Replace carpet in Concourse- is it possible?

[TheBluebird]

Hello,

I am fulltiming in my 2003 Concourse and find the carpet to be too high-maintenance for me and my dog. Plus, of course, it's over 15 years old. I am willing to pay a professional installer to replace the carpet with some kind of vinyl flooring.

I understand vinyl plank flooring is too heavy. What flooring do you recommend?

How do I handle the bolts that are apparently under the carpet? Is there a specific subflooring you recommend where the installer can notch out the underside to allow for the bolts?

I plan to replace the carpet in the cab at the same time. Are there any issues with how the two levels meet?

The biggie: how on earth is the installer going to work with the booth and the couch? Both of these have flipdown cupboards that do not allow for any corner round or shoe molding. They would have to be removed for the installation or at least shifted around. Or is it even possible to remove the booth and couch from the coach and get them back inside without destroying either in the process?

I am about an hour away from a professional installer in Lake City Florida who does a lot of installs for Wayne's Carpets and Camping World. I am going to meet with him first to discuss these issues. I appreciate your comments and any other things I need to consider before moving forward with this project.

Thank you!

[caconcourse]

First off, vinyl plank flooring is not "too heavy" in the grand scheme of things. There is not that much floor area to cover. That is what I installed recently. It won't work in the cab however. When I pulled the carpet, there was a high quality rubber underlayment, which I left in place as an underlayment for the vinyl planks. It was about 1/4" rubber and covered all the exposed bolt heads etc. to leave a flat surface for the new floor. It also provides a cushiony feel for the new floor which is quite pleasant.

I trimmed the flooring around the chair boxes, and no trim was necessary. Same with the pull down doors. I removed the fold down door and sides from the front of the sofa, and re-installed it over the new floor, so the floor covers the storage area below the sofa in front of the water tank. This is where we store our double sleeping bag.

I saved the lighted trim in front of the top step and re-used it with the new flooring, so the lighted step still works. I removed the brown paint, so it has an aluminum finish.

[Blue~Go]

Definitely possible to replace the carpeting (why was that ever a good idea!?).

Weight is a factor, as is the fact that your Chinook will no doubt see much larger temperature variance than a typical house. So those are things to research and compare.

It's not that hard to remove the furniture forward of the kitchen. That's what I'd expect any pro to suggest. If you don't want to do that, you could just remove the "doors" to the under couch and other furniture. At least on mine they come off pretty easily.

Kitchen and aft, yeah, too bad it's not like a house with a straight kick space that makes it easy to cut in flooring. Dernit.

As far as the bolts, again, a number of ways to handle them. You can put down a subfloor that "makes up for them" (but then your counters get EVEN lower). If you use thicker flooring you can use something like a forstner bit to cut discs out of the bottom side so they lay over the bolt heads. You could replace them with elevator bolts (essentially flat), or I have heard of people counter-sinking them. You probably have the composite floor base so if you do that you'd want to make sure to put something firm in the core area where you do your countersinking (thickened epoxy or etc.). Older models have floors that are two layers of plywood so countersinking is a little bit more straightforward.

What would I do if I were doing it tomorrow?

1) Remove all furniture and run the flooring underneath. I find the quarter round to add just a wee bit of chunkiness, and I already feel like the aisle is narrow enough (but others might not notice or mind or feel like removing things). Plus sooo much easier to do the flooring. At minimum the couch and dining furniture, or at least everything but the bolted in couch frame.

2) Choose a single sheet of vinyl (such as Lonseal) or linoleum (Marmoleum). Countersink or use elevator bolts for the body bolts.

3) Try to keep it as low as possible (no thick sub-floor) since the Concourse countertops are already pretty low. I raised mine to 34" which is a bit higher than stock but still lower than a house (which is 36"). But left as they are plus a thick sub-floor and they'd be even shorter. You will lose around 3/4" or so I think by removing the carpet (thickness of carpet and pad, obviously can't be precisely measured since it compresses).

[pdemarest]

When I had my couch and dinette reupholstered I also had new carpet installed in the cab and left the original carpet in the "house" part in place. One season with carpet convinced me to go to vinyl, in my case vinyl tiles. Obviously the most desirable option is to pull out the furniture and do the job completely. However, I had concerns about the ability of the floor installer to do this without complications and opted to have them simply remove all the visible carpet and leave it in place under the furniture (where it does at least provide some insulation from noise and temperature). This process was well within the skill set of the guy doing the job and I didn't run the risk of something not going back together correctly. This work was done by a professional floor installer at a labor rate considerably lower than what my RV service guy would have charged me, he had the knowledge and parts to deal with the floor height difference between the cab and the house and they did it in my driveway because they are used to working on location for their regular flooring jobs. Any way you go on this the good news is that you'll be rid of the carpet.

Paul

[TheBluebird]

Wow, I didn't think about just removing the doors, that is very helpful. Caconcourse, why won't your floor work for the cab area? What did you do for that area then? I am very close to weight limit when fully loaded, so I do want to keep the weight factor in mind. Have no idea how much this floor weighs.

Blue, that's a good point about the countertops being even lower. They don't bother me for some reason-- which is surprising because I'm 5'9". That's a good point about the fact that there will be temperature extremes. Is there a special kind of floor or adhesive that I would want?

Paul, yes getting rid of carpet will make me SO happy. And, right, it is WAY cheaper to have a flooring guy do it rather than going through an Rv shop.

[caconcourse]

Wow, I didn't think about just removing the doors, that is very helpful. Caconcourse, why won't your floor work for the cab area? What did you do for that area then? I am very close to weight limit when fully loaded, so I do want to keep the weight factor in mind. Have no idea how much this floor weighs.

The vinyl planks are about 1/4" thick and can only be installed on a flat surface. The planks "click" together and are not glued down. It is a "floating" floor to allow for expansion and contraction, which is not very significant over the small area of the Chinook. This floor probably weighs about 80 pounds, which would not be much more than a wood underlayment and linoleum. We did a "transition" between the cab and the rear creating about a one inch vertical step down to the cab. We just left the carpet in the cab.

I would heartily recommend you reuse the carpet underlayment, as it is a very good surface, already in place and covers all the irregularities (bolts) in the subfloor. Assuming you have the same rubber underlayment we have of course. It will also save a lot of time and trouble in the installation of the new surface.

Here are some more pics showing the transition to the cab and the area under the jackknife sofa, where I cut around the sofa brackets.

[Blue~Go]

Wow, I didn't think about just removing the doors, that is very helpful.

I forget right now whether you have the club chairs or dinette. In any case, it is pretty easy to strip the side and front panels off the couch frame (they are just basically decorative), and not a whole lot harder to remove the couch cushion sections for working room (at least if you have the manual sofa; can't speak to the electric one).

The club chair bases are also pretty easy to remove - especially the one by the stove. The dinette I think is bolted to the floor like the couch, but I bet there are still some panels that would be easy to take out.

It's interesting how the later models seem to be much closer on weight ratings. And yet the walls and floor are composites vs. plywood cores. Must just have been feature creep. I had a fair bit of room in the ratings when I bought mine, and since I've removed a few "accessories" I'm way below ratings. But you are smart to consider that because the E-350 chassis is all too easy to overload, especially in our case the rear axle weight rating (I always check that with full fuel as that tank and the holding tanks are behind the rear axle, which just adds more weight).

Side note (warning: redundancy as I've mentioned this probably way too many times already ) but if you are getting close on your rear axle weight rating (which I bet you are), then you can remove around 200# by putting the spare tire on the front. Reason it makes that much difference is that first of all, it's way behind the rear axle so that "magnifies" its weight due to leverage; second, when you put the weight out front it reduces the rear weight even more (teeter-totter effect). And it's an easy mod. And you get more space by the door and easier access to the "tire locker" storage. Not that I love it or anything

[TheBluebird]

Why is not recommended to replace the carpet in the cab area? Is it something to do with engine heat?

Yes, I am close to my overall weight limit but I can't move the tire to the front because that's where I put my bike hitch.

[sm350bl]

Just posing a question, I like the idea of removing the carpet for wood/linoleum floor, can you still do this if you have heated floors and wanted to keep them?

[caconcourse]

Just posing a question, I like the idea of removing the carpet for wood/linoleum floor, can you still do this if you have heated floors and wanted to keep them?

I would guess you could keep the heated floor. It is usually a pad that is placed under the carpet, that can be preserved and placed under the new flooring. I would be careful removing the old carpet to make sure you don't damage the heating elements and wiring.