Hey, there,

We'll be buying a bed for our PH from SMB West in the near future, and I'd like to hear what the forum thinks on the relative merit of all one piece vs. those that come in sections.

What are the pros and cons of each? If you get sections, do they ooch apart in the night and leave your butt hanging down? Is there a difference in strength or comfort?

If sections, is there any good reason to get more than two? If two, equal size or is one longer than the other and why?

I know we can get any length we want, but what's standard? We've got six-footers in the family, and I need to know how many inches to add.

Thanks!

Dia, the ever-questioning

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The Petroleum Falcon, aka LOLA. 2011 RB E350 5.4L w/PH. Now I just need solar, an interior and... Hey, why is the money always gone?

I think two is better than one, and three is too many.

Easier to lift up. Doesn't move when sleeping. You can leave all bedding and pillows on rear section, and put up the front section so you headroom until you are ready to sleep. I have no idea how long my two piece is.. comfortably longer than me, at 6'1".

I think one piece is the way to go.

Our one piece bed easily attaches to the top and is up, out of the way. and we can leave the sheets in place on the bed, and fold the blankets and leave them on the bed also.

Mike

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Alaska to Key West, Labrador and more
Prostate cancer survivor. See Thread Prostate cancer and Sportsmobiles
2015 VW GTI 2020 Fiat 124 Spider
2012 E250 Hitop camper

We had a walk through layout in our SMB and a 1 piece bed. It was nice to have the 1 piece bed since it would be up and out of the way. I can see how a 2 piece would be nice to have if you planned on having a 50 style layout. As rallypanam said, you could leave the rear piece in place and use it to store your bedding during the day. Seems like you have more options with the 2 piece beds since you can still hang both pieces if you wanted.

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2005 E350 Chateau - V10 - Agile Offroad 4x4
2012 CTS-V Wagon - For the baby...

This is soooo in my signature! *ifyoudon'tmindofcourse*

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'95 SMB E350 Quigley 7.3
https://www.taylorarts.com
... If you have to ask, you'll never understand...
"... torpedo'd, because we don't generally cotton to bullshit around here." -jage
"... do they ooch apart in the night?" -Dia

I second what Mikracer said. If you think you'll ultimately keep a full-aisle (walk through) design, then I think the one-piece is the way to go. We have an EB walk-through design, and I can't see any benefit to having a two-piece bed as I wouldn't want to block off any of the walk-through height. An an "50" design or similar, the two-piece gives you a small shelf in the back, which doesn't cause any issues because you don't really need the standing height back there.

Happy to be of service.

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The Petroleum Falcon, aka LOLA. 2011 RB E350 5.4L w/PH. Now I just need solar, an interior and... Hey, why is the money always gone?

FWIW, I had a one piece bed, so that's all I ever knew and used.

As mentioned, you can leave it attached to the PH roof while it's being raised and it's completely out of the way. Sometimes I would leave the front cable attached and the rear in the down position if I knew I was only going to be working towards the front of the cabin.

A two piece bed would allow you to store each section vertically (if I'm not mistaken), one each at the front and rear of the raised canvas area.

Here's a thumbnail of my bed and the sizes that went with it. Click on it for a larger size. I would generally place my pillow on the rear, shelf area, bridging the shelf to the bed, so the entire bed length was more than adequate for me (then again, I'm only 5'7").




Herb

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SMB-less as of 02/04/2012. Our savings account is richer, but our adventures are poorer.

I like the two piece because we leave the back one down to store stuff we want to get at easily when camping. We put our backpacks, coats and bike helmets there to keep them out of the way.

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2010 E350 6.0 4x4 EB 50 SMB

We have a RB50 layout w/ 2 piece PH bed. No slippage at night. The front piece is longer than the rear piece and will hang from the top if you wish. When camping, before beditme, we generally just shove the front piece back over the top of the rear. That seems easier than messing with hanging it from the roof.