Bigfoot & NL Construction?

[TxGearhead]

So how are these campers built? I understand the clamshell. They have foam insulation, I assume sprayed to the interior walls? How are the cabinets attached to the walls? Or, is anything attached to the walls? Is the wall covering like wallpaper and glued on to the insulation? Ceiling as well?
Yes, I'm clueless. Neither one's website is much help.
Happy 4th of July.

[54suds]

Tom/Barb wrote:
When I tried to repair a faulty radio antenna I found a two wire plastic tape attached to two 12" aluminum sticky tapes. only they were not attached. I remove the refer to get to this, and found no insulation at all.

that wasn't the radio antenna ,that was the tv antenna which actually worked better than many of the roof mounts now being sold

[covered_wagon]

Reddog1 wrote:

covered wagon wrote:
Thank you Wayne, then why don't you delete them? It would be the best option wouldn't it?

I could, but prefer they be seen by others to assist in identifying members with knowledge to offer or just someone looking for attention. There is also the possibility it could be true but not in my knowledge base.

Wayne

So how about some pictures showing the problems?

I think the real issue here is rvnet doesn't want to be a consumer complaint site, that there could be some liabilities in doing so. I fully understand the wisdom here.

[HMS_Beagle]

Wayne, there are some pine strips in the walls replacing the foam in various locations - you can sometimes see slight distortion, also since the pine has less R value than the foam, on a cold morning you can see condensation patterns revealing the framing.

Bigfoot used to use extruded polystyrene (in my 1986 5th wheel and also the 1998 camper as I recall) but now use expanded polystyrene (beadboard). Too bad, the extruded is stronger and a better insulator even than polyurethane. In real cored construction in yachts none of that would be used, but the core materials they use are out of budget for the RV industry.

[Reddog1]

covered wagon wrote:
Thank you Wayne, then why don't you delete them? It would be the best option wouldn't it?

I could, but prefer they be seen by others to assist in identifying members with knowledge to offer or just someone looking for attention. There is also the possibility it could be true but not in my knowledge base.

Wayne

[Kayteg1]

It is not that insulation is too thin most of the time, but that manufacturers leave lot of voids in it.
My upscale camper has attic with good insulation I can see around vents, but when I pulled the light - I could stick my finger into wires hole and felt nothing behind. Than front cap had some loose fiberglass that with leak turn into pile of garbage.
Than I would hope that for that kind of money they would spend couple more bucks for polyurethane foam, not Styrofoam.
Polyurethane has better R value and is much stronger.
I had my 1972 Prevost conversion sprayed with 2" of polyurethane and regardless steel construction, that transfer the heat, I could keep 40' coach cozy with single electric heater in those off-season nights.
Same heater was not enough for 20' ClassC with thinner walls and Styrofoam.

[covered_wagon]

Thank you Wayne, then why don't you delete them? It would be the best option wouldn't it?

[Reddog1]

HMS Beagle, I really appreciable your post on this subject. Very informative and my experience with my 1988 Bigfooot is as you have posted. The only exception that comes to mind is the insulation and floor. My 1500 series Bigfoot has thinner (1-inch as recall) foam insulation in the walls and does not have a basement.

My vents have 2"x2" wood reinforcement around the holes. The back wall has 1/2" or 5/8" plywood on part if not most of it, at least behind the cutout for the door light/hand hold. I have not seen any wood around the windows or fridge door cutout, but I also see no need. I do have single pane windows. When look down the side of my TC, I see what appears to be weaves from framing. They are very slight, but noticeable. I am not positive they are framing shadows.

I am disappointed with extreme exaggerations some posters make. The result is most of their post have no creditably with me.

Wayne

[arto_wa]

Tom/Barb wrote:
We bought a Big foot 25' 2009. we thought (and was told) it was built like a Boston Whaler boat, it was not, they use 1/2" poly foam sheets glued to the walls. It sweated so bad the first winter we had 1/2" of ice on the interior any where you could look. `Snip

Wow that's a lot of condensation and ice - sounds like a four season model would have worked much better in those conditions!


Winter camping in any RV requires good ventilation to keep the moisture down.

[HMS_Beagle]

I have not destroyed one completely so some details are still obscure to me. In the walls and ceiling I have not seen any pine framing chopper gunned in place (but you can't see much of it). The box under the floor (that the whole camper sits on) is part of the molded bottom piece, but here the thickish plywood is chopper gunned in place and it is all pretty solid. On top of the 1 1/2 plywood box walls is the floor, which is 3/4 plywood covered by 1/2 inch particle board. Then as is typical of RV construction, the floor covering (vinyl or carpet) is put of the whole floor and the cabinets installed on top. There are other places where plywood backs up the fiberglass shell, such as the jack attachments and hold downs.

Since for the most part the cabinets are floor to ceiling, they don't need terribly secure fastening to the walls. The "airline cabinets" (the ones that hang from the ceiling) might have more substantial backing, I do not know. On my 1986 Bigfoot 5th wheel, these cabinets did want to sag, though it was more from the screws pulling loose than the wall falling apart. I have not had that problem with either the 1998 or the 2008 camper.

[hedgehopper]

TxGearhead wrote:
Neither one's website is much help.

On the NL website, click on the "brochure" link. The brochure give details of construction.

[Tom_Barb]

When I tried to repair a faulty radio antenna I found a two wire plastic tape attached to two 12" aluminum sticky tapes. only they were not attached. I remove the refer to get to this, and found no insulation at all.

[covered_wagon]

Z-Peller wrote:


When I owned my Bigfoot 25B25RQ trailer I installed a crank up tv antenna. This is a pic of the piece I cut out of the roof with a hole saw. .....layers consist of molded fiberglass shell, foam insulation, luan, fuzzy interior material...

That ia how my NL is built only the foam is one inch thick. There are some studs/ framing. I understand that bigfoot chopperguns their studs in the glass a bit more than NL does and bigfoot glasses in the floor system to integrate a better structure. NL does not.

[Z-Peller]

HMS Beagle wrote:
I'm not sure how they build the trailers. I have owned 2 Bigfoot campers and one 5th wheel, spanning 1986 - 2008. I have looked at the construction of all of them, which was similar.

It is a molded top and bottom half, overlapped and joined at the trim line around the middle. After molding, they glue in sheets of styrofoam insulation using contact cement - 1" for the non-winter versions and 1 1/2" for the versions with the cold weather option in my experience. At many various places, pine or some other softwood is glued in place of the foam, this is for reinforcement or where things will be attached later. On the lower section of the camper, this is replaced by plywood, on my 2008 camper 1 1/2" of plywood. Then luan interior paneling is glued over that. Doors, windows, vents, cabinets are screwed to the pine placed there for that purpose. The cold weather option also included dual pane windows, worth the cost for the noise insulation alone.

This makes them: relatively watertight, as the only leaks are places where a hole has been cut or drilled (unfortunately often too many), there are no long leaking roof and wall joints. It also makes them difficult to modify, unless you are familiar with fiberglass work (then it is pretty easy).

I have said it before and will again: Bigfoot quality sucks, but it sucks less than any other brand. This is the RV industry after all. You will not have ice forming inside (maybe camped at the south pole?) - I've spent many nights in 15 degree weather, perfectly comfortable. I have not seen a more solidly built production camper, and I have looked. Better quality than my Safari motorhome, better than my Airstream trailer. Second hand sales prices are usually an indication. I sold my purchased new 1998 camper in 2012 for about 60% of what I paid for it. Try that with any other 14 year old RV.

Good post!.... answers most questions, IF people read it all.

[SoCalDesertRid1]

One would think that they would have some vertical wood studs molded into the fiberglass shell, for attaching things to the walls with screws, like cabinets? Also some wood cross joists molded into the roof/ceiling? Hard to believe that contact cement on luan sheet would be able to hold cabinets on the walls for years and years and years...