How much does your renovation rig weigh?

[junebug76]

Have been curious about how much a renovated Airstream weighs once completed. The vintage Airstreams have heavier appliances, but I've noticed the renovated ones use thicker wood and are obviously not engineered the way they were first made. Post your rig with the year/model and weights! Thanks!

[Bubba L]

We renovated a 66 California built Safari. The original recorded weight was 3360#. After renovation the weight increased to 3780#. The layout is identical to original. The original refrigerator is very heavy but still operates. I guess the added weight comes in the microwave, AC, television, dining table, and smaller items that add up to pounds.

[Isuzusweet]

Great thread and should hopefully give people pause to think about their renovations.

We've all hear the guy that added ceramic tile to his rear bathroom Sovereign while up on stabilizers, only to find out that once the trailer was hooked up and the stabilers were jacked up, his trailer was untowable.

When I renovated my 310 I always had a number of golden rules in mind.

1) For every 100 lbs you add in weight to a vehicle, you must add 10 hp to maintain the same performance. I couldn't easily add hp to my turbo diesel.

2) Whatever hard weight (weight you can't remove) I added to my 310, reduced my payload (stuff I could take).

3) My renovation rule was as follows; if I couldn't replace the OEM item with a lighter model or material, the OEM item or material stayed. I used Coosa board for my subfloor, re vinyled the interior gables, built new cabinets out of pine but stayed with the same building technics; so my cabinets have no backs, limited bottoms, gables just long enough to support drawer slides and couter tops that are the top of the cabinets.

I also substituted weight for weight. What I mean is, in order to have two bottom mounted slides instead of one slide laid flat I threw out a 40lb rear folding table. To have that engineered hardwood floor I wanted instead of carpet, I removed an almost useless icemaker freezer that weighed 50+ lbs.

As I have stated many times; renovating an Airstream (or any RV) is more science than design. Whatever additions you make must be followed by subtractions elsewhere.

Cheers
Tony

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Isuzusweet

As I have stated many times; renovating an Airstream (or any RV) is more science than design. Whatever additions you make must be followed by subtractions elsewhere.

That's a good start. But weight distribution matters, too. Weight carried over the axles is better than weight carried at the ends.

Each tire has a maximum load it can carry. Each axle has a maximum load, which may or may not be the same as the sum of the permissible load of the tires on that axle (depending on which tires you're using). So too the tongue has a maximum permissible weight. Keeping the new gross weight under the old gross weight doesn't help if you still overload a tire, an axle, or the tongue by changing the weight distribution.

Buying/renting a set of scales and performing your renovations with the trailer parked on the scales would allow you to check the weight distribution at every point in time as you renovate, without having to do a lot of number-crunching for weight, center of gravity, and moment of inertia. For everything you add, set it in place and check weights against permissible maximums before fastening the addition in place (and don't forget to check weights with all tanks full of water, too, because you might one day have to drive away from a campground before emptying the waste tanks).

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

That's a good start. But weight distribution matters, too. Weight carried over the axles is better than weight carried at the ends.

Each tire has a maximum load it can carry. Each axle has a maximum load, which may or may not be the same as the sum of the permissible load of the tires on that axle (depending on which tires you're using). So too the tongue has a maximum permissible weight. Keeping the new gross weight under the old gross weight doesn't help if you still overload a tire, an axle, or the tongue by changing the weight distribution.

Buying/renting a set of scales and performing your renovations with the trailer parked on the scales would allow you to check the weight distribution at every point in time as you renovate, without having to do a lot of number-crunching for weight, center of gravity, and moment of inertia. For everything you add, set it in place and check weights against permissible maximums before fastening the addition in place (and don't forget to check weights with all tanks full of water, too, because you might one day have to drive away from a campground before emptying the waste tanks).

Hi

Bingo!

If you can't afford the scales, spend some major time with spread sheets and weigh every blasted bit that goes in. Yes, it's a pain ... sorry about that. I see a lot of pictures of "my new open layout" that have all the heavy stuff on one side .... yikes !!! ..... Maybe that's fine (but only maybe) if it's a stationary / on blocks forever redo. Not so fine if it has to ever has to move.

800 pounds on the tongue balanced by 800 pounds at the back bumper is *not* the same thing as 1600 pounds right on the axles. If that does not immediately make sense, it's time to do a bit of studying. Yes, it's complicated.

Bob

[Isuzusweet]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

That's a good start. But weight distribution matters, too.

I thought my rant was getting too long to get into that part of the equation. Luckily I'm smart enough to buy a motorhome so didn't have to be too anal about the weight distribution.

I have also stated in the past to people contemplating a renovation to section their trailer off into say eight sections, weigh everything that comes out of a section, then put back the same.

It is a lot harder for the trailer folk than us motorhomers.

Cheers
Tony

[Minno]

1972 31ft Sovereign: dry wt when we bought her was advertised at 4900lb. ACTUAL weight was less as she had been partially demo'd. Wt when we finished (mostly) with propane tanks and basics in the trailer was 6400lb. New axles more than compensated for the additional weight. We used light weight wood (red alder and basswood) for the cabinets, balanced everything as much as possible. The biggest weight addition was floating cork floors everywhere except rear bath floor. They were worth it, in our opinion. The trailer tows well with our half ton Ram with hemi.
I agree, it does take a lot of thought to balance a trailer. We weighed our trailer at a CAT scales at a mover near our house. I think it cost under $20 to do 3 weights.

Kay

[waninae39]

we took our to a cat scale. luckily they had three scales and we got front and rear TV plus trailer as independent weight now I need to take the TV and get it weighed without a trailer pushing weight on it we got for an Audiq5 with an AS 22FB 1150kg FRont 1250KG rear 4240 kg trailer axle

[bibbs]

I did not use heavier materials, in fact, everything I used was lighter than original except the flooring I removed carpet and installed linoleum. Sorry I don't have any numbers yet. Got it done and left for Canada for the summer, felt like it towed the same.