How to Get Furniture Through an RV Door (Will a Couch Fit?)
It is a tight fit. Moving day or even adding a piece of furniture to one’s home can often be trying. No one measured the openings until they brought that item home. It is going to be a tight fit if it works at all and a lot of furniture manipulation will take place.
One way would be to stand the sofa on its end and slowly work the sofa through the door. Another way would be to buy a brand, like IKEA, that has its furniture come in pieces. Bring the pieces through one at a time and assemble the sofa inside the RV.
To learn more on how to brig a sofa through an RV doorway, just continue to read our article. It has several proven suggestions you can try to make your effort successful. Take a few minutes and see what you can do when you are in this situation.
How to Get Furniture Through RV Door
When you are trying to move furniture out of your RV and the windows are not large enough or can’t be removed, the key will be to take the inside furniture apart. Recliner backs should be able to come off and be separated from the bottom section.
The same goes for the sofa backrest. Since the furniture was installed after the RV frame, etc., as-built, you have to take the sofa and chairs out the same way they were put in-- piece by piece. For swivel-based chairs, you have to disconnect the seat from the metal swivel to be successful.
Then, you can stand the sofa or hide a bed on its end and work your way through the door, both incoming and outgoing, just like you would with oversized furniture in your regular home.
Or, if your new sofa has legs, you should unscrew those to make it smaller. Once that is done, you just have to screw the legs back on and set the sofa where you want it. if you have an interior room, you can try to move the furniture in through or out through the door horizontally.
It will all depend on your interior’s layout which method will be best to use. There is not an unlimited amount of options available to do this task. If your windows are large enough and you can slide them out of their place, that would be another option you can try.
The size of your RV will dictate the techniques you can use. The final option is to buy the sofa or chairs in pieces and bring those pieces in one by one and assemble either right in place.
How Wide is a Standard RV Door?
This will depend on who makes the RV. Different brands use different door sizes and there is no one measurement that is standard across the industry. Plus, those brand manufacturers change the door width depending on the interior layout or model of the RV.
There are so many different sizes that no one is mentioning one standard size. When they do, they are usually referring to the RV access door which is not the same as the RV entry door. The former door ranges between 14 to 70 inches wide but that may not help you when you are trying to get your new sofa inside your RV.
What also complicates matters is that not all RV doors are rectangular with square corners. Some come with rounded edges and frame cutting move in or out space down considerably.
The best thing we can say is that before you go shopping, measure your door opening and check to see if any removable windows are large enough to facilitate the change in furniture. Remember you have to go both ways on this venture.
Not only are you trying to get the new sofa, etc., inside but you are also having to get the old stuff out. So this is not an hour chore you are looking at but possibly an all-day or all afternoon task. RV furniture will be easier to remove as they come in pieces that are not hard to take apart.
You just have to be careful about the size of the new furniture when you go shopping. Oh, and one more thing, travel trailer doors, camper doors, and similar RV options will have smaller doors than Class A RVs.
How Tall is a Travel Trailer Door?
There are several different measurements you can buy at a standard RV parts replacement store. One measurement was 72 inches high which is okay for the majority of the population of the world. There was one option at 76 inches.
However, these doors rarely get taller than that. The other two options we found were 68 and 70 inches tall. These measurements were for both the squared corners and the rounded corner models. One other model was reaching 78 inches tall but the majority were 68, 70, and 72 inches.
The widest these doors got was 28 inches with several at 24 and some at 26 while one came in at 32 inches wide. This measurement is going to be key when you want to replace old furniture. You will want the widest door possible on your RV to make the exchange go smoothly.
There were several 30 inch wide doors but you will have to measure your RV to make sure what size you have to work with. The good news here is that those doors with rounded edges and corners were as wide as those doors that had square corners.
Will a Couch Fit Through a Camper Door?
Only if the couch is small enough. We do not say that in jest but to warn you that camper doors are not always that large. If you are talking about a Class C RV then you will have similar door sizes already mentioned in the previous section. But it isn’t just the door size you need to worry about.
It is your interior layout that will pose the biggest problem you will have in getting that couch inside. If you happen to have a teardrop trailer/camper then you are looking at a door frame measuring 22 by 48 inches.
Regular truck campers are probably similar or smaller in size. Class B RVs are not even in the discussion as they can have rear doors that open up and allow you to make changes easier.
The word is that most RV manufacturers do not make standard door sizes. What that means is if you like the new couch in your friend’s rig, it may not fit through the door of your RV no matter what class it is in.
That is the biggest problem you will find when it comes time to exchange old furniture for new. The best solution you will have is to buy the furniture that is available in component style and assemble everything inside your RV.
How do You Get a Couch Through an RV Door?
There is a limited number of techniques you can use. To get the most obvious one out of the way first, you will have to buy furniture that can be disassembled and then reassembled once it is inside your RV.
That is going to be the easiest and less time-consuming option you will have. Or if you don’t buy that type of furniture, then you are left with wrestling the door through small openings like you would when you buy oversized furniture for your traditional home.
Those methods leave you with 2 actual options. You can bring in the sofa or other furniture horizontally but the requires a lot of space near the door. Your interior layout will let you know if that is possible.
The other option will be to do it vertically but if the sofa, etc. is too tall then you will have problems. It will take some maneuvering to get the sofa, etc., through smaller RV doors if you bought them in the one-piece style.
In other words, you have to measure first to make sure the piece you want to buy will fit or not. You can try removing a window but that is not always the best option unless the window returns to its original spot easily.
Unfortunately, unlike colors and design styles, there are very limited options available when it comes to moving furniture. It either fits one way or another without having to do major renovations.
How do You Bolt Down Furniture in An RV?
First off, yes you can bolt down furniture in an RV, that is not going to be a problem. Second, you may be able to use regular furniture that you would use in your home in your RV. That is if they meet special conditions.
Those conditions include if they will fit, they are light enough and they are newer pieces of furniture. Older styles of furniture may be too heavy to use in an RV. The good news in all of this is that you will have the old bolts to use as the current RV furniture is already bolted in place so it won’t move when the RV moves.
The first step is to make a design plan. If you buy first then plan second, you will find that the furniture you bought may not work or even fit in the smaller locations. You will want to buy furniture that will fit in the spaces you have available.
The second step is to pick the right pieces of furniture that have space-saving designs. Most house furniture doesn't come with that feature. Then the third step is to check the weight of the furniture. The heavier the pieces are the lower the fuel economy and the handling may not be as good.
Now that those decisions have been made and you decided on the right furniture to use. You have 3 choices in how to bolt the furniture in place. Number one is Velcro straps. They are lightweight, easy to use, and fit in tight spots. Good Velcro straps can hold a lot of pieces in place so that they do not move even over bumpy roads.
Option number two would be to use bungee cords. This option requires that you screw 4 eye bolts into the floor of your RV near the rear of the piece of furniture you need to secure. Then you hook up the bungee cords. The drawback to this option is that the elastic will stretch so your furniture will move a bit as you drive or use it.
Finally, option number three is using the right hardware and actually bolting the furniture in place so that it won’t move at any time. Angle iron and the right-sized screws are the best hardware options you have.
These screw into the floor and into the furniture at the same time so the furniture will not move no matter how bad the road gets. The only drawback to this method is space. Not in placing the furniture but in securing the angle iron.
It will be a toss-up whether you attach the iron to the furniture first then the floor or the floor first then the furniture. The one hazard is that you need to be careful you do not drill into something vital underneath the floor.
Some Final Words
Adding new furniture to your RV or taking old furniture out will be the same as moving into or out of a house. You are going to have trouble with the furniture. This is a given no matter what type of house you own. But if you can get large enough doors those issues will be reduced and the work will be easier to get done.
