| |
Rockwood |
The
Competition |
1.
Stability |
 Rockwood
is owned by Forest River Inc. - Berkshire Hathaway, (a Warren Buffett
company) and is debt free. They are the strongest RV manufacturer
out there because of their financial backing and are known for quality.
This is important for your warranty, for parts to be available and the
value of your coach not plummeting after they go out of business. |
2009 Stats - Many manufactures are on the brink of closing or
have already failed.
Fleetwood - Recently filed Chapter 11.
Weekend Warrior - Bank assignee is selling corporate assets.
Pilgrim - Indefinitely closes plants.
Keystone - To layoff 15% of workforce.
Jayco - Released 20% of workforce.
Monaco Coach (R-Vision) - Recently filed Bankruptcy.
Country Coach - In Chapter 11
Sundowner Trailers - Closes Elkhart operations.
Travel Supreme - Ceases operations.
National RV - Files for chapter 11 bankruptcy |
2.
Vacuum Bonded Walls |
Vacuum Bonded Walls
Rockwood walls are taken into a "clean room" that the temperature and
humidity is controlled, where they aren't cutting 2x4's with lots of
dust in the air. A giant press comes down on the walls with
several hundred pounds of pressure for several hours to give a strong
bond.Rockwood is a vacuum bonded sidewall. This method is
statistically 10 times less likely to give you problems compared to the
pinch rolled sidewalls. |
Pinch Rolled Walls
This how 90%+ of manufactures still put their walls together since it's
too expensive to vacuum bond. This can lead to delaminating walls
where it starts to separate and moisture gets inside. If this
happens, most times the RV has to be taken back to the factory where
they have to fully separate the wall and then reapply it. It's
about an $8,000-$10,000 process. Make sure you don't
buy one that is just pinch rolled. |
| 3. Construction |
 Rockwood
adds wood inserts in the Aluminum tubes in the base perimeters of the
floors and walls for an additional backer that gives you a tighter more
secure fit. All aluminum framing is double welded. |
It's common in the industry to spot weld one side or the
other. |
4.
Floors |
 Framed
floor registers gives you added strength and support. Rockwood's
heat ducts are sealed. |
Most of the industry won't add extra framing around the
heat ducts creating weak spots where the heat registers are. |
5.
Roof |
 Rockwood
Travel Trailers have a Vacuum Bonded radius roof which sheds water.
This thick roof provides lots of insulation and strength to walk on the
roof. |
Many travel trailers are flat roofs that keeps standing
water up there. They also don't vacuum bond the roof which makes
it 10x's more likely to delaminate. |
6.
Heated Holding Tanks |
 Rockwood's
heated pads operate off 12 volt and can heat the tanks while traveling
down the road, dry camping, or hooked up to 110 volt. The tank
heaters are guaranteed to 11 degrees below zero. Rockwood also
puts heat strips on the dump valves for added protection. Rockwood
also encloses the underbelly for better tow ability and to protect the
under carriage from weathering. |
If the night is a little too cold and you accidently
crack your tanks, it a huge mess. If you don't have heat tape on
the valves or they aren't inside the under belly they are more likely to
freeze open, shut or break. This limits you to a shorter season
with your camper. |
7.
Awning |
 Rockwood's
A&E Awning has a 24" adjustable rain dump on both arms. Just press
a button to open or close. The fabric has UV & mold protection. |
Manual awnings tend to take longer to put up and take
down, don't have a rain dump feature and don't have flex like a power
awnings for those gusts of winds that come up suddenly. |
8.
Sofa |
This Hide-A-Bed air sofa offers an innerspring seating surface, storage
underneath, and a queen 60"x80" 5" thick air mattress that power
inflates and deflates. |
No one wants to sleep on that sofa sleeper because it has that metal
bar that goes right across your back and you would of probably been
better off on the floor. |
9.
Windows |
Day Night Shades offer adjustable light and privacy. |
Rattling mini-blinds every time the coach shifts.
Plastic clips that brake at the bottom. The blinds tend to get
bent fairly easily as well. You almost never see a used camper
that has mini-blinds in good condition. |
10.
Table |
 Rockwood's
Solid Wood table option comes with a table top extension to offer more seating
space plus extra storage under the seats for cards, games, books and
more. |
Non-adjustable table. No storage under the chairs.
Hard to fit four adults comfortably around the table. |
11.
Bed |
 These
beds in the bedroom have a standard 60"x80" Queen Heated Innerspring
mattress that is thermostatically controlled. This offers warm on
those cool nights without turning the heat on. There is an
upgraded Serta mattress as well. There are also swivel reading
lights over the bed. There's also plenty of storage under the bed. |
 Lights in the middle of the bedroom and even if there are two
lights, they are usually not swivel lights.
The bed is a RV "short queen" (60x74). |
| 12. Suspension |
 Rockwood's
torsion axles are maintenance free and give independent suspension for a
smoother ride. They have bearing buddies for easy maintenance. |
Spring suspension is standard out there.
If you don't have the bearing buddies, it's a lot more work to maintain
the axles. |
13.
Short bed truck
friendly |
 Rockwood
Fifth Wheels have an optional Sidewinder Hitch that makes it so you
don't have to get a slider hitch with a short box truck saving you
money, creating a lighter hitch weight, and easier towing. Some
short bed trucks (5 1/2' beds), you can't use a slider hitch. |
14.
Water test |
 Forest
River's inspection building has rain booths that test the coach for
leaks by drenching the coach with the equivalent of 24 inch/ per hr of
rain with 184 spray heads. Every coach is tested for 15 minutes.
Water is sprayed with the slides in and out position, underneath, sides
and top. |
|
15.
Fantastic Fan |
 This
10 blade Create a breeze fantastic fan pushes over 900 cubic feet of air per minute.
The benefit is it can replace all the air in your RV in under 2 minutes
and it will save you from having to use your Air Conditioner as much. |
This fan it what you see in most coaches and can push about 25-30 cubic
feet of air per minute. if it gets a little stuffy, you need to be
plugged in at an RV site or crank on the generator to turn on the air
conditioner. |
16.
Water Heater |
They also use a turbo water heater that gives you 16.2
gallons of hot water per hour. While it takes up less space, it
gives you more hot water than a 10 or 12 gallon hot water heater. |
Most hot water heaters give you 7.4 gallon of hot water per hour. |
17.
Water Filtration |
Rockwood has a 10,000 gallon residential water filtration system that
filters all your water - both sinks, shower, outside shower, all your
water. This is great because that means you can fill up at the RV
site or maybe at a gas station when you get close to your destination.
That will save over 300 lbs of unneeded weight and you'll know your
drinking filtered water. |
Most campers don't have a water filter and if they do it's just a sink
filter. |
18.
Black Tank Flush |
Rockwood has a built in black tank flush so that all you have to do to
rinse your sewer system is plug the fresh water hose on a port on the
side and there are sprayers on the inside of the tank. |
If you don't have a black tank flush you need to drag
your hose into your bathroom, open the toilet and spray the tank out
after each camping trip. You can buy an adapter spray wand to
stick on the end of the hose to stick in the toilet but that's not much
more pleasant either. |
19.
Roof |
 This
is an Alpha-Ply Radius Roof with a 12 year warranty. This material
stretches like rubber but is lighter, oxidizes less under UV rays,
chalks less leaving fewer streaks down the side. Rockwood have
longer rain spouts than most. Since the roof isn't flat it sheds
water. |
Rubber roofs leave more streak marks down the side,
require more maintenance and harder to clean. |
20.
Locking Latches |
 Our
Rockwood Roo hinged tip out bed walls have heavy duty latching & locking
so you can keep your possessions inside while you're not camping or your
camper is in storage. |
Usually you are going to see a metal flip
that doesn't automatically latch and you need a pad lock. It's
defiantly not as clean of a system. |
21.
Expandable Bed Support |
Rockwood Roo Beds are supported by an aircraft quality cable so that you
don't have to mount clumsy support poles. It is rated to hold
1,200 lbs. The cable is attached to the bed frame but to the
structure of the unit to avoid bowing and where the strength is.
The steel reinforcement bar assures that your bed won't bow overtime
causing a gap when you close the door for rain to enter. |
You are going to need to setup support poles
each time which is more difficult and the bed will start to bow over
time because they didn't put that steel reinforcement in there. |
22.
ETC Windows |
 Rockwood
ETC windows are European style windows that are standard with adjustable
sun shades. The tinted windows can remain open in the rain. |
normal windows. Maybe curtain to pull
across and maybe mini-blinds. |
23.
Double Ducted Air |
 Double
Ducting through out the camper for even temperatures through out.
A/C ducting isn't available on the smallest floor plans. |
Air ducting on one side but not both.
This creates hot and cold spots in the camper. |
24.
Rain Spouts |
 Extended
Rain spouts |
Short rain spouts that drip down the side of
the camper creating black streaks. |
