A morning quickie if I may...question that is.....

Duh · Guru

A morning quickie if I may...question that is.....

Golddetectornomad · Senior Member

When GN folk mention the length of their vans, what length are they quoting? My Jayco is internal 16'11", it is actual body length 19', however overall with A frame and sullage equipment box it occupies 24'. road space......soooo relative to oft quoted lengths on this Forum is mine a 19' Van?.......I still relate to feet and inches better than metric.....when I was in the Bank we would receive memos describing the latest bandits details....they would quote say 172cms......I didnt know if I should be looking for a masked dwarf or John Wayne...Lol......but if they had said he was 5'10 3/4" I would have known to a hair breadth how tall he was.....do other GN's still relate better to feet and inches like this old warhorse?......Hoo Roo

GaryKelly · Guru

Yep, I still think in feet and inches, and prefer miles per gallon. And horsepower. But even the Yanks and their pounds in relation to body weight (humans) and cars/trucks confuses me. If a bloke weighs 12 stone I know what it means. But 168 pounds? Gimme a break. I still use words like 'quid' and 'bob' when I talk about money. And cheap watches. :)

Grams · Guru

I'm 51, so quite young here, but I grew up with inches and feet, and then had to learn metric later. I do both measurements, and the metric conversion web site is my best friend...

When I hear something is 180cms, I know its 6ft, so if its 184cm I know its a bit more than 6ft. I just keep converting it in my head.

Les unfortunately measures things in inches and says they are cms....not a very good idea when you are buying planks of wood for something :( So I make him measure everything twice, and write down whether he measured it in inches or cms.

gwb · Senior Member

We usually refer to our 7.2 metre van as 24 feet, we have never been asked for the travel length at a caravan park but in saying that some of our friends have.
Geoff and Bev

Onedodger · Guru

To be crude most want the length of the box. So a caravan has a external body length of 18feet then it can be called 18ft or 5.5 Meters.

However when fitting into a space the driver needs to include the total length including Draw Gear and rear spare.

But most van parks only want the box size usually in feet.

jimricho · Guru

GaryKelly wrote:
Yep, I still think in feet and inches, and prefer miles per gallon. And horsepower. But even the Yanks and their pounds in relation to body weight (humans) and cars/trucks confuses me. If a bloke weighs 12 stone I know what it means. But 168 pounds? Gimme a break. I still use words like 'quid' and 'bob' when I talk about money. And cheap watches. :)

I can't think of a more useless measure of fuel consumption than miles per gallon. We buy our fuel in litres not gallons and measure our distance in kilometres not miles and have been doing so for the last forty years! This makes converting to mpg a completely pointless exercise and introduces a further possibility of errors. For mpg to be any use for estimating range and trip planning it then needs to be reconverted back to a meaningful metric measure. If comparing with USA numbers keep in mind that a gallon in the US is only five sixths of an imperial gallon.

On the subject of advising caravan parks the length of my rig I tell them 4 metres body length and 6 metres overall. I've been asked what that is in feet by receptionists who weren't even born when the nation converted to metric.

At 70 years of age I do at times still sometimes think in imperial but have no trouble dealing in metric and prefer to do so as it's a much easier system if approached with an open mind.

Duh · Guru

Just as a matter of interest, fuel etc and most things change to metric in 1974 although decimal currency was earlier than that (1966 ).

See this link for 1974;

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_exact_date_was_the_metric_system_introduced_to_Australia_for_measurement

If you scroll down on the next link below it shows the dates of conversion for various things;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Australia

In 1970, the Parliament of Australia passed the Metric Conversion Act, which created the Metric Conversion Board to facilitate the conversion of measurements from imperial to metric. A timeline of major developments in this conversion process is as follows:^[1]

1971 the Australian wool industry converted to the metric system.
1972 all primary schools were teaching the metric system alone. Many had been teaching both imperial and metric and later, metric alone since Australia changed to the decimal currency system in 1966. Horse racing converted in August 1972 and air temperatures were converted in September 1972.^[4]
1973 all secondary schools were now using the metric system.
1974 large scale conversion across industries, including packaged grains, dairy products, eggs, building, timber, paper, printing, meteorological services, postal services, communications, road transport, travel, textiles, gas, electricity, surveying, sport, water supply, mining, metallurgy, chemicals, petroleum and automotive services. Most beverages, aside from spirits, also converted to metric units by the end of 1974. The conversion of road signs took place in July 1974. There was a publicity campaign to prepare the public.^[5]
1977 all packaged goods were labelled in metric units, and the air transport, food, energy, machine tool, electronic, electrical engineering and appliance manufacturing industries converted.
1987 The Real estate industry converted to metric.
1988 Metrication completed, with the metric system becoming the only system of legal measurements in Australia.

-- Edited by Duh on Saturday 6th of April 2013 04:46:54 PM

GaryKelly · Guru

Who said anything about using mpg as a measure? I simply said I still think in mpg. So if a car does 30mpg on the highway I know what it means, just like I know what 6 foot means, or a hundred yards, or a 60 foot frontage, or 35 foot boat, or the tray on my ute which is 6 feet by 8 feet, etc. I'll leave all that measuring stuff to people who care about it.

Beth54 · Guru

When I bought my Lulu 2nd hand, she was advertised as 11ft. I haven't seen too many that are advertised in metric actually.

A while ago, I was curious about where the 11ft is measured so experimented a bit and found it to be 11ft box length. I haven't measured the overall length, I guess I should know that. confuse

With CP's I just say i30 towing a Viscount Nipper. They generally know what I'm describing.

Duh · Guru

I always told the CP's the overall length (travelling length) from the ball to the rear including spare wheel or bumper, whichever was poking out more.......otherwise they try to squeeze you into a small spot.....

arthur · Veteran Member

Golddetectornomad wrote:
When GN folk mention the length of their vans, what length are they quoting?

Goldy, whatever length yours is, someones will always be longer! wink