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Rockwood Trailers
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The Competition |
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Vacuum Bonded Walls |
Vacuum Bonded Walls
Rockwood RV walls are taken into a
"clean room" that the temperature and humidity is controlled, where they aren't
cutting 2x4's with lots of dust in the air. A giant press comes down on the
walls with several hundred pounds of pressure for several hours to give a strong
bond.
Rockwood Trailers have a vacuum bonded sidewall. This method is statistically 10 times
less likely to give you problems compared to the pinch rolled sidewalls.
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Pinch Rolled Walls
This how most manufactures still
put their walls together since it's too expensive to vacuum bond. This can lead
to delaminating walls where it starts to separate and moisture gets inside. If
this happens, most times the RV has to be taken back to the factory where they
have to fully separate the wall and then reapply it. It's about an
$8,000-$10,000 process. Make sure you don't buy one that is just pinch
rolled. |
| Construction |
Rockwood Trailers add wood
inserts in the Aluminum tubes in the base perimeters of the floors and walls for
an additional backer that gives you a tighter more secure fit. All aluminum
framing is double welded in Rockwood trailers.
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It's common in the industry to spot weld one side or
the other. |
Floors |
The Framed floor
registers on Rockwood trailers gives you added strength and support. Rockwood trailers heat ducts are
sealed. |
Most of the industry won't add extra framing around
the heat ducts creating weak spots where the heat registers are. |
Roof |
Rockwood Travel
Trailers have a Vacuum Bonded radius roof which sheds water. This thick roof
provides lots of insulation and strength to walk on the roof. |
Many travel trailers have flat roofs that keeps
standing water up there. They also don't vacuum bond the roof which makes it far more likely to delaminate. |
Heated Holding
Tanks |
Rockwood trailers. heated
pads operate off 12 volt and can heat the tanks while traveling down the road,
dry camping, or hooked up to 110 volt. The tank heaters are guaranteed to 11
degrees below zero. Rockwood trailers also puts heat strips on the dump valves for added
protection. Rockwood also encloses the underbelly for better tow ability and to
protect the under carriage from weathering. |
If the night is a little too cold and you accidently
crack your tanks, it a huge mess. If you don't have heat tape on the valves or
they aren't inside the under belly they are more likely to freeze open, shut or
break. This limits you to a shorter season with your camper. |
Awning |
Rockwood trailers' A&E
Awning has a 24" adjustable rain dump on both arms. Just press a button to open
or close. The fabric has UV & mold protection. |
Manual awnings tend to take longer to put up and take
down, don't have a rain dump feature and don't have flex like a power awnings
for those gusts of winds that come up suddenly. |
Sofa |
Rockwood trailers
Hide-A-Bed air sofa offers an innerspring seating surface, storage underneath,
and a queen 60"x80" 5" thick air mattress that power inflates and deflates. |
No one wants to sleep on that sofa sleeper because it
has that metal bar that goes right across your back and you would of probably
been better off on the floor. |
Windows |
Day Night Shades
offer Rockwood trailer owners adjustable light and privacy. |
Rattling mini-blinds every time the coach shifts.
Plastic clips that brake at the bottom. The blinds tend to get bent fairly
easily as well. You almost never see a used camper that has mini-blinds in good
condition. |
Table |
Rockwood's Solid Wood
table option comes with a table top extension to offer more seating space plus
extra storage under the seats for cards, games, books and more. |
Non-adjustable table. No storage under the chairs.
Hard to fit four adults comfortably around the table. |
Bed |
These beds in the Rockwood trailers.
bedroom have a standard 60"x80" Queen Heated Innerspring mattress that is
thermostatically controlled. This offers warm on those cool nights without
turning the heat on. There is an upgraded Serta mattress as well. There are
also swivel reading lights over the bed. There's also plenty of storage under
the bed. |
Lights
in the middle of the bedroom and even if there are two lights, they are usually
not swivel lights.
The bed is a RV "short queen" (60x74). |
| Suspension |
Rockwood's torsion
axles are maintenance free and give independent suspension for a smoother ride.
They have bearing buddies for easy maintenance. |
Spring suspension is standard out there. If you don't
have the bearing buddies, it's a lot more work to maintain the axles. |
Short bed truck
friendly |
Rockwood Fifth Wheels
have an optional Sidewinder Hitch that makes it so you don't have to get a
slider hitch with a short box truck saving you money, creating a lighter hitch
weight, and easier towing. Some short bed trucks (5 1/2' beds), you can't use a
slider hitch. |
Water test |
Forest River's
Rockwood trailers inspection building has rain booths that test the coach for leaks by drenching
the coach with the equivalent of 24 inch/ per hr of rain with 184 spray heads.
Every coach is tested for 15 minutes. Water is sprayed with the slides in and
out position, underneath, sides and top. |
Water leaks are the single biggest cause of damage to RVs.
How well built and tested are the others? |
Fantastic Fan |
This 10 blade Create a
breeze fantastic fan pushes over 900 cubic feet of air per minute. The benefit
is it can replace all the air in your RV in under 2 minutes and it will save you
from having to use your Air Conditioner as much. |
This fan it what
you see in most coaches and can push about 25-30 cubic feet of air per minute.
if it gets a little stuffy, you need to be plugged in at an RV site or crank on
the generator to turn on the air conditioner. |
Water Heater |
They also use a turbo water heater that gives you 16.2 gallons
of hot water per hour. While it takes up less space, it gives you more hot
water than a 10 or 12 gallon hot water heater. |
Most hot water heaters give you 7.4 gallon of hot water per
hour. |
Water Filtration |
Rockwood has a 10,000 gallon
residential water filtration system that filters all your water - both sinks,
shower, outside shower, all your water. This is great because that means you
can fill up at the RV site or maybe at a gas station when you get close to your
destination. That will save over 300 lbs of unneeded weight and you'll know
your drinking filtered water. |
Most campers
don't have a water filter and if they do it's just a sink filter. |
Black Tank
Flush |
Rockwood has a
built in black tank flush so that all you have to do to rinse your sewer system
is plug the fresh water hose on a port on the side and there are sprayers on the
inside of the tank. |
If you don't have a black tank flush you need to drag
your hose into your bathroom, open the toilet and spray the tank out after each
camping trip. You can buy an adapter spray wand to stick on the end of the hose
to stick in the toilet but that's not much more pleasant either. |
Roof |
This is an Alpha-Ply
Radius Roof with a 12 year warranty. This material stretches like rubber but is
lighter, oxidizes less under UV rays, chalks less leaving fewer streaks down the
side. Rockwood have longer rain spouts than most. Since the roof isn't flat it
sheds water. |
Rubber roofs leave more streak marks down the side,
require more maintenance and harder to clean. |
Locking Latches |
Our
Rockwood Roo hinged tip out bed walls have heavy duty latching & locking so
you can keep your possessions inside while you're not camping or your camper is
in storage. |
Usually you are going to see a metal flip that doesn't
automatically latch and you need a pad lock. It's defiantly not as clean of a
system. |
Expandable Bed
Support |
Rockwood Roo Beds are supported by an aircraft quality cable so
that you don't have to mount clumsy support poles. It is rated to hold 1,200
lbs. The cable is attached to the bed frame but to the structure of the unit to
avoid bowing and where the strength is. The steel reinforcement bar assures
that your bed won't bow overtime causing a gap when you close the door for rain
to enter. |
You are going to need to setup support poles each time
which is more difficult and the bed will start to bow over time because they
didn't put that steel reinforcement in there. |
ETC Windows |
Rockwood
ETC windows are European style windows that are standard with adjustable sun
shades. The tinted windows can remain open in the rain. |
normal windows. Maybe curtain to pull across and
maybe mini-blinds. |
Double Ducted
Air |
Double
Ducting through out the camper for even temperatures through out. A/C ducting
isn't available on the smallest floor plans. |
Air ducting on one side but not both. This creates
hot and cold spots in the camper. |
Rain Spouts |
Extended
Rain spouts |
Short rain spouts that drip down the side of the
camper creating |