Depending on where you are located, Mountain Top Trailer Sales in NH still has some parts for Brenderups. We have yet to use them for our Royal HB trailer.
Raine, I too need a new floor for a 1996 Brenderup Prestige III, so I’ve been reading these posts intently. Did your installer have a single piece of marine grade plywood that was large enough–approximately 5.5’ X 12’ I think? I gather from other posts elsewhere in the forums about Brenderup replacement floors that having a single piece of floor material is important for the stability of the trailer. If boards or rumber is used, additional frame supports are needed. Does the rubberized coating mean you can do without mats? I’d love to hear from people who’ve done one or the other type of replacement, and how well it performs, and has held up over time, and how much it cost.
Proximity to southeastern PA would be a plus. I don’t know if I’m overthinking this and if the trailer company in the next county that has done some work on this Brenderup would do an adequate job. I had one replacement floor done at Traveled Lane trailers in Centreville, MD, about 10 years ago, but they no longer work on Brenderups. They recommend Taylor Boyz in Midland VA.
Though I was scrupulous about lifting the mats and keeping the floor dry, it has developed some soft spots.
On a less critical note, one of the escape doors has been water damaged and needs replacing too, if anyone has solved this one…
Yes, the trailer requires a lot of structural work in order to use a different style floor. I wouldn’t recommend it.
I have a 2011 Baron LSL, so I haven’t had to cross that bridge yet.
I am able to fit a surprising amount in my tack compartment when I pack well. I won’t put anything on my shelf over the tack compartment as the risk of it falling into the horse compartment is too great - and that space is really headroom for the horse. I will put my tack trunk on the opposite side of the divider when I only have one horse since it is taller than the bottom of the divider so there is no risk of it migrating over to the side with the horse on it.
Raine - was that Conn. Trailers in Bolton, perchance? That’s where I had the floor replaced on my '99 Baron, a few years ago. They have a source for large enough sheets of marine plywood, and they put some coating on it.
Enquiring minds want to know if you brought it home!
[QUOTE=Rondar;9045971]
Raine, I too need a new floor for a 1996 Brenderup Prestige III, so I’ve been reading these posts intently. Did your installer have a single piece of marine grade plywood that was large enough–approximately 8’ X 14’ I think? [/QUOTE] Since the two horse B’ups were 65" wide and IIRC the Baron was 143" long, no way would you need 8’x14’.
And yes, I’m the one who has a Rumber floor in my B’up.
Unfortunately the floor does need to be done. I am hoping that I can find somebody around here that will covert it to the 2x6 planking. Otherwise SO and I were talking about doing the marine plywood with a coating to hopefully not have to do it again for a very long time.
I had a Baron HB, without a tack room, so the same space that would have composed the tack room was included within the horse compartment, instead of being separated by a wall. This meant that there was a tremendous amount of headroom for the horses, and they never came close to the front wall with the shelf, under which were the saddle racks, bridle hooks, blanket bar, etc. (different layout of these accessories than in the tack room trailers).
In other words, the distance from the chest bars to the shelf was quite large; my horses were completely unable to reach any tack or anything on the shelf, and items did not at all interfere with their head and neck placement. Worked fine for my horses, and was similar in some ways to walk-thru trailers of other makes I’ve seen. I can imagine, however, that if all of that area is closed off by a wall, as in the tack room trailers, then there might be much more limited headroom. Since I have small horses, I was concerned about the tack room wall possibly impinging on their requirement for lower height headroom - which may have been a non-issue in actual practice - but between that and the fact that my husband is very tall and thought he’d have an easier time fitting through the much larger doors on the HB model, that’s what I got.
Speaking of the saddle racks, they are angled towards the horse, any issues with the saddles coming off? My saddle never fell off in my old trailer, but my pads would on a semi regular basis. I don’t want something ending up under my horse’s legs!
I use a large bungee cord. I found that the saddle pillows helps (depending on what type of saddle rack you have in the trailer) and then placing the girth and then saddle pad on top and putting a bungee cord around the entire saddle (mostly covered portions) and connecting the ends.
My saddle and tack gets covered with hay if I store in the trailer. I keep the saddle in the car. I never had a problem with it falling off of the rack when I stored in the trailer.
Just saw this post. We are actually looking at Rumber as an option. What size did you get, and how much did it cost? What changes did you have to make to the trailer, if any, in order to use plank flooring? I would assume that you haven’t seen any of the instability another poster mentioned?
Another question, what does everybody use to protect the fiberglass top? I’ve been googling boat cleaners and protectors, but can’t seem to find anything that says it will help protect the fibgerglass, just make it shiny.
303 marine protectant
I only recall there being one “size” of planks. I think mine was done in 2012 and cost around $1000. My trailer is a Royal HB and the horse area is Rumber, in front of the breast bar it’s plywood with a rubber mat on top to make it the same height as the Rumber. The trailer place added braces under the floor. I have not noticed any change in the way it tows since the floor changed.
Yes, it was! And my husband may have spoken to you about it! We definitely used COTH as a resource before he decided. Hubby nitpicks, but I think they did a good job.
Yes, it is a single piece of plywood. I guess it’s large enough that not a lot of places can do it…thus the long trip from GA to CT! We do use the mats also, even though the floor is coated. Hubby usually takes them up off the floor if we aren’t using the trailer for a while, to minimize moisture sitting on the floor between floor and mats. Same as you experienced, despite the extra care, the floor will inevitably wear out.
Our side doors are still ok, so no help there, I’m afraid.
When I was looking it looked like they have different lengths and thicknesses. I have decided to pass on doing the Rumber though as it adds a lot of weight. It was something like 3 pounds per foot. Would have added close to 300 pounds to my trailer which kind of defeats the purpose of having a light weight trailer!
Yes, rumber is very heavy.
To answer your other question, tongue and groove marine plywood would probably work and then you just put in the angle braces to be sure.
