Bedding arrangements; gas bottle

[stanthecalivan]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new Cali owner (T5 140 SE), having just picked up my new pride and joy from the Leicester van centre this afternoon. That is, I'm new to Cali ownership, the van isn't new, but only six months old (it was their demonstrator).

Although I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions to ask once I get out and camp in the van, there are two questions I wanted to ask you all straight away - and that is to do with bedding and a gas bottle for the van.

1. What do you more experienced Cali users do for bedding?

- do you use sheets on the mattresses, and if so what type of sheets?
- do you take sleeping bags or duvets?
- where do you store the bedding in the van when you go away? of course, sleeping bags in stuff-bags aren't too difficult to store - but if you take a duvet, do you leave it loose on your luggage, or do you shut it into the upper roof space on top of the upper mattress with the roof closed (is that even possible?)

2. Where do you recommend I go to get a suitable gas bottle to put in the van, and what type of gas bottle do I need to get? Are they readily available?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Jerome

 

[Hotel California]

Gas , read this
http://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/camping-gas-bottle.4446/#post-39779
Or try searchfunction : campinggaz , ....
Bedding is a pesonal choice , we use sleepingbags
A sheet can be left on top of bed and close the roof , a sleepingbag or the most other things you best take downstairs before closing the roof .
There's the possibility of the roof beeing not fully closed caused by things left on top of the matrass

 

[motacyclist]

Congratulations on your new van Stan!

As Hotel says, bedding is a personal choice, we use a double duvet on top and put the mattress inside a single duvet cover (it fits OK). You can put the duvet in a stuff bag, but we just roll it up.

 

[larrylamb]

Hi, I think it is probably personal choice re quilts/ bags. We use a Coleman Hudson double sleeping bag and love it, great quality and packs reasonably small in a nice bag. There's no space really on top of the upper bed so we leave all our bedding and pillows on the rear parcel shelf along with our son's bag and pillow. We have the Comfortz mattress topper too.
The Gas bottle is a Camping Gaz 907, a quick Google will find your nearest stockist but shop around for prices. Sometimes you can pickup an empty bottle cheap on eBay and just pay for a refill as the deposit on a new bottle is quite expensive now.
Hope this helps

 

[stanthecalivan]

Brilliant - thanks everyone!

 

[dannosail]

We put our doulbe duvet in an Ortleib canoe back which makes it at least half the size by taking all the air out.

 

[Meoncoast]

My gaz 907 empty bottles were bought from car boot sales for under a fiver. Our local recyle centre / tip also is a place where you can pick them up.

 

[johnyboy]

We switched to multiple blankets as they are thin enough to remain in the top bed and still be able to raise it

 

[SimplyDubs]

We switched to multiple blankets as they are thin enough to remain in the top bed and still be able to raise it

To be honest, we raised the bed when camped with any bedding we have there... Two quilts, two pillows and a couple of cuddly toys... Saves bringing things down into the living area.


In answer to the OP's question, we use normal pillows, normal quilts, fairly lightweight ones (Think we got ours in a Carrefour when touring France a few years back. We've a fluffy blanket (Fake tiger... please don't judge ) that we use on the bottom bed sometimes to cover the leather seats.

A throw on the top mattress instead of a sheet.

All piled neatly on the rear shelf for travelling.

Rgds
Mark

 

[Neilgbj]

Many variants on beding no doubt but we use IKEA single duvets over the mattress (£7 each) and larger duvet type Outwell sleeping bags. All fit nicely and tidily, with two pillows each, into a sailcloth bag made by Jackyards.....not sure where we got our original gas bottle but have been using them for years and never had a problem sourcing one.....

 

[ChocolateEclair]

We sleep upstairs and have a double 'Hotel Memory Foam and Microfibre Topper' from Dunelm Mill - £129.99 which is VERY comfy and folds neatly in to 3 sections for storage behind the lower seat.

We also have a Jasper Conran (Debenhams) duck down double duvet (9 and 4.5 togs) which again is super comfy - been using the 9 tog for a couple of months but will switch to the 4.5 tog now as the 9 tog is getting a bit hot! We paid £120 for it when they were on special offer.

As they are duck down they 'squidge' down to almost nothing and we store it and 2 pillows in a 'SKUBB' storage case - 69x55x19cm from IKEA (£7 each). We have another 'SKUBB' for our clothes which sits neatly next to it on top of the topper. Good thing about the Skubbs is that fold up if you don't need them, they zip open for easy access over the back seat and 2 fit almost perfectly next to each other on top of the shelf.

 

[WelshGas]

I use the double , double sized, duvet from Argos. Each duvet is in its own cover, a third cover on the mattress. We then sleep on 1 duvet with the other on top, depends on time of year as to which way round. Sheet only if very hot. The duvets each go into a vacuum back and using a 12 v vacuum cleaner can be sucked out small enough to fit in the drawer. On site they stay up top or on back shelf if using the Cali.

 

[GrannyJen]

Goodness,

I saw the thread title and thought "who on earth takes a gas bottle to bed with them?" .....

I was definitely not going to go there

I use an oversized single aerobed, currently on offer from aerobed for £47, uses a high speed 12v/240v pump that gets it to firm enough for me in about 40 seconds. On top, and staying rolled up with it is a nice fluffy blanket from dunelm, and over the top of all of that and me I have a double bed sized duvet with tucks comfortably down the sides of the airbed. The duvet fits i a stuff sack, both the bed and blanket fits in the supplied stuff sack, both go on the rear shelf which holds nothing else.

My 907 campinggaz bottle I have supplied by gasbottlesdirect, probably pay a couple of quid more for the privilege of not having to go shopping for one, they just turn up at home and exchange full for empty. I often carry a spare, it powers my camping-gaz screw on barbie.

 

[alstevens]

Really useful tips above folks - thanks for the one about the single duvet cover over matress - I started out with a zonesleep downstairs - ok for me but my wife found it still too firm - then bought a 2" memory foam matress for £33 to cut to size and use under the zonesleep- both together I now discover just fit in a Tesco cotton duvet cover perfectly - the whole thing folds in three behind the back seat with room for duvet and pillows - better now than the bed at home ...... better and better ...

al

 

[Chris B]

We use a fitted bottom sheet with 2 pieces of elastic sewn on long ways underneath, worked on the R&R bed in our Bay so tried on the Cali, elastic keeps it taught if hooked under the seat cushions with duvet on top.

 

[Clive41]

We had a piece of foam cut to size to fit the space perfectly from www.gbfoamdirect.co.uk - we did look to order a cover from them but would have taken a few days so decided not to bother - without a cover the foam arrived the next day. Instead we just went with the same as people are suggesting above, slide the foam inside a duvet cover. Seems to work perfectly.

Hope that helps, its my first post so i hope i got it right.

Thanks

Clive