Looking to buy Passport 280BH - questions

[MooseMan]

Hi - first post!

We are looking at a 2008 Passport 280BH that we generally like - I have a few concerns and wanted to see if anyone has thoughts:

1) most concerning - the ceiling has faint yellowing streaks that appear to run the length of each ceiling stud. If I didn't know better, I would say it looks like a caulk that was used to cover up mounting screws that is yellowing. Could that be? Or something else we should be concerned about?

2) floor coating (linoleum?) is cracked. This appears to be relatively common among TT's.

3) in a relatively casual look I could only find two heat ducts - one in the cabinet near the front door and one directly off the furnace (I think). Is there anything else? Didn't seem like a lot.

Thanks in advance!

[JRTJH]

Congratulations on finding a trailer that meets your needs... That's definitely a start in the right direction :)

As for the yellow streaks, most manufacturers use a "wood putty" material to fill the staple/nail holes in their trailers. On ours, we washed for several weeks (off and on) as we found the smudges which seem to only show up when the light hits the wall/ceiling at a certain angle. I used spray paint, a paper cup and a small artist brush to paint the holes to match the wall once we cleaned the putty off. What you're seeing is probably the "old discolored putty" but check very VERY closely to make sure there's not any water stain that has discolored.

Many RV's of all manufacturers had problems with the vinyl cracking in cold, freezing weather. If you can get the dealer or owner to replace it without increasing the price, that would be great, but if you can't, it shouldn't be a deal breaker if everything else is OK. There are a lot of good quality self adhesive tile products that mimic everything from slate to hardwood that would be perfect and not too hard to install for an average DIY'er.

As for the heat ducts, we've got 3 in our 28' fifth wheel, I'm going to install another one to get heat into the bath, but that's a project for when it warms up. Do a quick check and you may find that there are a couple of wall mounted 4" round heat outlets in the bedroom possibly mounted on the bed pedestal and maybe one in the bathroom as well. The floorplan you're looking at is pretty open, so there probably aren't a lot of heat outlets needed.

Good luck, hopefully, this may get you started on answers for your questions.

[MooseMan]

Awesome - thank you. The 'putty' is sort of what I expected (kinda like RV mud I guess), but I'm not familiar enough with construction of these to know that for sure. I still need to get up on the roof, and other than that I need to get them under $12k :) I'm not terribly worried about the heating situation - just thought it was a little strange.

We're also eyeballing an '06 Surveyor SV-291. Same basic floorplan. The Surveyors I've been in seem to be well made.

[Terrydactile]

We own the same TT. I'll echo what JRTJH said and can offer more info on the heat ducts. The main heat flow comes from the front of the heater and then there is the one duct in the cabinet by the door that you mentioned. I've heard that there is one running through the floor to give a little heat to the underbelly but I've never looked for it.

The duct that runs through the cabinet by the door is virtually worthless. It offers very little air flow. I'm not sure why there would be one run into the underbelly, if there is because all the water lines are run inside on the floor. Maybe for the waste tanks.

The heater will heat the trailer in short order even though the ducts don't offer much flow.

Be glad to help further if I can and you have more questions.

[ksfis43]

I have a 2011 280 BH, I cant really coment on your concerns since mine is new, but in the 2011, they have moved the heat ducts to the floor, one right at the foot of the front bed, one in front of the table and one in the angled wall under the bottom bunk, and it kept us pleanty warm the couple times we needed heat this past year.

Welcome to the site.