Can Anyone Tell Me What Year....

Wowowowowow...how is anyone ever going to be able come to a conclusion wood vs aluminum?

From my perspective the bottom line is rot. The poster lives in LA and as long as the only RV'ing you are ever going to do is in the warmrth and dryness of southern Ca, Az, and Nevada, your choice of building types is moot. If, however, you are going 'all over', then one needs to be aware of the potential for rot. RV's leak if not well maintained, usually thru the clearance lights, front facing window ...do NOT get one with that...and rear caps, and any seams (some cheaper RV's have seams in the front cap).

You don't see RV's/trailers/TC's just laying on the side of the road having come apart. Unless they have been in an accident, of course.

Triple E's are metal frame.



Gary Haupt

BTW, Rexhall uses pressure laminated walls and roof all framed in steel. These steel structures are then welded to the floor and each other creating a box frame around the entire structure.

True that Airstream has been using aluminum framing since the 50's but they were extremely expensive to build and not for the average or even upper average consumer's budgets or even close. The first volume pull behind RV builder to use square strong aluminum tubing in place of wood with having the same spacings between structure members and even welded it on both sides was Carriage Corporation back in the late 1970's on some models. They still weren't cheap but affordable the a much larger portion of consumers. The way Carriage built their aluminum RV cages was considerably stronger than their wood counterparts. By 1990 Carriage Corp used only aluminum structures in their towables.

Today, about all RV manufacturers using aluminum structures build with very few studs and using thin walled materials thruout including the headers and roof trusses etc in their aluminum RV cage constructions. Then they glue or bond a thin sheet of material on one or both sides to stiffen it more. Yes, it is a much lighter but weaker structure than the average old wood cages and it works OK for several years. However, over time the lack of frame etc support rears it's ugly head in flexing and sagging or buldging or bond/glue break free in the stress areas.

You can see it for yourself in CG's and on dealers used lots, usually in their budget section and it's obvious. Research and know the difference in actual aluminum cage constructions etc so you don't get burnt down the road with structure issues.

With aluminum cage structures, frame rot is basically eliminated as the surface materials can be replaced if they succumb to age or rot issues. Not cheap but doable. The cage itself still usually remains basically intact. Remember, an RV etc is no stronger than is base (chassis frame) it sits on which is almost always a welded steel frame and some are very weak while others are very strong. Homes require good footings for the same reason and they don't travel down bumpy roads. Weak steel chassis frames further allow the RV cage construction to flex more and thereby causing RV issues you do not want. Usually makes wood rot seem a much easier fix or repair as wood is easier to wrok with in general.

Yes, I much prefer and purchase properly constructed aluminum structure RV's but buyer beware and educated. Much to learn!

IMO, there's nothing wrong with wood as construction material for RV's. It is more about the techniques used to implement the frame construction than the material used. IMO, there's nothing inherently wrong with aluminum frame, either.

If there is any controlling factor to either manner of construction, it's that the consumer desires a lighter RV and, consequently the Mfg.'s use any means to meet that requirement. Sometimes, the result is a structure that is less durable than could be had if the mantra wasn't "build light and sell product". The advent of the slide and it's desirability among purchasers has thrown a wrench into the "lighter build" realm and the added weight has to be compensated for somehow. Panelized construction is one of the ways that are used to keep weights down.

My 2005 Four Winds, built and purchased in 2004 on a 2004 chassis, uses aluminum in the walls and, I believe, steel in the floor. I have had no problems with it after almost 9 years and consider it to have been well designed and built.

pnichols wrote:
Well ... going by these links relating to features and frame construction showing that Winnebago, for one, does indeed use complete framing above the floor. I may have been wrong, as perhaps the framing is steel and not aluminum - although I may be confused about their Class A construction materials versus their Class C construction materials. Actually, I prefer steel, but is does weigh more and does rust.

The frame schematic on the left of the first link below is clearly the innards of a typical Winnebago-built Class C ... showing an extensive frame above the floor:

http://www.goitasca.com/products/2014/spirit_spirit_silver/key_features/superstructure/

http://www.goitasca.com/feature_comparison

Those drawings are misleading because those metal pieces are not assembled as a frame, and then the walls covered and filled. That is an assembly, for demonstration, of the metal stiffening pieces enclosed in separately laminated wall and ceiling/roof panels, which later in construction are interlocked and fastened with metal screws.

Go to the factory and watch how those "frames" get bonded into the walls, which derive their strength primarily from the foam cores. Then watch how the walls are hung onto the side of the floor, and the roof set onto the walls.

Winnebago, at least, has interlocking joints where these metal pieces of each panel fasten to other panels. Most other manufacturers using laminated panels depend entirely on the fasteners to hold the structure together.

Well ... going by these links relating to features and frame construction showing that Winnebago, for one, does indeed use complete framing above the floor. I may have been wrong, as perhaps the framing is steel and not aluminum - although I may be confused about their Class A construction materials versus their Class C construction materials. Actually, I prefer steel, but is does weigh more and does rust.

The frame schematic on the left of the first link below is clearly the innards of a typical Winnebago-built Class C ... showing an extensive frame above the floor:

http://www.goitasca.com/products/2014/spirit_spirit_silver/key_features/superstructure/

http://www.goitasca.com/feature_comparison

liquidspaceman wrote:
What year wood frames in RV construction were replaced with steel/aluminum framing? I'm sure different companies might still use wood framing or a combination of various materials, but I am wondering if the industry has shifted to mostly aluminum or steel frame design and if so, what year roughly they might have started doing that?

To put this in context as to why I need to know. I am wondering which RV's and what years are less succeptable to wood rot/leaks because their frames are "mostly" aluminum/steel or combination of non-wood products.

Or am I totally misinformed and most RV's are still made with wood frames?

The majority of RVs today still have wood frames....Alum. frames started in the 50s & 60s.................................Maintenance is the key to the lasting of any RV......... Getting away from sectional Alum. roofs was probably one of the best improvements...

Jayco's wood frame Jayflight line of campers is so sorry that it has been the best selling line of travel trailers in the US for 9 consecutive years .... there is no way to convince folks who believe that a company can't work efficiently and quickly while producing a quality product .... folks concerned about the video might find it enlightening to make the effort to go on a tour of the factory and see it first hand .... if every camper out there was built the way they build Airstreams, very few could afford a new one .... wood frame campers have been around for a very long time and that isn't going to change any time soon .... Excel puts out a pretty fair line of camper, somebody needs to tell them that wood frames are such a terrible thing

Jim

Most modern mass production RVs, particularly those you ride in, do not have framing above the floor. They are assembled from panels laminated around foam cores, using wood and plastic sheet materials, and aluminum, steel and wood stiffening members. Some manufacturers characterize the stiffening members as frames, but they are not, in the sense you are trying to envision.

Laminated wall construction was introduced to motorhomes by Winnebago in the late 1960s, and gradually adopted by most other manufacturers by the 1990s. Dates vary quite a bit, company to company.

Some lower production, higher end motorhomes still use framing rather than laminated wall construction. LazyDaze and BornFree, in C's, use steel and wood to frame the house structure. Newmar frames in aluminum, built on top of a wood floor. Holiday Rambler built motorhomes, including C's, with aluminum framing on a steel-framed floor, for Monaco, H-R and Safari brands, until Monaco Corp moved production of those models to it's R-Vision plant and switched to the laminated wall technology used by R-Vision.

You will find towables still stick-built, with wood framing, as well as unframed boxes using laminated wall panels. There are a few smaller TTs (and at least one brand of C motorhomes) using molded plastic shells, like a boat, rather than framed construction or a box assembled from panels.