A FEW YEARS back, a journalist friend of mine bought an old Elddis two-berth, for fun weekends away with her husband. “It's a bargain,” she said, “just £800!”
To be fair, it looked quite smart, with no signs of damage or decay. But while I wasn't going to say anything negative, I was a little sceptical that a van so old would not have a few hidden gremlins, just waiting to devour her savings.
In the end, though, that caravan never left her driveway. Crestfallen, she soon revealed that her cute tourer was riddled with invisible damp. Having sneaked in through failed seals, the moisture was lurking between its sidewalls and internal panelling, gnawing away at its wooden structure, creating a trail of decay and unjustifiable expenditure.
Dangers of damp
That unfortunate caravanning incident was a salutary lesson in the dangers of damp and the malevolence of moisture.
Aesthetically sound leisure vehicles can be consumed by damp and mould without anyone knowing. But there's no need to despair, for salvation is at hand!
Of course, 100% body integrity is the Holy Grail for all caravan manufacturers, but despite their best endeavours over decades of building leisure vehicles, the problem still hasn't been eradicated.
These days, the evolution of impressive new materials and clever construction methods has helped to improve things quite dramatically – although bouncing a big box along our pothole-riddled roads can still reveal nasty flaws in a caravan's build, even
