Wild Card wrote:
clevebrowns wrote:
@dutchmansport why would anyone need to be able to walk thru the rv w/o opening the slides? If u don't mind me asking. My DH and I are wondering if this is something we need to keto an eye on.
Not directed to me but... you dont want to have to pit slides out to load refrigerator or get to bathroom or bed room while traveling.
Exactly!
Examine your intended RV with the slides in. When slides are in, is the hall way from the kitchen to the bedroom blocked? Is the refrigerator blocked, the sink, the bathroom. Can you access the bathroom with slides in. If no, you may find yourself in a situation where you are not able to extract the slides and need access.
Overnighting in a parking lot. At home, if parked beside your house and there is not enough room to extend the slides. When traveling, and you just pull over the side of the road to use the bathroom. If you loose all electricity, battery goes dead, or you store your camper in a storage facility and have to pull the battery becasue of theft.
Then there is winter storage, pulling the battery, and if you need to access the camper.
If you sleep in the camper for an overnight, and you don't want to extract all the slides, can you get from the bed to the bathroom to the kitchen to the living room area without going outside from one access door to another?
My RV dealer recommended very highly, before extracting the slides, to make sure the stabilizer jacks were down on all 4 corner first. We have, on many occasions, done an overnight at KOA's where did did not unhitch. But the stabilizer jacks were always down before extracting the slides. Granted, with some RV's this may not be a problem. But suppose you are parked on a slope, right-left, unlevel and extracting the slides could cause a bind, and then you are in trouble.
How about when a very agressive wind and rain storm aproaches and you want to pull the slides in while camping to reduce the amount of space the wind hits? How about winter campering in the snow? Snow on the slide out is a pain to remove. When camping in the snow, slides are always in. Plus the reduced square footage with slides in makes heating and air conditioning easier in the reduced space. In extreme hot or cold weather, pulling in the slides to use the camper is a tremendous help.
Lots of reasons you would use the camper with slides in. And if you have to go outside to go from the bedroom to the kitchen because the kitchen slide with the refrigerator is blocking the hall to the bed room, and then the center island is blocking the refrigerator so you can't open the door of the refrigerator, or any cabinets, what good is it.
Lots and lots of reasons to consider the functionality, and the "what if's" with slides in. And for all the reasons mentioned above, except storage in a storage facility, we've experienced all of these. But mostly, sleeping an overnight with slides in, or pulling slides in in really threatening weather....we can still access everything. So, we are looking for the perfect front living room 5er that will allow access all the way from front to back with all slides in. (Haven't seen one yet).
