Once you’ve decided what type of RV you want, it’s time to look at the features that new RV needs in order to make you happy.
There are different layouts to choose from, different bathroom configurations, different manufacturer specifications, etc. that you need to consider to make sure you get the unit that’s right for you.
1. RV Floor Plan
RVs have length and width limitations due to state highway regulations. Due to the width of road lanes, most RVs are 8′ – 8-1/2′ wide – 8-1/2′ is usually the maximum width permitted to be towed on most highways.
The length, of course, can vary – but there are state restrictions on length as well – along with the logistics of designing longer units. And although there are a finite number of ways to design living quarters in an 8′ x 36′ footprint, there is still a variety of floor plans you can get.
And even when a specific layout may be common to multiple manufacturers, each manufacturer has its own spin – trim, furniture, materials, etc. – which gives you a myriad of RV designs from which to choose.
Each RV, regardless of type, has pretty much the same compartments – living area, kitchen, bathroom (you can also add driver’s cab to motorhomes, if you want to think of that space as separate from the living space).
Layout
Motorhomes typically follow the same layout – living space behind the driver’s area in front, combined with the kitchen and dining space, a bathroom midship, and the bedroom in the rear. On larger Class A’s there may be a second bathroom to the rear of the bedroom.
Kitchens can be placed in the front, middle or rear of a trailer or 5th Wheel. By the same token, the bedroom can be at the front or back, as can the living space.
When you have the living area in the rear, it’s common to have a large picture window at the back – giving a nice view if you’re parked in a scenic area.
Something to keep in mind, if you have slide outs, is whether you can still access necessities when the slides are closed (brought in). Joann prefers to use the bathroom on our 5th Wheel when traveling – as opposed to using public facilities. We’ve had coaches where the bathroom was inaccessible with the slides in.
Similarly, with some layouts you may not be able to access the refrigerator with the slides in, depending on the location of your slide outs. This makes it difficult to easily grab a snack or beverage while you’re traveling.
2. Slide Outs
You should give careful consideration to your RV’s slide outs. As mentioned earlier, slide outs are sections of wall that extend outwards up to three feet. Slide outs greatly increase the usable space within an RV.
Depending on size, today’s RVs may have up to five slides. If each slide were 8″x3″, and you had three on your coach, you’d have an additional 72 square feet of living space over the same size unit without any slides.
There is some maintenance required with slide outs. They need to be lubricated occasionally, and since they are operated by a hydraulic system, you may have to top off or change the hydraulic fluid occasionally – but it’s not difficult or time consuming.
Slide outs also add to the overall cost of your RV – approximately $2000 apiece. And they do add extra weight to the RV. But these negatives are negligible in light of the overall cost of RVing full time, and the additional room they provide is well worth it.
3. Kitchen
Kitchens can be located in the front, middle, or rear of the RV. There’s no real advantage to one over the others. The middle location, though, does let you access the kitchen cabinetry and refrigerator without walking through another area.
So, if you’re outside and need to get a beverage out of the fridge, it’d be more convenient with a mid-coach kitchen (if you have the typical mid-coach door).
RV Refrigetors
RV refrigerators are typically smaller than a household unit, as the manufacturer wants to keep the weight of the RV as low as possible. Larger units are available, though – including double door designs, and some manufacturers are even willing to install a residential unit.
Be aware, though – this option will only be available for the high end (more expensive) RVs.
Some refrigerator models can be installed that include an ice maker. An ice maker takes up some of the precious freezer space, so you’ll have to judge whether the convenience of an ice maker offsets the loss of space.
Kitchen Island
Another kitchen feature to think about is whether you’d want an island. Some RV layouts include an island, while others don’t.
An island provides more cupboard storage, as well as extra counter space – which is typically at a premium in a lot of RVs. The tradeoff, of course, is that an island takes up more space. Depending on the size of the RV, an island could make the living space feel more cramped and less open.
Microwave and Oven
And yet another thing to consider is the oven and microwave. You can get a stove with both the oven section and stove top burners. Or, depending on your manufacturer, you may be able to opt for getting just the top burners – in this case you can add storage by having storage underneath.
You can get a standard microwave, or (as with the stove) you may be able to opt for one that includes convection cooking.
Our manufacturer was willing to customize, and we got just the stove top and a microwave with convection as well as conventional cooking. We don’t do much preparation in the oven and felt that, when we did want to, we could use the convection cooking of the microwave in place of an oven. We felt we could better use the stove space for drawer storage.
Other Kitchen Items
Lastly, even though you may scale down on your kitchen utensils and pots and pans, there are still other kitchen items you’ll want to find a place for: coffee maker, blender, food processor, toaster, etc. With limited kitchen storage, you may have difficulty finding a spot for these items (or be forced to store the seldom used items in the basement storage compartment or in the under-the-bed storage compartment).
Some RVs now offer dishwashers, and even garbage disposals, as options that you may want to consider. Once again, though, these options come at the expense of storage space, as well as additional cost. You’ll need to decide if the convenience these options offer are worth it.
Think about the absolute essentials for your food preparation and utensil storage, and then make sure the RV you choose has room for them.
4. Living Room
Depending on coach size, an RV living room typically includes a couple chairs, love seat/couch, a coffee table, and maybe a couple end tables. Some may also include an electric fireplace.
Some coaches will also include a floor mounted cabinet that holds a television. Smaller units that don’t have the space often mount the television on a wall, or in a cupboard space off the floor. This option allows the inclusion of a television without taking up precious floor space.
There are a couple considerations to think about related to the living room. The first is the quality of the furniture. To keep the overall weight down, RV furniture is typically made out of very lightweight materials – and some furniture is better quality than others.
Check to see if the furniture will last – it’s not unusual for RV furniture to wear out after only a couple seasons.
Some higher end RV manufacturers will install residential quality furniture – furniture that might be a little smaller size than furniture for the home, but built with the same quality (and at a higher price tag, of course).
The other thing to keep in mind is furniture placement.
Just because there’s a spot on the wall that can hold the television, it doesn’t mean that it’s easily viewed from all seats. Having to turn your head to see TV might not be bad for a weekend camping trip, having to do so year round may be less tolerable.
Try to consider your RV layout with an eye towards a long-term view.
5. Bathroom
Depending on the floor plan, bathrooms can be located just about anywhere. Although motorhomes won’t have a bathroom in the front (due to the driving cockpit), trailers and 5th Wheels can have a bathroom in the front, middle or back.
Like the kitchen, when picking out a floor plan, keep in mind whether you’ll need access to the bathroom while on the road and the slide outs are pulled in. If you ‘re going to want to use it while traveling, make sure your bathroom is accessible without having to put the slides out.
Most RV bathrooms contain a shower only. There are some floor plans, though, that are offered with a small tub. If you absolutely have to have a tub, it may be more difficult to find an RV you’ll be happy with – but you should be able to find one with the features you need.
Bathroom Styles
There are a couple styles of bathrooms from which you can choose.
The first is a “walk-through”. A walk-through has the toilet separated from the sink and shower. They typically are located before you get to the bedroom – you actually walk “through” the bathroom to get to the bedroom.
The toilet is located in a small closet-sized room, while the sink and shower may or may not be in a second room – usually, they are open to the bedroom.
Some floor plans will put the sink in the bedroom with a small vanity – it may be the only bathroom sink, or could be a second sink.
Whichever bathroom layout you like, make sure to try it out – sit on the toilet and check that the space works for you. When we purchased our 5th Wheel, the toilet paper holder was mounted where it was practically unreachable when seated on the toilet. We requested that the manufacturer relocate it to a more convenient location for us.
Also, check that the shower gives you enough room so that you’ll be able to wash comfortably. Due to the space limitations, showers can be on the small side. However, there are different sizes available, so make sure you pick a brand and layout with a shower that’s big enough for you.
Other things to look for:
Is there enough storage for your toiletries, and can you get at them easily?
Is there a place to store your hair blower?
Sufficient lighting to shave, apply makeup, and whatnot?
Is there sufficient room for towel storage – and where will you keep your wet towels after showering?
Make sure to consider the bathroom location within the RV, as well as the layout and amenities included in the bathroom.
6. Bedrooms
Bedrooms are either all the way in the front of the RV, or in the rear. Motorhomes, of course, have the bedroom in the rear.
As with the rest of the RV, a major consideration when looking at bedrooms is storage. Remember, you’re planning on spending all of your time living on your RV – does the bedroom have enough closet and drawer storage to hold all of your clothes?
5th Wheels and Trailers now offer a number of bedroom options – you can even get floor plans with two bedrooms. For families, you can get a room at the back with up to four bunk beds.
Some configurations even include a second bathroom, a desk, or table – literally a second suite.
Bed Sizes
You can also get different size beds – even king-size beds. Larger beds (obviously) take up more space, though. In our case, our 5th Wheel layout actually included a king size bed. With that size bed, though, only a single night stand could fit into the space. We opted to downsize to a queen bed, which allowed us to add a second nightstand – one on each side of the bed. For us, we felt a second nightstand was more important than a larger size bed.
The slightly smaller size bed also gave us a little more walking space between the bed and the front closet.
Again, make sure your bedroom features meet your needs. There are enough floor plan options that you should be able to find one that fits your needs – just make sure to take the time to test it out and make sure.
RV manufacturers provide a standard set of features that they include in the purchase price. When shopping, an important consideration when comparing brands is what features do each manufacturer include versus price – one brand may have a lower price tag, but not include the same features as another brand with a higher price.
Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples when comparison shopping.
As with automobiles, each manufacturer will also offer a certain number of options that you can add on to the RV at an additional cost. It’s up to you what you consider important enough to pay extra for – and whether you have the budget to do so.
Some options you may want to consider:
8. Washer / Dryer
If you have a larger RV you may want to include a washer and dryer – after all, you’re going to be spending a lot of time living on your RV. Most campgrounds or resorts have laundry facilities that you can use – but you’ll have to tote your basket of clothes there, possibly sit around waiting, and then folding and toting the laundry back to your RV.
There’s also the matter of having to pay each time you do laundry. It’s much more convenient to do the laundry in your RV – although the trade off is you lose closet space to do so.
If you choose to include a washer and dryer, there are a couple ways you can go:
Combination unit – a single appliance that washes, then dries the clothes.
Stacked Appliance – washer and dryer are built into a single appliance, with the dryer located over the washer.
Separate Washer and Dryer – appliances are the same as residential appliances.
Although they all work, they differ in terms of load size and ease of use. In some cases, space limitations will dictate which type are available for your particular RV.
In our experience, we’d opt for any of the three options rather than use the local laundry facilities. However, there’s no question that, in our experience, the full size appliances do the best job by far. If you have the room available, we recommend full size.
9. Extra Battery
Most RV’s come with a single battery. If you plan on doing a lot of boon docking (where you camp without water, electric and sewer hookups), you might want to see if your manufacturer offers the option of adding a second battery. A second battery will let you camp longer without having to charge.
If your manufacturer doesn’t offer this option, and you need a second battery, it’s something that you can add later.
10. Satellite Dish
A satellite dish will give you the ability to get all of the television programs you like any place, any time. It’s a costly option (probably $2000 +), but if it fits your budget, the convenience may be worth it. Although you can get satellite setups aftermarket now, it can be expensive to “build in” after the coach is built.
This is one option that we wanted to have installed at the time of building our coach. We wanted to be sure that we’d always be able to get our programs, and didn’t want to mess with setting up and stowing the dish at each stop. We also wanted the wiring to be run inside the walls in the most optimal way – which wouldn’t be possible if we added a dish aftermarket.
We’re glad we got it – when we reach a destination, one push of a button raises the dish and acquires the signal. A single touch returns it to the stowed position. One of our favorite options ever!
11. Air Conditioners
Depending on the size of your RV, you may want to consider adding a second A/C unit if your manufacturer offers it as an option. Although a single A/C unit may be sufficient in most circumstances, in very hot weather it can be difficult to keep larger RVs cool. At best, your A/C unit will have to run endlessly to cool the whole RV.
Some very long RVs even have three A/C units.
In our experience, the RV stays more comfortable, and there is less strain on the air conditioners, with a second unit. We added a second unit to our 38 foot 5th Wheel, and loved how much more comfortable we were on really hot days.
There was never any question that we’d add a second unit to our current 5th Wheel when we had it built.
12. Generator
Although many motorhomes have a generator, it seems it’s becoming more common to find one on 5th Wheels as well. Generators can come in handy when in locations where an electric hook up isn’t available and you need to have AC power – for instance, if you were boon docking and needed to charge your battery.
Personally, we don’t consider this to be an essential option – you lose significant storage area in the “basement”. We used to tote a portable generator with us for a while – but found we never really had a need of it.
When we ordered our current coach, we considered the generator option – after all, we planned on living in this unit full time for many years. But we just didn’t see many scenarios that we’d need it. If you’re not sure, this is one option that you can add on aftermarket.
13. Solar Panels
Solar panels are recent technology that seems to be getting popular. With the cost of electricity getting so expensive, it’s an attractive option to get a power source at no cost (other than the purchase).
We’re not really too familiar with this option yet, so can’t really provide suggestions – but you should be aware that this technology is becoming commonly available and look into whether it’s something you can’t live without.
14. Vacuum Systems
Many RVs now offer built in vacuum systems as an option. For us, this is a must have. Having a built in vacuum, and not having to tote a vacuum along with you, is just too convenient for us to live without. Plug the hose in and vacuum.
Some units even have a little slot in the wall by the kitchen floor that you can simply sweep crumbs into and the vacuum system sucks them up.
15. Thermal Pane Windows
Thermal pane windows is another option that we feel is a “must have”. They have double panes, with an insulating vapor barrier between. This design provides extra insulation, which helps significantly in keeping your coach cooler in the hot weather and warmer in cooler weather.
Remember – many options are available to add after market, while others are best to install at time of build.