Originally Posted by CADman_KS
I think what sourdough was saying was that you're still at the mercy of components used in RV's. What A/C's are you going to use? What thermostats are you going to use,, and do they control those A/C's that you just bought? What heater are you going to use? What water heater are you going to use? You get the point. At the end of the day, when building an RV of any type, there isn't a lot of options for this stuff. There are only certain manufactures that make these components, and you're forced to use one of them.
As an example, there are numerous threads here about heater issues on new units. Is there even more than one company that makes RV heaters? Let's assume that there is. As an individual, you're not necessarily going to know which heater is the 'best". Sure, you can do internet research, and make a reasonable decision on which heater is the best. You install that heater, and it gives you nothing but troubles. Number one, you have to fix or take care of that warranty work, which may not be a big deal. Number two, if the brand/size/type that you pick does NOT work well in your RV, now you have a bigger issue, because replacing it with competitor Y's heater, means that you may have to totally redo the structure that it fits in, and that may not be easy either.
Looking at our new unit, I realize that most of the issues that we've had with ours, are not quality of craftsmanship, they are component issues quality issues. The craftsmanship issues, while annoying, are actually easy to fix. Yes, there are some quality of material issues as well, like the coraplast stuff that they use on the bottom of the camper. If I'm building my own, I probably use something a little more durable there, but guess what, now I end up with an RV that weighs more than the one the store bought one. And weight isn't necessarily your friend.
At the end of the day, I LOVE the idea of building your own RV, and quite frankly, I too, have had the thought of building my own, and I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from doing that themselves. But, the more that I think about it, the more that I personally realize that there is a LOT more that goes into it than making it pretty. It has to be functional as well, and I don't know that I want to spend the time researching all of the different options to figure out which one suits the best, works the best, weighs the least, and ultimately works the best in my situation.
I had this delusion that it would be similar to building a house, which me and my wife did about 21 years ago. But, when we built our house, we had to worry about two things really: 1) did it look good 2) did it meet our needs (quality mainly). We didn't really worry about cost, because when you deciding what windows to get, as an example, you have the $2000 option, the $10,000 option, and the $60,000 option. The money fixes itself, because you know that you cannot afford the $60,000 option, so you hone in on the "best" $10,000 option that you can get. BUT, that is/was still research that we had to do. For my wife and I, that worked out well, because while I was building, she was doing a lot of this research, which ultimately saved me time.
With an RV, you have the struggle above, BUT you also have the weight to struggle with too. It's a delicate balancing act for sure when it comes to an RV...
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