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Old 02-12-2007, 08:24 PM   #1
cybervanner
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Default prospective owner with roof questions

Okay, this is a different kind of roof question that doesn't involve the ever-popular leak question. I became intrigued with the TrailManors after looking at one at a camp show here in Richmond VA over the weekend. I currently have an old Fixed roof 18 foot Midas camper that weighs 4400 pounds road-ready, and makes the van VERY thirsty for fuel, and also has a nasty sway problem with it's single axle...obviously, I'm ready to trade up despite the good condition of this old classic. I tow with an Astro van I customized, and a TrailManor ought to be the perfect camper to tow behind it. I am looking for something with much better highway manners that will be easier to climate control than a pop-up, but have the good road manners of one. Now that I've got the road-trippin bug, I want something that will "dissapear" behind me! BTW, the one I have my heart set on is the 2720 because it's got room for my wife, and some friends (and maybe eventually kids too!)

Well, onto the questions. I have a Hobie Cat wave sailboat that I want to carry with me when I go camping. Only problem is I can't tow the boat on it's trailer, and the camper at the same time, relegating me to sleep in the van and not have the amenities of a trailer when I camp where there's good sailing. While my fixed roof camper definitely has a roof durable enough to support the boat, getting it up there is not going to happen! Getting up onto a pop-up or Trailmanor...now that's do-able! Only problem is I am wondering how much weight the Trailmanor can carry on it's roof. The boat weights 250 pounds approx, and I want air conditioning too...so there's another 100# or so pounds for a rooftop AC unit. The weight of course will be spread out since it's a catamaran, and I'm figuring the boat will straddle the Ac unit quite nicely!

The next question involves the roof material. I remember camping out as a kid in old Starcraft pop-ups. They had fiberglass roofs on them that although they didn't leak, they were *VERY* noisy in rainstorms! They literally sounded like someone dumped a semi-truck load of ping-pong balls on the roof. The noise in a summertime storm was deafening!!! You couldn't even hollar to another occupant to close the windows! My fixed-roof camper I own nowadays is very quiet in a rainstorm, and rain is pretty much unnoticable with the AC, fan or other appliance running, and I frequently sleep right through rainstorms. Having a quiet roof in the rain is a definite must since I plan to camp out in the summer in coastal areas where some big thunderstorms can build up. Are the roofs on the trailmanors quiet in rain?
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