to a fridge because as far as I am aware fridges were never fitted to Designer models as standard equipment so I assume what you may have bought with the Designer is a portable fridge, possibly one made by Electrolux, Dometic or Royal.

If it is a portable fridge it may run on 240 volt supply, a 12v supply and/or gas.

To check what fuel source you can use, look at the back of the fridge and, if there is a mains lead it will be OK for 240, if there is another lead with a car cigarette lighter plug on the end then it can be run on 12v and if there is a brass gas connector together with controls for gas and electricity (usually to be found under a flap on the top of the fridge) then you will have a 'three way fridge'.

The best way to use it is to hook it up to 240v the day before your journey to cool it down and run it on 12v during the journey (if you have no mains supply using the 12v connector to power the fridge from a leisure battery when on site will not be practical because your battery will soon be discharged).

Once you have got to a site use either gas (you will need a regulator connected to a gas bottle in order to do this and it is perhaps best to use propane in February - propane gas is contained in the 'Red' Calor Gas Cylinders and will evaporate in colder weather - Butane in the blue cylinders will not evaporate in frosty weather) or electricity when on hook up.

If your Designer has a built in fridge then this will most likely have been installed by a previous owner so it would be best to find out what model the fridge is and have a look on Google for the operating instructions.

Fitting a 12v leisure battery and wiring this in is not difficult to do but before you plan on doing so, bearing in mind you do not anticipate you will be using electric hook up, do you have the means on your tow car to keep the battery charged? You will need both 12N and 12S sockets on your tow car; the 12N one to power your Dandy's road lights and the 12S connection to charge your battery and run a fridge.

It is also possible to keep your battery topped up using solar panels but much will depend upon what you anticipate your power usage will be. Helen is correct, using a 12v leisure battery to power any heating device without an in-line charger is not an ideal solution and if you were thinking of using the battery to run things like space heaters then this really is a non-starter.

It may be best to list the electrical items you anticipate you will use and for how long typically you plan to use them, this will include lights, the electric water pump and any other appliances you have in mind so that you can gain an idea of the size of battery you need and how many 12v electrical connections it would be best to install if these are not there already.

I know there are many articles concerning 12v supplies and batteries on here and if I find any I'll try to post links to them.

Hope you find this helpful in the meantime, and welcome!

Sorry ive bought a Destiny not a designer so the fridge is standard, im finding it all very confusing and have no idea about electrics or gas or wiring looks like i will just have to pick things up as i go along? :-/

Doubt i will need the fridge in Feb so thats something and im only there a couple of nights so as long as i have gas i,ll manage it will be warmer than a tent thats the main thing! lol

Hi Claire,

I'm sure a Destiny owner will be along soon who can put you on the right track!

The Destiny has a 3 way fridge to use this without an electric hook up ('EHU') you will need a supply of propane gas and a propane regulator.

If you are in any doubt about how long the length of rubber gas pipe has been installed, then renew this to be on the safe side, The propane will also supply the cooker hob installed in the Destiny so it is definitely worth going for if you intend to use that.

Lights and a 12v system will have been fitted to the Destiny (your fridge will run on 12v when being towed - there will be a switch on the front panel which is used to change over the supply between 12v, 240v and gas. Further controls set the temperature.

To start the fridge when on gas, make sure the the cylinder valve on the propane regulator is open and the selector on the fridge control panel is switched over to gas, then depress the gas supply knob whilst pressing the ignition button. You should be able to see a blue pilot light through a peephole somewhere either in the bottom of the fridge or underneath it. When this lights, stop pressing the ignition button but keep the knob depressed for a few seconds until the thermocouple warms up - about 20 seconds should do it.

If you find the model number of the fridge then full instructions should be downloadable from the manufacturer's web-site.

There should be connectors for a battery in the front box (I believe that is where the battery is stored on a Designer, but look around for two thick cables with quick release or other clamps on them. There may also be a mains connector plug either on the side or underneath the Destiny somewhere, usually this is under a small flap or sealed with a weatherproof cap. The plug itself will usually be coloured blue and white.

If the Destiny is wired for mains and I suspect it will be, you will need a mains connector lead to link to the site EHU.

If you get stuck, please send in photos, these can help others offer assistance, alternatively if there is a Dandy meet close by consider joining that for advice or if you know a caravanner the systems are pretty similar so there could be help from that quarter.

There are advice notes and information sheets available on other Dandy sites as well as from the Camping & Caravan Clubs which may help.

Sometimes these information sheets can seem a bit overwhelming but connecting up is easy and I feel sure that anyone on a meet will be more than willing to offer help.

Thanks KB ive just been watching you tube videos on how to put it up, the chap had a great looking heater in his, i guess this might be something i could get fitted at a later date? the sellers have included a gas bottle and a EHU but no battery i looked in the front box and couldnt see anything but noticed the trip switch box was under one of the seats, when i get it home i will put it up and have a good look round and take pictures if there is something i need help with, thanks for all your help so far!