Hi, we have just discovered this site and cannot say how pleased we are about it. We are the Weller family from Oxford, we have converted a 1973 leyland atlantean double decker bus into a motorhome. We are 14’ 10" high, 31 feet long and 11.5 tonnes. We are intended to travel around euorpe initially from calais down to spain and we are unable to find information on bridge heights. Could anyone kindly help. We are both class 2, HGV licence holders. We have the truckers UK map showing bridge heights but cannot find anything that helps with bridge heights or weight restrictions in europe. We would like to know a safe route through france to spain, staying off the toll roads where ever possible. All help would be gratefully appreciated.
Welcome Aboard Wellers
The general rule in Europe is 4 meters. However if running France and Spain generaly 4.2m is OK. You can obviously find bridgeless routes as used by the guys who do “Oversize” loads.However they require ■■■■■■ vehicles and special permits. 
Member jj72 is the best man to get a hold of for better accurate advice on “over height loads”
Perhaps you could pop a photo or 2 in the PhotoForum
doubledeckerliving:
We are 14’ 10" high,
Is there anything you could do to get the height down by two or three inches? Suspension mod, low profile wheels for example? It would make life a hell of a lot easier.
that is high - upto 4.45m you could generally run “anywhere” in france and spain but should have a permit (valid upto 3 years) but over that you should really have specific permits and / or (France only) a given route
try googling “convoi exceptionnel southampton” and give rosie a call, we don’t use them for permits but they’ll be much more user friendly than the frenchman and spaniard we use - sure they would be able to help you out (for a fee!)
Sounds like a bog standard double decker … would those convoi rules apply to that as it is ‘simply’ a bus?? Way too heavy a question for me and as jj said… asks the specialists and not the man down the pub.
Michelin Maps Road Atlas of France has bridge heights and weight limits marked on it, but they are quite small and in red.
You have to look for them along your route at the planning stage otherwise you can easily miss them (I’m going by my 2001 atlas for this, they might have changed things since then)…
As jj said try rosie, if no joy there let me know and I’ll give you the number for the guy we use in france. He’s english but lives out there and does all our permits for boats moving through europe upto 5metres. As he is a top bloke i’m sure he would give you some free advice over the phone.
Boatman:
As jj said try rosie, if no joy there let me know and I’ll give you the number for the guy we use in france. He’s english but lives out there and does all our permits for boats moving through europe upto 5metres. As he is a top bloke i’m sure he would give you some free advice over the phone.
Would that be Terry? If so, he is the bloke we had when we moved the pods for JJ. I dont think he really liked being associated with sweaty truckers 
A bit beyond his normal life sipping gin with yacht captains
Thanks for everyones help, I will try Rosie on Monday and also the Michellin Atlas. Anyone interested in taking a look at what we are up to our site is.
www.usonthebus.com (hope I haven’t broken any rules by putting this in). By the way we used to run a truck stop at Junction 8a, M40. Dawn’s snack bar. Anyone know it?
What an interesting project, good luck with that!
Wheel Nut:
Would that be Terry?
no, sounds more like peter goff or his son russell
By the time you get Cliff Richard, Una Stubbs and the rest of them on board won’t it drop a few inches with the weight?
Spoke to Simon at Convoi Exceptional, he was filling me with dread about permits for spain that are route specific and escorts through certain places. Would we be classed as an abnormal load just because we are over 4 metres high. Does anyone know what the height cut off limit is for each country, do these permit apply to commerical vehicles only or any vehicle. Help me please, surely if Cliff did it, we can be going on a summer holiday too!!!
doubledeckerliving:
Spoke to Simon at Convoi Exceptional, he was filling me with dread about permits for spain that are route specific and escorts through certain places. Would we be classed as an abnormal load just because we are over 4 metres high. Does anyone know what the height cut off limit is for each country, do these permit apply to commerical vehicles only or any vehicle. Help me please, surely if Cliff did it, we can be going on a summer holiday too!!!
although i don’t use them they do know what they’re doing - not much good coming back and asking for his advice disproving is it really? (not being rude)
legal limit most european countries is 4.00m (france and UK are anomalies), and as the limits are partly due to bridge height restrictions, they apply whatever type of traffic you are - being non-commercial doesn’t mean you’d miraculously sail under a 14’6" bridge at 15’10" does it 
sad though it is, what went in the swinging 60s doesn’t now in the wonderful standardised, normed-up modern europe - take a look in the “oldies” forum at what some of the old ■■■■■ got up to back then in trucks for god’s sake 
doubledeckerliving:
Spoke to Simon at Convoi Exceptional, he was filling me with dread about permits for spain that are route specific and escorts through certain places. Would we be classed as an abnormal load just because we are over 4 metres high. Does anyone know what the height cut off limit is for each country, do these permit apply to commerical vehicles only or any vehicle. Help me please, surely if Cliff did it, we can be going on a summer holiday too!!!
I’d say the height cut-offs for each country are probably based on trucks, but IMHO you’ve already spoken to the best source of info at Convoi Exceptionnel. Tony, Simon and Rosie are very knowledgeable and they’ve been plying their trade for longer than I can remember.
I did some escorting of large/heavy vehicles in the UK for them in the 90s and IMHO, they really know their stuff.
BTW, once the guys have sorted out the details, Rosie deals with setting up the job.
She’s got a better language qualification than mine. 
Not having enough battery on my mobile left my conversation with CE cut short and whilst waiting for an email reply thought I would ask for help on the forum. I have no doubt about CE’s extensive knowledge and am grateful for being pointed in their direction. However we didn’t want to have a specific route as we wanted to explore rather than having to go to a specific place. I also didn’t know about permits and wondered if this applied to HGV vehicles as we are now classed as a motorhome even though it doesn’t change our height it changes things like how much tax we pay and what type of MOT we need etc. Therefore it makes you unsure of what rules apply sometimes.
doubledeckerliving:
Not having enough battery on my mobile left my conversation with CE cut short and whilst waiting for an email reply thought I would ask for help on the forum. I have no doubt about CE’s extensive knowledge and am grateful for being pointed in their direction. However we didn’t want to have a specific route as we wanted to explore rather than having to go to a specific place. I also didn’t know about permits and wondered if this applied to HGV vehicles as we are now classed as a motorhome even though it doesn’t change our height it changes things like how much tax we pay and what type of MOT we need etc. Therefore it makes you unsure of what rules apply sometimes.
Hi,
I found this LINK about vehicle dimensions for you.
I’d suggest you have another chat with CE, because Rosie would know which organisations to contact regarding whether the height rules would apply to motorhomes.
I hope this helps.
Just a thought but have you considered contacting the AA or RAC to see if they can help?
Diesel dave, thanks for that link, as you saw it doesn’t mention motorhomes so I am not sure what would apply to us. The AA and RAC can’t help as they only deal with run of the mill cars and motorhomes. Lots of motorhome forums only deal with purpose built motor homes or maybe large RV’s that don’t have the same problems that we have and most classic or double decker buses don’t get turned into motorhomes to travel europe we therefore end up in a grey area. I have emailed the spanish embassy, vehicles department to see what they say. I will call CE again and try and speak to Rosie
TheBear:
Sounds like a bog standard double decker …
Not quite Bear, there are generally 2 heights for double deckers.
the standard height - 14’ 6" (are you sure you are not this height, that 4 " could make a difference
Or the lowbridge 
double decker at 13’ 10". In Cornwall we usually ran the “lowbridge” Bristol VR although another firm has 14’6" leyland Olympians (aka limp-a-longs )