How tall is my Argosy MoHo?

[mamanda]

Help, I am probably in the wrong place. I just bought an Argosy 20 ft 1976 motor home and am trying to bring it home. I have found a shipper but he needs to know how tall. It does have a roof top air unit. Does anyone have that measurement. The seller says 13 ft but I know that is not right. If this is not the place to ask could you direct me please. Thanks
MAM

[ronstory]

Mamanda--

For reference my tailer with the Armstrong AC is about 10 feet tall, 13 sounds a bit off.

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by mamanda

Help, I am probably in the wrong place. I just bought an Argosy 20 ft 1976 motor home and am trying to bring it home. I have found a shipper but he needs to know how tall. It does have a roof top air unit. Does anyone have that measurement. The seller says 13 ft but I know that is not right. If this is not the place to ask could you direct me please. Thanks
MAM

MAM. we also have a 20' Argosy motorhome and there is NO way its 13' high!

It should be no higher than 10' 6". Our 1984 310 Classic motorhome is just under 10' 6" tall and our 1974 Argosy motorhome is shorter than the 310. I'm guessing its about 10' or so.

The motorhomes section of Airforums is located here http://www.airforums.com/forums/f156/

The overall weight is going to be somewhere in the vicinity of 8000 lbs for your 20' Argosy.

Good luck!


Brad

[AIR-Quarius]

Hey everybody! We are about to receive a ionizer unit and before it gets here tomorrow, (I know its intstructions might mention the AREA)...So what would be the area generally of this trailer (27' 1970 Overlander)? Thanks

[azflycaster]

A 27 foot Overlander has 24 feet of interior that is 8 feet wide or 192 square feet (minus a little for the curved ends). The average height is around 6 feet because of the curved walls. That would make the interior around 1150 cubic feet. These are rough numbers...

[RBolton]

A rough calculation for volume would be 25L X 8W X 7H = 1400 cubic feet. Square footage (floor) 25L X 8W = 200 sq ft. These would be rough calculations for a completely gutted trailer.

[myoung]

MAM,

Don't you suspect that the reason for asking about the height is that the shipper doesn't want to clip any overpasses along the route? If that is the case, then all the shipper is looking for is the bridge clearance height, which must naturally be low enough to clear virtually any bridge in America otherwise we would have heard about catastrophes involving clipped rooftop appendages.

[Silvertwinkie]

Originally Posted by RBolton

A rough calculation for volume would be 25L X 8W X 7H = 1400 cubic feet. Square footage (floor) 25L X 8W = 200 sq ft. These would be rough calculations for a completely gutted trailer.

Keep in mind that the quoted lengths are from hitch coupling to rear bumper. In both of my Airstreams, I have counted about 3 feet less of linear interior length. So, in my case, it's listed at 25' 11", so that would make my interior living length 22' 11". Using the calculation listed above, with my unit being a wide body, that would put me at 195.94sq ft not the as advertised 221.59sq ft which comes from 25'11"(25.917')x 8.55. Of course I'd double check my math cause my math is terrible, but it is true about the interior length being different than overall length.

As for height, unless there were significant modifications done to the unit, it should be around 10' tall. The only exception in terms of a factory built Airstream I am aware of that would significantly exceed 10' right off the production floor would have been the recently discontinued Skydeck.

[PYandre]

I just had the same question (as to height of my Airstream) because I am building a car port and want to be able to park the Airstream underneath it. I just bought a new 2015 25' Flying Cloud (love it!). To get an accurate measurement, I took a straight 2 X 4 and laid it on top of my A/C unit. I then put a level on it and extended it out over the side of my trailer. Once the level was reading 'level', I then dropped a tape measure down to the ground. It measured 9' 9". That height could vary a little depending on the inflation level of the tires, bur if you figure at least 10 feet, you should have room to spare.

[Glenritas]

If the trucker puts it on a LoBoy Trailer, the deck height would be around 2 1/2 ' on the other hand if he was planing on a conventional trailer the deck height would be almost 4' .

This is why he needs an accurate height of the MH.

And ya there are bridges lower than 13' so he also has to plan his route.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Glenritas

If the trucker puts it on a LoBoy Trailer, the deck height would be around 2 1/2 ' on the other hand if he was planing on a conventional trailer the deck height would be almost 4' .

This is why he needs an accurate height of the MH.

And ya there are bridges lower than 13' so he also has to plan his route.

More to the point, if the load is more than 14 feet tall he will need an oversize permit and may have to fill out route clearance forms for each state he passes through to ensure that he doesn't have to pass through any tunnels or under any overpasses that would be too low for him. And he would be limited to traveling in daylight hours only so he would have to take longer to make the trip even if he had two drivers to switch out when they reached their time limits.

If the Argosy is more than about 10 feet even, he would have to use a lowboy to avoid the oversize restrictions.

My Interstate is 9'8" tall, so this is something I've researched in case I need a flatbed tow. The one and only time I've had mine towed so far, it was with a "spectacle-lift" truck, a tow-behind towtruck that uses a horizontal lifting frame that brackets the front wheels and doesn't touch the bumper or chassis. For that, height didn't matter. But on my Interstate, towing with a spectacle-lift truck more than 30 miles, at more than 30 mph, requires disconnecting the driveshaft to avoid transmission damage.

[martin300662]

Although the original post is old now I still think this is valid to share.....

So I have shipped two Argosy MH now, my 20ft from Florida to Massachusetts, and my 28ft donor from New Hampshire to Massachusetts.



We moved the 20ft first and it was frustrating; even though the AC is removed and the 20ft runs on the smaller 16" wheels, it took 3months to find a shipper that would do the job (and that included numerous uShip listings and also contacting directly multiple companies) - the job sat on the Central Dispatch systems for many many weeks. We had numerous enquires from companies asking for weight and height - without the AC the 20ft was 10' 4" so under the 14' rule and was gutted so under 7000lbs but they still would not touch it.

In the end we were lucky and found a small independent guy based locally doing a trip back with space on a trailer. We had the option to buy a 28ft to use as donor local to the seller, but had to pull out of the deal because of our experiences with out 20ft.

Instead we bought a donor about 100miles away in NH, and got the same guy to go get it. With the AC (and the 19.5" wheels) the 28ft should have been over the height limit, but fortunately the seller was in the process of replacing the rear air bags so it was sitting low....the downside of which was the butt-end bottomed out during loading and unloading (we only got it off the trailer by sitting the chassis on some wooden blocks and dragging the trailer out from under it, fine for a 'donor' but not recommended!

If we every have to get towed or move again, we will do so with all wheels on the ground....anything else takes years off your life!!!!