TVan how hot are they?

Barb

in this weather make sure its water proof!!!!

damn rain :-((

Hi Barbara.
I have had my Tvan Canning since May last year. I do not know much about the Kimberley. But I love the Tvan. Regarding the heat. I took it to Cape York last August 2009. When up the coast and back down to Sydney inland, did not have any problems with heat. It has two skylights that open one forward and one rear facing, which give a good air flow. With the tent up, the rear window flap can be raised on poles to give plenty of air flow. As far as towing goes, The Xtrail tows it with no any problems. I love the ease of putting up the tent. I'm up sitting with a cuppa while others are still working on theirs. Plus the best thing is when it is wet. You just open the back and jump into your ready made bed. Saves having a wet tent to pack away. Make up a Thermos and you have a cuppa ready in the morning. Shut the back and back on the road. Cheers. Steve.B...

Hi Barb I have had my Tvan since 2004 and have travelled in all conditions and have had to camp in some shadeless places, air flow is good with your 2 hatches open and fly screens. A few Tvaners have 12v fans which would help.
Here is a picture of me and a friend camped at the only space left at Walch Point Port Warrender in the Kimberley in July 2006 it was hot in the sun but by nightfall it was ok, also there was about 20 pairs of red beady eyes in the estuary just bellow.

No more or less space than any hardfloor camper.

One doube bed, and the tent section can be used for anything you want approx 2.2 m x 1.8 m (calculated guess)
Then there is the awning, with or without walls

Biggest benifit for me is the flexibility. Traditional hardfloor campers need to be erected in full even if you only want to use the bed. With the TVan you have the choice of not erecting the tent section.

Secondly, the tent does not fold onto your bed, a big plus as the canvas is alsways wet in the morning from rain/dew. No damp bedding.

CJ

Hi Barb,
We are new Tvan owners, but one of the reasons we got it was because for a simple night camping, you just lift up the back door and keep it open. Ours has a slip-on mozzie net to cover the rear opening.

If you drop down the rear canvas you have 2 screened doors and a full height rear window.

Cheers
phil

Barbara

Only got mine last week, had a 3 month wait for it so this weekend was the first time to use it.
We went up the coast to Grey, and got a mxture of weather, heat, cool, humidity and rain.

Although the roof vents look small they actually move a lot of air, it may be because the flap also acts as a funnel, or becasue the back is so open the air moves through well.

We had to shut down some vents because of rain but we still had air movement. I reckon if may be worthwhile having a 12 volt fan installed just to move more air.

The vents give air flow so ireckon if you close al the flaps and doors in the tent then you wont get airflow so you will get hot.

Alan

First thing to ask is 'what's wrong with the Kimberley Kamper'? It seems like a lot of money and mucking around when it really is hard to fault the KK.

Picked up our Tvan last November. We recently worked out that we have slept in it 29 nights since then! Admittedly, a lot of that was in our back yard... ;-))
We had friends come up for Xmas, so we gave them our bedroom and we slept in the Tvan. When they went home, we stayed in it for another week, then packed it up and went away camping for a weekend! LOL...
To get to your question about ventilation, I was really surprised at how much air flow there is. It is quite comfortable in there, although we are looking at a 12v fan to create a little more air movement. The other thing that surprised me, is that with the soft floor trailer, I would wake at first light every morning, sometimes frustrating when everyone around me is still snoring..... but the Tvan stays a little darker inside giving me some more sleep in time. If I need to be up earlier, I just set an alarm.

The thing that made up our mind in favour of the Tvan is the ease of set-up, and the different options for set up. They are a class unit!!

Cheers

Brian

Hi Barb,

We've had our Tvan a little over 4 years now and think it is a great unit.

In respect to heat in the van, we believe it is as no hotter than other gear will be on those really hot days, in the tent section. It is noticeably cooler in the fibreglass section.

We've added some simple mods to try to insulate the tent section a little.

1. We installed carpet to the inside of the fibreglass hatch, which becomes the roof once erected.
2. We leave the plastic mesh carry bag attatched to the hatch on hot sunny days and attatch it to a couple of long tent poles and use it as a 'tropical roof'. We've found a couple of awning flap restraints work well to attach the mesh to the poles.

These mods were worth the doing. If I was to do it again I would paint the inside of the hatch a darker colour prior to adding the carpet.

In respect to someone elses query re sleeping more that two, another simple option is the sleeping annexe which zips onto the rhs of the tent section. A sown in floor, and two poles.

Hope this is of interest.

Rob.