Campervans in Marina area?

Shutting a thread is a mod decision and I see no reason to do that at the moment. It feels more likely that some of the immature responses will earn those posters infractions or bans.

Keep it civil & on-topic please.

That's odd, the Campervan icon with a line through it is usually accompanied by a no-overnight message. It could mean one of two things.

1 - No campers at all which is hard to enforce if the vans are taxed, insured and with a valid CVRT. (Usually circumnavigated with height restricted barriers eventually).

2 - Appeasing complainers, put signs up and do nothing which is very common.

I noticed today a load of campers in the carpark of the church opposite the mardyke (the sacred heart). Wonder if they have to pay...

The second larger signs weren't there on Thursday.

Sustainable holiday option? Are you smoking some funny stuff?

Campervans have the carbon footprint of about 5 diesel SUVs each, they are notoriously polluting. Miles per gallon is off the charts it's so bad, they use diesel to do the laundry, pump anything, watch TV. A standard house is far less polluting than an SUV, and a standard hotel is even more energy efficient again per person.

IF, and it's ONLY if they stay in an ecofriendly park, with sustainable water, power and sewage facilities they can offset maybe 10% of the damage they do, but in general they leave a trail of unmitigated pollution, unmanaged waste and untreated sewage in their wake. Plonking an ineffective solar panel on top of them almost as a decoration does not make them eco-friendly by any means. You have to park in the blazing sun for that to work, which cooks the residents. campervans park in the shade.

Marina car-park is certainly not a sustainable place for a campervan.

To be ecofriendly, try driving your ecar or cycle your bike, or take public transport to stay in a standard hotel, connected to mains water and mains sewage. This is many times better than the enormous ostentatious personal diesel transportation people take to smear their family excrement on a place of natural beauty.

I get that people are struggling to find housing in Ireland, that is a different issue. But drop the utter gobshittery about campervans being eco-friendly, nothing could be further from the truth.

Where are these ecofriendly "mains" you're plugging into in the Marina car park exactly?

And on the rest… Let me google that for you… An average trip in a campervan is approx 350kg carbon… a short-haul flight Cork to Paris is about 240kg carbon.

Nice carbon emission link for you here:

https://co2.myclimate.org/en/calculate_emissions

Here are some more links specific to campervans..

https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/essays/is-vanlife-ecofriendly/

https://www.ispo.com/en/sustainability/how-does-sustainable-vanlife-work

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/04/ethicalliving.lifeandhealth1

Nice try. For 4 people to fly from Cork to Paris is almost 2 tonnes of carbon.

Lol. Campervanners are stereotypically frugal so fuel is not going to be wasted hence the prevalence of solar panels and battery installs. Unlike SUV drivers outside schools or down in the Marina carpark they're less likely to leave their engines idling and less likely to drive 1km just to go for a walk.

There has to be a sanity check here - the footprint of a couple driving down to Cork from Donegal has to be less than a couple flying from Cork to Paris.

Wow, this is all over the shop. They're not the devil you make them out to be.

Modern campervans are based on small or medium van chassis with the van engine. Fiat Ducato would be one such base vehicle. Extremely efficient and clean running modern diesel available with a 1.9 or 2.5 litre engine. These are no bigger than some of the jumped-up SUVs you see around the place and just as clean so I don't know how you think a campervan has the carbon footprint of 5 SUVs.

Granted, not all campervans are modern so wouldn't be as clean as a sub-10 year old Ducato but you must remember that they do, on average, a couple of thousand miles a year. They certainly aren't doing the 10 minute school run every day that those bloody SUVs do. Campervans tend to also be used on longer trips, not slow urban traffic crawls, so they're operating at peak efficiency for most of their driving time, unlike those SUVs crawling through traffic on the school run.

I don't know what you're reading but campervans do not use diesel to do laundry or watch TV. How is that even possible? Some have gas heaters for water, and most have large batteries, which the engine charges when the van is driving, which then feeds electricity for a small TV or charging tablets or phones. I've seen people fire up generators, which annoys me, but most of the time it's a "leisure battery" which will supply you with power (and solar panels can and DO help keep those topped up too).

Hopefully this doesn't come across as condescending but I hope it educates you a bit on the topic. It's unfortunate when people get up on their high horses and pontificate without knowing the real story.

The charging is done while the van is on the move. As in, driving, on the road. Same way as a normal 12V starter battery in every internal combustion vehicle in the world is charged while the vehicle is on the move.

Make sense?

All vehicles use their fuel to power batteries. SUV’s, planes, trains, ferries etc… 
The point remains, Campervan’s are one of the most sustainable ways to holiday. 

Look, I'm neither pro or anti on campervans but the fact remains that using diesel to generate electricity for leisure or utility uses isn't very clean or efficient. It would be like using a diesel generator at home rather than plugging into the grid.

On the other hand, some of the claims made regarding inefficiency of campervans here were completely off the wall, particularly in comparison to air travel and "5 SUVs"!

Im seeing tents down there now aswell with people living in them by the looks of it

The local ninnies will getting the council to move on people who have run out of options now. Talk about kicking people when they're down.

Weird how some on this thread who claim to understand the first law of thermodynamics don't understand the simple idea of a battery being charged by an engine which is, at the very same time, propelling the vehicle. Same as any other internal combustion engine vehicle really. By definition you're going to be mobile in the van so it makes sense to use that energy to charge up a system you can use when stopped. It's clean at the site you stop, it emits some pollution, mainly CO2 when on the move, same as any other ICE vehicle.

There are some campers which, to my mind, are more like mobile homes, I kinda wonder why the people in them bother leaving home at all given they've taken the house with them BUT….most camper vans aren't like that so it's unfair to say they're a "hyper-privileged combination of….". The barrier to entry for a campervan is fairly low. If you're handy, you can build your own as time and funds allow. Many people do. Some even do them in such a way that you can still use it as your daily vehicle too, two jobs in one.

But look, that's not convenient to this thread. I don't know why but you're trying to drag this down the culture-war route by making it into an issue of privilege etc.

A win for the busybodies and curtain twitchers.

The carpark I mentioned in my neighbourhood has had the same treatment, signs are up and I can only imagine ugly height barriers are on the way because of one busybody that doesn't actually use the carpark.

9 months after you first complained it seems. Wow.

Happy?

Hope being the operative word here.

The long-termers in their campers and caravans haven't disappeared - they are now dispersed around the suburbs and I'm willing to bet that most of the original complainants who were so concerned about the disposal of waste and rubbish haven't given a subsequent thought to what might be happening with that waste now.

But at least the good citizens of Blackrock and Douglas can now park their oversized electric SUVs closer to cake & coffee.

It's funny isn't it. All about the optics and perceptions.

There were barriers there previously. The two clubs are given keys to open them.

Unoriginal classist cliches might win you a few likes but they won’t win any debate.

Oh noes, someone's having a pop at well off people!

Yes.