Front living room in a fifth wheel

[PAylor]

Hi all,

I like the idea of front living rooms with the duel slides.  Seems like you sacrifice some room in the bedroom in the rear but we spend more time in the living room anyway. 

Anyone out there have any thoughts or opinions?  

Thanks!

[Jack Mayer]

It is a matter of preference. But here are my thoughts...

1.  it is much hotter in the upper deck.
2. You use the bathroom and kitchen the most. They are 3-4 steps away at all times. 
3. Less windows and light than the typical rear living. 
4. On most rigs the upper deck takes more punishment/movement than the main deck. This could affect the contents of the LR more than if on the lower deck. 

As I said, it boils down to personal preference.....

[bja1234]

30 minutes ago, Jack Mayer said:

On most rigs the upper deck takes more punishment/movement than the main deck. This could affect the contents of the LR more than if on the lower deck. 

Don't understand this, please elaborate.  Thanks

 

[GlennWest]

What is over the axles have the smoothest ride. Forward and rear of axles move a lot.

[JCZ]

I have the Grand Design Momentum 376TH that has the forward living room with opposing slides, upstairs.  Our bedroom is in the rear, over the garage (this model has a small garage under the bed that holds my Ultra Classic Harley) yet still has complete walk around bed with about 6'9" head clearance.

It has three A/C units and so I keep the living room and bedroom a little cooler.  The kitchen and dining area are on the lower level.  We were at the RV show looking at class A diesel pushers when we came upon this model of toy hauler.  Because of the smaller garage under the bed (residential queen......as a matter of fact, we brought our Temperpedic from our home when we went full time), we still have use of living space full length.

The ottoman in the center of the floor is something I picked up at walmart.  We now have two of them, side by side, for additional storage (winter riding gear) and we cover them with a large quilt.....that's the only furniture that our little dogs can get up on.  Works great for us and for them.

[theeyres]

I thought about a front living room when we bought our fiver but decided against it because we use the kitchen a lot--I'm a coffee addict and guess I love food, too! Couldn't imagine running up and down those stairs every time I wanted something from the kitchen. We are also in and out of the RV all day long with our dogs. Same issue. It doubles the steps to outside.

[Kirk W]

As one who has never owned a fiver, I am fascinated by this discussion. We have good friends who have one and so far are quite happy with it. I have always found the thing most tempting on any trailer type of RV to be the very large windows you can have if you have a rear living room. 

4 hours ago, Jack Mayer said:

On most rigs the upper deck takes more punishment/movement than the main deck. This could affect the contents of the LR more than if on the lower deck. 

Would not air ride and air hitch go a long way to alleviate this issue? 

[GlennWest]

Air hitch would help but how many have one. This is not common. Had air pinbox on DRV. Also had air hitch on ldt truck towing Teton and hard pin box on Teton. That was smooth ride for Teton, ldt overloaded though. 

[I'mdonewiththis forum]

52 minutes ago, Kirk Wood said:

 

Would not air ride and air hitch go a long way to alleviate this issue? 

Yes, an air ride hitch does make a world of difference. I went from a rigid style hitch to an air ride and you don't even feel the trailer on bumps. Mine is a rear kitchen and we have no problems with things breaking like I have heard others have.

[mptjelgin]

We looked at a couple of front living room 5th wheels before we purchased our current trailer. We decided against them for the following reasons:

1. Headroom. I am 6'-1" and really enjoy the tall ceilings and large ceiling fan in the living area of our current trailer. There is no way to get that height of ceiling in an upstairs living area without either a very tall roof or a shorter storage area below. 

2. Windows. My wife loves big windows, and the huge window on the back of our fifth wheel couldn't be found in anything with an upstairs living area. 

3. We have found that the upstairs area stays warmer in the summer (and winter for that matter!). Though we try to stay in areas with moderate climates, there are always extremes to be dealt with. Trying the keep an upstairs living area comfortably cool without having the downstairs are frigid would be a challenge. Especially with the added heat of large televisions, computers and bodies up there most of the time. 

That being said we know folks who use their living area primarily as a media room, and who had the shades down all of the time. So for them the issue of windows/lighting is unimportant. Likewise folks who like it warm and cozy. 

[remoandiris]

21 hours ago, theeyres said:

 Couldn't imagine running up and down those stairs every time I wanted something from the kitchen. 

Agreed.  IIRC, there are also steps into the bedroom in some of this style coach. 

Unfortunately, unless my next coach is a Class A with a  trailer, it looks like this style will be close to the top of my list.  The garage will be the seller.  I've been the typical toy hauler route, and it sucked.

[dlcarsonak]

    Do you have enough friends to fill all that living room seating regularly? If not that is a waste of weight  and space.

    We have no guest, so we have two chairs (one wing back, one recliner) in living room, two bar stools in the kitchen. That provides more room with less unusable space.

   Like jack said, your choice.

   

[spindrift]

We enjoy our FL model.  It certainly doesn't have the huge windows of a typical rear LR model but we have an extra window which does the trick.  Most of the sites we frequent are back-ins so the privacy that is afforded by a FL can't be beat.  I disagree that a a FL  is much hotter.  Certainly, it is warmer so we use a small electric fan (just forget the name as it's both 12VDC and 120 VAC) to circulate the air. This is only a problem on very hot days.  Never, never have experienced a stability issue as I like to place blocks under our auto jacks to minimize length of stroke.  That's a huge help in any configuration I think.  I'm 6'3" and I'm comfortable in the FL.  Without question, the single biggest drawback of the FL is minimal storage space in the basement.  That's hard to fix so if you're a full timer without storage anywhere else, it would be a major consideration for me.