Advice for first time rv buyers

Welcome to the TH forum. Get a price quote from Holman RV. They will auto email you a low price. Bretz won't be cheaper but it gives you a starting point for negotiating if you want to buy local. What I've found is most MT dealers won't take as much off MSRP & you could actually save quite a lot buying out if state and either picking it up yourself or having it delivered. You will be dealing more with the service department than the sales department after the sale.

Any 4 season RV will require additional heat trace, insulation, etc. to survive a MT winter. Even in Flathead country. My aunt & uncle own a place at flathead lake Polson side so I've followed the weather for several yrs & if you did nothing to your toyhauler I guarantee your water lines would freeze up.

A Keystone toy hauler is not the best insulated toy hauler out there. And just to clarify that, I am referring to the quoted R-values, which I will explain later. Additionally, like others have stated, you are going to have to do some things beyond the norm to avoid frozen water lines, like drop a light bulb in the basement area and get some skirting. Dual pane windows will help a lot, but note that eventually they will lose their seal and condensation will appear between the panes.

Getting the whole family and dogs living in an RV is another thing that I have no knowledge to direct you on. I have a teenager, and I definitely wouldn't want to be stuck in there for months on end with her!...LOL, seriously. But you know your family better than we do, so that's your call.

Back to the 4-season RV part - This is a subject I have done much research on. Last I checked, Keystone was quoting R-31 for their floor and roof. You will want to check what they are quoting currently. Know that there is only so much insulation that can go into an RV, and the R factors don't tell the whole story, but they help differentiate some between better and best.

Nowadays, manufacturers are using either fiberglass or foam insulation, but most are using fiberglass. In addition to that, they are installing reflective foil insulation, which is usually a foil-backed bubble wrap with pretty high R values. The value varies with the type of foil insulation. So they are adding the R-value of the foil insulation and the foam or fiberglass to get an overall number. But remember - reflective foil isn't the same as fiberglass or foam as far as being a physical barrier. It primarily acts to reflect/deflect the inside temps back into the inside, and the outdoor heat/cold back to the outdoors.

I hope that helps you. :)

wow. so much to work on! LOL!
Fulltiming is not for everyone, including some families, but it certainly does not have to be detrimental to kids!!! Mine have been to 40 states, 90some National Parks, and met family they would have otherwise never met - not to bring up hundreds of other fabulous experiences that they would not have had if we were still in a house.
We are a family of 14 who has been on the road for 4.5 years - and all of our kids have traveled fulltime with us. We are down to 9 as they keep growing up, but they still love it, and the bigs talks about roadtripping with us.

My 2 cents is that I would not chose to spend a winter in Montana (we are from Helena (HI! neighbor!)), but it can be done. If you are hearty stock, you'll be just fine, tho you WILL have to deal with frozen pipes if you buy from any of the major manufacturers (I would love to have an Excel Wild Cargo 4 season ;) )...we've done it before when we have stayed through Thanksgiving, even with it wrapped and propane heaters underneath,and there were times when EVERY RV in the park was frozen. It's not going to kill you tho. If your kids are prone to squabbling, then you might go crazy, but it also might be good because they will have to learn to work through it. LOL! We wouldn't chose to spend our winters back home in an RV - we are in FL right now, but heading north in a few days to see off our oldest son who is being deployed. Without the freedom our RV gives us, we would never get to see him before he leaves!
Do your research, and make an informed decision for YOUR FAMILY...it might be just right for you. :)

PS - the salesman is just trying to sell you the rig - and that is WAY too much for that coach. You would save money ordering from Elkhart and driving out to pick it up. Keep in mind tho, that you will probably pay a premium camping fee during the summer since you are near Kalispell; I'd call around and ask winter rates AND summer rates (and keep in mind that electric will most likely be on top of them, not included) ;)

We full time in our toy hauler with one child because of unfortunate circumstances. I have heard many say that they are not built for it so never do it but we have been doing it for a year and a half and everything has been just fine. Homeless people don't have anything and they are doing fine to, you just have to make do with what you can at the time. Cold is not that much of an issue here but we have been in the teens (16 degrees) a few times. I have no tank heaters or dual pane windows and have had no problems. City water did freeze once but after I insulated it we have not had problems with that. For more cold areas I would recommend the pirit heated hose and make sure you have heated holding tanks or buy one just for the black tank as you most likely will just leave the gray tank open. For heat inside we use a radiator style heater (and we are on 30 amp service) so we are not changing out propane all the time and its quiet. Dual pane windows is a good option also or like me again I added reflectix to help insulate the windows. So it is doable but like others have said it depends on how your family will deal with it and with space a house is always better. Check to see what your payment will be with the rv and space rent and see if there is a big difference between renting a home or fulltiming and go from there. Good luck.

I will add my experience. I have a 38 Foot Forest River Sierra Sport. We lived in it in Colorado at 8600Ft for 3 years. We are a family of 4 Me, Wife, 2 boys 2 and 3 when we started and two medium to large dogs. We actually enjoyed our time in the toy hauler.

Our model is not a "Garage Model" In other words it does not have a separate garage. It is also a little on the plain side compared to many of the new toy haulers. One advantage is that it is kind of a big open box which meant we could put things like kids beds and some plastic stack able drawers to hold the kids clothes. Less permanent furniture made it much more flexible.

Our Sierra Sport is not a 3 season trailer and has exposed unheated tanks. I put a little effort into winterizing using heat tape on the fresh water hose and added a Black tank heating pad. Each winter we had a large rental Propane tank delivered and would get it filled once a month or so. I also added an on demand water heater inline to preheat the cold incoming water. That made the 6 gal water heater last a lot longer for showers. We did skirt the trailer one winter but that did not seem to make much difference really. We saw temps each winter int the -15 to -20 range but usually not for more than a week or so at a time. The months of Jan, Feb most nights were between 0 and 15 degrees. Summers were beautiful.

Overall it was a great experience. During the winters the RV Park basically closed. We were allowed to stay and one other couple stayed but everyone else was gone. It was peaceful and quiet. During the summers we got to know a lot of the regulars and still keep in touch with some. My kids spent a lot more time outside then they do now that we have a house and we did go out to eat more often than we do now. It really was a fun experience.

The RV Park we stayed at had a seasonal rate for the summer and with everything it ended up being around $350 to $400 a month. During the winter the rate was $250 but we had to add electric and propane and averaged around $500 with everything included. Really not bad for a family of 4.

Your experience might vary but we would do it again. It was kind of nice to have our costs so low each month compared to a house. After a while we really got used to it and did not really have that different of a life. Believe it or not my parents and some friends even came up a couple of times for a week or more and stayed in the RV with us. PM me if you have any questions.



EDIT: Resized image to fit the page.

Where's the pioneer spirit? The spit-n-resolve that our forefathers exhibited in blazing through this great land? Have we- as a nation- become so soft and "Oprah Winfrey-ized" that we run screaming away from anything that isn't 75 degrees and sunny? Instead of having a hot cup of java in the morning, have we now sunk into being a bunch of grande iced decaf mocca soy-milk latte drinkers? How much longer before there's a Prius in every driveway and Major league soccer playing on every TV?

LOL!the budman!
I agree - I said I wouldn't CHOSE to do it, not that we couldn't ;)
We have spent some seriously cold times in our RV - with the kids defrosting the ice on the INside of the windows with a hairdryer, strips of ICE on our carpet slides over the transition, and icicles hanging off the the to the ground ;)
Sure, it can be done, but after telling people for years that they can, I've found very few that actually can (at least not without complaining about it nonstop)! LOL! :)

blessdx11 wrote:
LOL!the budman!
I agree - I said I wouldn't CHOSE to do it, not that we couldn't ;)
We have spent some seriously cold times in our RV - with the kids defrosting the ice on the INside of the windows with a hairdryer, strips of ICE on our carpet slides over the transition, and icicles hanging off the the to the ground ;)
Sure, it can be done, but after telling people for years that they can, I've found very few that actually can (at least not without complaining about it nonstop)! LOL! :)

I see your point- but you have to understand that our family is so tough that when we go on vacation to SeaWorld, WE splash the dolphins and whales.