This motorhome will be our home for the next two years. It will accompany us on our journey across Europe. Here, you find all details on our motorhome including the why’s – why did we decide for exact this model, why did we decide for the features we ordered.
We wanted a semi-integrated motorhome below 3.5 tons. The 3.5 tons were important to us because…
- …there are quite some streets where you are not allowed with cars above 3.5 tons. Especially many old towns prohibit larger cars.
- … you have to pay higher highway fees.
- … Christian does not have a drivers license for a car that weighs more than 3.5 tons.
Regarding semi-integrated: We recognized during our research that we could not find that integrated motorhomes offer many advantages over semi-integrated motorhomes, but cost approx. 20% more.
So, this is it. Our motorhome – Bürstner Lyseo TD 744.
We decided for this model especially because we really liked the layout of the motorhome. In contrast to most motorhomes in that class, it has two living areas – one “dining/work room” in the front and one “living room” in the back. That is possible because the master bed (well in our case the only bed 😉 ) is a lift bed.
Our motorhome is 7.49m x 2.30m large and weights in the basic configuration 3,050 kg. The weight is the roadworthy condition. That means: A driver with 75kg, an 11kg gas bottle, 23l fresh water and a filled gas tank is included in that calculation. So, we have 450kg to load.
That is really not much because we have to detract about 200kg that we definitely need:
- Passenger
- Second gas bottle
- 2 bicycles and one child seat
- General equipment like kitchen stuff, clothes, cosmetics…
(Rule of thumb: 10kg per vehicle meter + 10kg per person)
Therefore, we have only 250kg at max for additional equipment. That makes the weight the major influencing factor when deciding for or against a feature.
This is our equipment:
Bundles
- Chassis bundle: We chose this bundle mainly because of cruise control (very comfortable on high ways where you can’t drive faster than 100-110 km/h), seats upholstered in the same style as the living room (much more cosy when you turn the seats) and automatic climate control. At first, we actually didn’t want to take a climate control. We didn’t like the manual climate control in our rental motorhome. So, we thought we could save the weight. But it is really difficult to resell the motorhome afterwards without a climate control.
- Interior Design bundle: It makes it prettier which is important because the cockpit is basically part of the living room.
- Light bundle: The indirect lighting below the boards, in the kitchen and in the bathroom is just stylish and doesn’t weight anything 🙂 .
Body exterior
- Aluminium framed windows: Looks nicer and are more difficult to break in.
- Entry door Hartal Premium XL: In contrast to the standard door, the premium door has a window. This is the only window on the right side in the dining room. Additionally, this door is more secure because it has a better lock and two bolts instead of one.
- Roof vent in toilet compartment: Humidity and mold don’t stand a chance.
- Bicycle rack for 2 bikes: Well, our bikes have to be somehow fastened.
- Skyroof: That makes our dining room much brighter.
We decided against:
- Second garage door even though it would have been more comfortable – but not enough for us to rectify 8kg. We will solve this via a clever filling system.
- Fixed roll out awning – again not comfortable enough to rectify that the fixed awning is 18kg heavier than our solution. We will use a manual light awning that is not fixed.
- Central locking system for entry door. We did not miss it in our test run – on contrary, we actually consider it practical to close the entry door separately from the car doors.
Body interior
- Lift bed over central seating: that is the second bed in our motorhome [Update: We decided against this bed at last minute and changed our order. The reason is that it is really heavy, our baby won’t sleep in it alone and it would diminish our cabinet space]
- Isofix Child Seat Fastening: That is the standard solution and you need it if you want to travel with kids.
- Hight adjustable passenger seat: Since we turn the seats by 180°, they need to be comfortable for everybody. [Update: Even in the lowest position the seat is still to high for Conny to reach the floor 😉 –> Wouldn’t have been necessary]
- Seat heating: If you ever had one, you never want to miss it again 😉 and it doesn’t weight anything.
We decided agains:
- Fixed cab blinds: They would have been nice but they are rather heavy and don’t isolate.
- Carpet in cab: Would have been nice, but not worth the weight.
- Varioseat: Only necessary if you are driving with 5 people.
We abandoned all special equipment for the kitchen due to the weight.
Water system
- Heated wastewater tank: Although we plan to be mainly in warm areas, we will be from time to time in colder areas. Then, we don’t want to break anything by freezing. However, we won’t go winter camping for several weeks and therefore don’t need the separate insulation.
Electrical installation
- Solar panel Telco 1x100W: We need the solar panel to be independent of electrical supply from camp sites. During our test run, the battery went down to 70% during a normal evening and recharged again during the next day. Therefore, we just need one solar panel.
Heating
- Truma Combi 6 E: To save natural gas, we decided for this heating system. As soon as we are connected to 220 V electricity, the heating system automatically switches from natural gas to electricity.
We decided against air condition – we don’t use it at home – so we don’t need it here. Additionally, we have an automatic climate control in the drivers cab. see above).
Natural gas system
- Remote indication for CPU: This shows which gas bootle is used.
We don’t need the exterior gas point since we won’t cook or grill outside.
Audio / Media
- Radio Pioneer: We just need a simple radio. We don’t need a rear camera – we will help each other in difficult situations. We use our mobile phone as GPS – Google Maps is usually more up-to-date than any other fixed installed GPS. On top of that the multimedia system incl. GPS and rear camera would weight another 5kg.
- USB-Socket: To charge our mobile phones without an adapter.
We also don’t need any of the TV equipment. We don’t have a TV at home and we definitely don’t want to start watching TV while discovering Europe.