Have you ever lived in a caravan on your parents' drive while renovating...!?

[bungalowroofonit]

We've never even been on a caravan holiday since we were very, very wee 30 plus years ago so need all the tips and info you have!
For a start is it just a bonkers idea and if so, why?

This is in the south east on a suburban street on the driveway/paved front garden of a detached bungalow - so not a huge space but enough for 2 adults and no kids to sleep/work for up to 6 months.... as long as it takes to gut and renovate and extend our tiny 2 bed bungalow a few streets away.

How does it all work? How would we connect electricity, use the loo, do they have showers? How do you heat them?
Would people be able to hears us farting, shouting or having sex - ideally not all three at the same time but one never knows!!!

Would you buy a caravan and sell it afterwards or can they be rented? which would make the most sense financially?

We would need a living area, shower/loo, 2 beds - one for quiet office type work.

Do we connect a hosepipe for water - how does the caravan heat the water - where would we empty the loo?
Anything about poo and wee would be helpful.

Could people walking by on the street hear our telly late at night? (about 6 feet away.

Is it legal? Are there any major issues to think of - do you regret doing it...

Please... just tell us anything you can about the wisdom, or not, of doing this!

Our neighbours lived on their own driveway in a rented mobile home whilst their home was rebuilt. They needed a larger home as had 2 boys.

We camp a lot and have a Motorhome. If you have never stayed in a van before you could find it difficult for a long time. Will your parents let you use their lounge/kitchen/bathroom etc and just sleep outside?

You connect the van to the electricity supply via an EHU (Electric Hook Up) that you would plug into your parents house. Most vans have gas & electric heating and you could run additional plug in heaters. Calor/bottled gas is used as well. A combination of both make the warmest.

Toliets are fine and everything is collected into a cassette underneath. If you use "green" fluid in them you should be ok emtying it every few days into your parent sewer (down their loo or lift the drain cover). Or just wee in it and use your parents loo for anything else (There are ways of laying loo paper in the loo to "catch & wrap" any deposits making cleaning easier.

Hot water is available if you have electricity. In a caravan with no water tank you would need to keep Aqua rolls full. We can carry 120 litres on our van which allows for showering etc.

Hot water bottles and warm bedding are a must. TVs could be heard outside if you have it loud and people are close, but normal volume shouldn't bother any neighbours.

Cooking in a small space is fun but most have gas Cookers/hobs and you could run a microwave & halogen oven.

Hop this helps.

Thanks Milliways - that's really informative - privacy is an issue with the parents - in two ways - they have no sense of our personal space but are very sensitive about us entering theirs!

So, we probably would try to avoid using any of their house rooms/facilities if we could except for the totally unavoidable it might end up being better renting a mobile home on a local caravan park because of the potential for problems with the parents but we thought it best to get some kind of understanding of the issues before doing that.

We're not really sure how the costs would compare between renting a mobile home over the winter/spring on a local site and renting/buying and then selling a caravan to have on the parents driveway.

Will have to find out how owners rent out homes over the winter too.