ATF: Bighorn - 3160 elite basement

The 3160 and 3260 models are great floor plans but you have ruined the basement storage by putting the hot water heater on the right side of coach. This has cut down on storage where I currently put an ice maker. We were considering these coaches but wished they had more basement storage. Also the light fixtures in the kitchen area of the 3160 look really cheap. Please go back to the globe fixtures. Thanks for reading. By the way is there a way to open that basement up my self?

I can't speak for the factory, but I do know that depending on the floorplan layout, it can dictate where there is room for the water heater down below.

I know from being behind the wall in my rig several times that if I were real ambitious, I could move the wall a bit and create some extra room in the basement.
But that would mean that I would probably just be making room for more junk that I really don't need to carry around.

Peace
Dave

I have a 3260, and if your creative, I am sure you could gain some room. On the off door side that wall edge is up against the UDC, so your not moving that. On the door side your up against the water heater. Your not going to gain a ton of extra room but there is some room in the center area to be had. Here is a couple of photos of what is beind those walls.

I don't have your model but a 3010 Bighorn and moved my wall back about a foot. Granted the water heater was not in the way as it was in its traditional off door position as in most of their coaches.

One other tip is that I removed most of the chip board partition (only kept where the plugs and switches were and put up 2 by 2 framing. I then bought some coroplast from Home Depot and used Velcro to hold it in place. This way it is a snap to remove any section of the wall to get back into the basement.

I moved the vacuum cleaner to beside the stairs. I don't use it much and therefore don't change the bag often. When I do I just pull off that section of coroplast and change it out.

My point about the 2 by 2 framing is that you can easily build it around your water heater and any plumbing in the way to get as much usable room as possible and then cut and fit the coroplast to fit.

Cookie made a good point of the extra weight...by removing most of the chip board I think I actually saved some weight for any extra stuff. In reality I don't think I have that much extra....just easier to get it in and out with more room.

At the same time I did this mod I also put about 4 extra lights in the ceiling and tied the existing ones into a 3-way switch by either door. It lights up the whole basement and nice to turn all the lights on from either access door.

Thanks all especially the pics. I was wondering what it looked like behind the curtain lol


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