Hard Sided Pop Up Questions
Hello, We have RVed a lot over the past 40 yrs, mostly with TTs & a Sprinter MH. In 2011 we bailed on RVing to help finance a retirement home in AZ. I am now retired & we are looking at a Chalet or p...
Forum Discussion
I thought I'd weigh in a bit.
In 2009, my wife and I bought a new Pleasureway Lexor Class B on a Chevrolet chassis. We still have it and won't part with it.
That said, my wife has come to really want a "permanent" bed, so I started thinking and looking. I never really considered a "soft" side popup for all the usual reasons, but I did consider a "hard" side popup. Interestingly, there were but a few manufacturers - and I wanted to be able to pull it with our Pleasureway (I'd pulled a 3,500 lb utility trailer with it for over 40,000 miles) so that imposed some loaded trailer GVW constraints.
As we live on the east coast, I took a tour of the A-Liner factory in Pennsylvania, and liked what I saw.
But, in the end, we settled on a Chalet 1935 for four (for us) key reasons.
1. The Chalet XL series was the ONLY "hard" side to have a gray and black tank - though that may have now changed, I don't know. All the brands had a fresh tank, albeit small, but only the Chalet XL series had a gray tank (and, by way of a cassette toilet, a black tank) if it had the "optional" wet bath package. We had become quite used to having a fresh, gray and black tank in our Pleasureway.
2. The Kitchen layout in the 1935 model.
3. A 11,500 BTU A/C - when it's hot as "heck", 5,000 or 6,000 won't do. Gotta keep momma happy.
4. A permanent dinette - though just for two - and for us, that's plenty.
There were other things (like the electric "lift" of the roof) we liked as well, but those were the keys.
Yes, Chalet has had it's ownership ups and downs; and, it's made in Oregon - 3,000 miles away. The nearest dealer is over 2,000 miles away. But, I kept an eye on available dealer inventory - both new and used - and it took a year, or so, but I finally found just what I was looking for as a used unit, properly priced, but 2,000 miles away.
I phoned the dealership that had it - they thought I was kidding when I told them I'd simply make the drive, look at it, pay for it, hook up and drive home. An eight day trip all in.
But, today, we still have our Pleasureway, and we use it to pull our Chalet XL1935. Everybody's happy.
The only "missing" element on our Chalet, and it's true of all popups, is that there is no generator. We quite like having a remote start genset in our Pleasureway, but there's no way to do that reasonably on a popup. So, we carry a Honda EU2000 for the popup. If we're going where we'll need the A/C, and there are no power hookups, we take our "companion" EU2000 and, in parallel, they'll power the popup with ease.
So, these days, we use our Pleasureway as the tow vehicle, the daytime runabout (and it, of course, has all the comforts of home - DW sure likes that), and our Chalet is where we spend the night.
It works for us.
Cheers.
In 2009, my wife and I bought a new Pleasureway Lexor Class B on a Chevrolet chassis. We still have it and won't part with it.
That said, my wife has come to really want a "permanent" bed, so I started thinking and looking. I never really considered a "soft" side popup for all the usual reasons, but I did consider a "hard" side popup. Interestingly, there were but a few manufacturers - and I wanted to be able to pull it with our Pleasureway (I'd pulled a 3,500 lb utility trailer with it for over 40,000 miles) so that imposed some loaded trailer GVW constraints.
As we live on the east coast, I took a tour of the A-Liner factory in Pennsylvania, and liked what I saw.
But, in the end, we settled on a Chalet 1935 for four (for us) key reasons.
1. The Chalet XL series was the ONLY "hard" side to have a gray and black tank - though that may have now changed, I don't know. All the brands had a fresh tank, albeit small, but only the Chalet XL series had a gray tank (and, by way of a cassette toilet, a black tank) if it had the "optional" wet bath package. We had become quite used to having a fresh, gray and black tank in our Pleasureway.
2. The Kitchen layout in the 1935 model.
3. A 11,500 BTU A/C - when it's hot as "heck", 5,000 or 6,000 won't do. Gotta keep momma happy.
4. A permanent dinette - though just for two - and for us, that's plenty.
There were other things (like the electric "lift" of the roof) we liked as well, but those were the keys.
Yes, Chalet has had it's ownership ups and downs; and, it's made in Oregon - 3,000 miles away. The nearest dealer is over 2,000 miles away. But, I kept an eye on available dealer inventory - both new and used - and it took a year, or so, but I finally found just what I was looking for as a used unit, properly priced, but 2,000 miles away.
I phoned the dealership that had it - they thought I was kidding when I told them I'd simply make the drive, look at it, pay for it, hook up and drive home. An eight day trip all in.
But, today, we still have our Pleasureway, and we use it to pull our Chalet XL1935. Everybody's happy.
The only "missing" element on our Chalet, and it's true of all popups, is that there is no generator. We quite like having a remote start genset in our Pleasureway, but there's no way to do that reasonably on a popup. So, we carry a Honda EU2000 for the popup. If we're going where we'll need the A/C, and there are no power hookups, we take our "companion" EU2000 and, in parallel, they'll power the popup with ease.
So, these days, we use our Pleasureway as the tow vehicle, the daytime runabout (and it, of course, has all the comforts of home - DW sure likes that), and our Chalet is where we spend the night.
It works for us.
Cheers.
