How do you hang things on your walls

[stevewise]

I am quite new to living in a 5er and was wondering how people mount things to the walls of there trailer. I am looking to mount some small shelves, but I am not sure what the exterior walls are made of as to what kind of fastener to use?

[westend]

Your 5th wheel

Vacuum bonded aluminum frame. If you are not conversant with stud finders, drilling, and fasteners, I'd suggest to use the Command strips. Some of them will hold considerable weight.

[tatest]

On a FR Sierra, the exterior walls are foam sandwiched between luan on inside (very thin plywood) and luan + sheet plastic on the outside. Your anchor has to grip the foam without going through the wall.

I'm not sure about the thickness. It could be as little as one-inch total thickness, particularly the outside wall of a slide out.

There is some aluminum square tubing used around the perimeter of the wall, with additional vertical braces, and sometimes some horizontals to frame openings, but not the full framing like a house. This tubing may go skin to skin (for a one-inch wall) or may be only on the outside, so as to leave some foam insulation on the inner (I know this as a Winnebago practice). Don't count on finding usable studs.

Stick-ons work for something not too heavy, but can peel the coated paper trim off the luan.

Factory mounted stuff uses wooden or metal plated imbedded in the wall. You could try to find those more solid spots.

[TucsonJim]

Unless you can locate studs in the walls, I wouldn't hang a shelf. Most (but not all) newer units are manufactured with pre-fab walls. They have a thin inner wall which is usually covered with wall paper, outer wall of fiberglass, and foam insulation. This is all sandwiched around a metal stud frame. The thin inner wall and foam are probably not strong enough to support a shelf with any weight applied to it.

[1L243]

I use the 3M hooks too but OP is talking about hanging a shelf...

[JayJones]

Same, we use command hooks, but we also get the over the door hanging racks. Just make sure they aren't too long where they will swing and beat up your interior doors.

[mgirardo]

We use command hooks as well. We haven't had great success using them on Wallpapered surfaces (which the packaging tells you not to do anyway), but we hand them on the back of doors, inside cabinets and anywhere there is wood to hang on.

-Michael

[2012Coleman]

bluie5 wrote:
3M Command Hooks. Haven't lost anything yet as some things are left up when traveling.

X2 - we use for towels, and coats. I use them in the front compartment to hold the awning stick and stabilizer turning wrench.

[bluie5]

3M Command Hooks. Haven't lost anything yet as some things are left up when traveling. You can buy just the tape without the hooks. They come in different strengths for different weights.

[NanciL]

I have mounted a bunch of stuff to the walls in our TT and use two methods;
1. For heavy objects. I'll push in on the wall at various places until I find an area that is solid and has no give. Then I drill a small hole about a half inch deep to make sure there is solid wood.
I make sure that where I drill it the hole will be hidden behind the object I am mounting, just in case my hole misses solid wood.
Once I have areas that I know have solid wood, I use screws that are no longer then half inch, and I coat the back of the thing to be mounted with a good grade of glue.

2. For light weight objects,(between where there is a solid wood backing) I coat the objects back with a good grade glue and then just use short, half inch or less screws.
These screws just act as clamps to hold the object until the glue hardens and secures them

I the ten years that I have had our two trailers, I have never had an item fall off the wall.

The heaviest items I have installed so far have been a large medicine cabinet in the bathroom, a 16" x 16" kitchen cabinet and an eight foot long clothes rack in the bed room. Many times the clothes rack is loaded with clothes for our thousand mile trip to and from Florida.

For what it is worth, I have found that there is solid wood around the entire perimeter where the walls meet the ceiling. It extends down about an inch..

Jack L

[1L243]

That's the million dollar question. Wall construction varies from trailer to trailer. For me, I don't mount anything to a interior wall which is all so the exterior wall....