Welcome to Eriba Folk forum.

We had a Cali until quite recently and it towed our Troll very well. Having the extra beds did serve the grandchildren well, but eventually we had to sell the van.
I did change the fixed towbar for a detachable Westfalia one because my shins were getting a little sore.

I hope you will enjoy traveling with a caravan as much as we now do.

Alan

Having started out with a van without a hot water boiler we found that there was something very nice about having hot water on tap whenever you wanted, rather than having to boil a kettle, or washing in cold.

Horses for courses. The opposite view - we have no hot water or onboard tanks. The washroom basin is purely used for teeth cleaning. We bought a Hozelock camping shower, 1 kettle of hot water, 2 of cold, pump it to pressurise and hey presto enough water at the correct temperature for 2 showers. We set it up in the awning, works for us.
In the end, it’s your Eriba, you do what suits you.

Is your hot water supply gas or electric powered ?
I note you mention a hot water tank : what's the volume and where is it located ?
Don't understand the water system on the 420 yet but it seems there is a cold tank of 12L in the kitchen and in the bathroom. Doesn't seem a lot.
I believe the taps are all hot/cold mixers so I am somewhat surprised that a water heater is not standard equipment.
BTW I think our days of coming back from the beach covered in sand, salt and suncream are probably past; more likely to be wine stains, dribble and foot powder. 😁

Yes the removable Westfalia hook is the one I think we're going for too.
Quite a pricey item but of course there is quite a confetti of wires to accommodate.

It's getting quite exciting - I think our first 'trip' will be down to the New Forest sometime in the summer; always been our testing grounds for tents and campervans, nothing too rigorous. Not like when we took the VW Cali to Scotland last September when the weather got very "interesting".

Is this the sort of thing you fitted?

https://leisurelines.net/malaga-water-he...-240v-785-p.asp

Think this maybe a project for the winter months - keep the enthusiasm going through the wet weather !

The standard water system on Touring vans is a plastic water container under the sink and basin with a pipe attached to the tap and a pump on the other end that drops in the container. This can only provide cold water, uses up cupboard space and means each tap's water supply is independent. More integrated and hot/cold systems are available as factory fit cost options or as retro fit by caravan techs or DIY.
Some people refer to the hot water boilers on caravans as hot water 'tanks' which can be a bit misleading as it suggests a separate tank to the water heater itself. I've never seen or heard about such a separate store of hot water. Caravan boilers/water heaters tend to store the hot water themselves and as hot water is drained off they draw in more cold and warm it up. The simplest version of a water heater is a Truma Therme which holds 5 litres, has a set temperature and works on mains only. The Propex mains electric water heater looks similar to a Therme but holds 10 litres, has a digital temperature gauge and its temperature is adjustable. It costs a bit more than the Therme but both are somewhere around £150 last time I looked. Fitting will add substantially to that.
Gas/electric boilers give you the ability to heat water when without a mains hook up, but they generally come in at around £500 and will cost more to fit as you need gas piping as well as electric wiring.
We had a Malaga water heater on one of our campervans and it worked fine, though we had no shower so the hot water demand was relatively small. Hymer seem to specialise on fitting Truma gas/mains boilers rather than Propex.

Sounds like it's an amended standard system. I can't think why Cernay would have got into the complexity of different standard piping for a front kitchen models
When all the standard requires is a pipe/pump/container under the sink/basin.

Yes, PF Jones are the guys for the tow bar - wife booked this morning.

When you get the wiring done, make sure the Body Module is correctly encoded so the Cali is adjusted for towing. PJ Jones is a good supplier of both the towbar and wiring. The California Forum, as always, is a good source of knowledge.

Alan