Chodempole
Knows what a fatty is.
Anyone use either a RV or a porch trailer? I've been thinking of heading in this direction with competitions. Pros and cons of each?
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RV or Porch Trailer?
- Thread starter Chodempole
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nachos4life
Take a breath!
we have a porch trailer we use for our food truck business. We have competed with it a few times as well. I like it, but its set up as a kitchen not a cozy RV.
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What type of cooker? The J3?
RVs typically provide more 'creature comforts', but can take longer to get set up and tear down. With a porch trailer you can pretty much park and be ready to go, but it is harder to find one with a head and a place to sleep. Those are typically custom built so they are more expensive.
RVs typically provide more 'creature comforts', but can take longer to get set up and tear down. With a porch trailer you can pretty much park and be ready to go, but it is harder to find one with a head and a place to sleep. Those are typically custom built so they are more expensive.
Chodempole
Knows what a fatty is.
Haha, This is the real reason for wanting an RV, but in reality I see more people with porch trailers. I think most people probably want the easier setup and available work space. Foregoing the comforts of home is probably a small price to pay to be able to do your best work possible in a kitchen-like setting. Who needs to shower anyway??? :loco:
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It's not so much the shower for us, but having a private toilet and a bed for my wife
We use a bumper pull toy hauler that has a bed and head in the front, a small kitchen area with a stove top, fridge and microwave, and then two fold down couches in the back. We keep one couch folded up and put our prep table in front of it and use the other couch during the day and that is where I sleep. When we were cooking on the FEC-100 or the Southern Q I would put the ramp on jack stands and roll the cooker onto the ramp. Now with the drums I roll them out and cook on the ground. I guess I could still use the ramp and find a way to protect it from the heat, but this saves us the steps of leveling the ramp.
We looked at porch trailers, but since we are used to the bed and head it is hard to find one used, and building to specs was expensive, so we're sticking with what we have.
Blanton
is Blowin Smoke!
The above posts pretty much sum up the pros and cons. It really comes down to when you plan to arrive and who you cook with.
With the RV, we enjoy getting in on Thursday, setting up "Home" and enjoying the ammenities, and even staying over until Sunday depending on the venue. If I rolled in on Friday afternoon and back out on Sat solo, no set up would certainly be the way to go.
With the RV, we enjoy getting in on Thursday, setting up "Home" and enjoying the ammenities, and even staying over until Sunday depending on the venue. If I rolled in on Friday afternoon and back out on Sat solo, no set up would certainly be the way to go.
Pig_Farmer
is Blowin Smoke!
We have a 5th wheel and pull the smoker behind that. It's not the best set up because it's so long pulling tandem. Looking to change it up in the not too distant future. Would like a 5th wheel toy hauler and an IVC with a couple UDS's. But I have to agree with Ron. RV for me. Plus when you're not competing, you can go camping. If you don't plan on getting into catering/ food truck business I would stick with RV
My .02.
My .02.
Pig_Farmer
is Blowin Smoke!
This is pretty much how we roll as well.
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With my limited vacation time at work we rarely get to a site before 2pm on Friday, but we do stay until Sunday quite a bit. We have it down to a science (art?) and can be set up in less that an hour, and we split the work on tear down, my wife doing the inside stuff and I do the outside. We can typically be ready to roll by 3pm on Saturday if we need to.
That's what we thought, but in 5 years with the toy hauler guess how many times we have gone camping?
Yep... Zero :-D We keep all of our comp stuff in the trailer, so going camping would mean cleaning it out :becky:
bpeyton89
Full Fledged Farker
Porch trailers are great for cooking but suck for sleeping. At times I wish we had gone with a fully enclosed trailer with beds in the back and no porch since we cook on cans. Then we cook a comp where it rains all damn weekend and the porch has never been nicer.
Pig_Farmer
is Blowin Smoke!
That's unfortunate, Ron. The camping part is relaxing. We do more camping than comps though.
cpw
Babbling Farker
we just upgraded to a "porch" trailer (porch becuase it's all enclosed, we open up the ramp area when we're cooking), and we have an 8' kitchen, 3 bunks in the front and a bathroom with a shower. It's a game changer for us since it used to take an hour or more to set up, now we park, level, hook up power and water and we're good to go.
Blanton
is Blowin Smoke!
Ron - Do you set up an EZ up, or cook under the awning. I find the EZ Up the biggest pain to properly set up/tie down, but enjoy the sitting space free'ed up.
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Awning, unless there is no chance of rain, then I don't worry about it. I agree that setting up and securing a pop up is a PITA
Chodempole
Knows what a fatty is.
ClaytonSmoke
Got Wood.
We are upgrading to a sprinter van and J5 from a truck and a utility trailer with a backyard pit. I see a lot more porch trailers, but the sprinter van works for my mountain biking hobby. Wish we had enough property for both. Either way, life will be much easier next season.
Smokin Hoggz
Full Fledged Farker
I've got a 40' 5th wheel with a porch that we use, I can pull in to a contest and be ready to start cooking in 10-15 minutes. Clean up takes about 20-25 minutes.
It's actually for sale. Follow this link for all the details https://www.facebook.com/pg/Smokin-.../photos/?tab=album&album_id=10157760239833747
Chodempole
Knows what a fatty is.
Here's a good secondary question to my original... Who here competed without a trailer at first? How much better is it having one vs. not?
It's very much more gooder to have a trailer :becky:.
If you only did it a few times a year pop ups can work, but being able to get out of the elements with a place to sleep, ac, bathroom etc is night and day.
nachos4life
Take a breath!
Before our trailer, we used 2 canopies, and a bunch of coolers, etc. Slept in chairs or the bed of a truck (still do that except one person sleeps on trailer floor). Transported everything in the bed of a pickup truck. That's all fine and good and we may actually do it that way again sometime; however, the space to work inside the trailer, the fridge, the water, and dry storage space is quite convenient compared to dealing with tents and sideways rain and loading tons of stuff in and out of our truck. Personally I think "roughing" it is pretty fun at contests but having a trailer is easier.
