FAQs
We offer four truck camper models, three are cab-overs (Retreat, Lone Star and Lone Star Jr) and one non-cab-over (Cowboy). When we say “custom camper”, we mean that you may select any option from our list of options, choose your interior wood grain panels and your exterior colors & stripes. We will build the camper, by hand from the ground-up, exactly like you want it, using the components we offer.
Our camper “base model” gives you a finished, empty camper complete with the built-in features listed on the website. From there, you simply tell us what you want in and on your camper and we will build it to your order. It’s kinda like ordering a pizza, start with the crust (pick a model) and then tell us the ingredients you want and we will build it to your order.
Yes, we can re-arrange floor plans to help things fit, but we don’t offer to substitute products that we don’t offer or build-in to the camper anything that is not on our list of options, and we are not willing to alter the external look of our campers.
To be clear, we are not offering to build a unique, specially designed, one-off custom truck camper sketched out to fit your truck or flat-bed. So, if you are wanting a unique camper creation, very sorry we are not able to help you with that.
Our favorite option to simplify your camping experience is a hand-pump sink option. With a hand-pump sink you will get our standard stainless-steel sink basin and a hand-pump faucet tied to a feeder hose that runs down into the cabinet below. You may feed the tube into any liquid source to pump through your sink faucet. This option provides these advantages:
• You control your water source, safe drinking water is always available
• No water tank, no water pump, no water heater, no propane tank
• No need to ever winterize your camper, no pex tubing or fittings to freeze or crack
• It is half the cost of a standard sink with hot/cold water
All Capri Campers will have a dedicated battery that includes a converter/charger. This means your camper is no longer drawing power from your truck battery. Every time your truck turns on or you plug-in to shore power (or generator) your camper battery is being charged. This dedicated battery will power all of the 12 volt features in your camper (like lights, fan & water pump). During installation the camper will plug into your truck’s factory 7-pin receptacle on your truck bumper (or in the truck bed).
Benefits:
• Each camper has a 30-amp power plug inlet, allowing better power distribution
• Provides a more efficient charging system in 3 stages: Normal mode (nominal battery charge and supplies power to appliances). Bulk mode (fast battery charge & supplies power to appliances). Float mode (trickle battery charge during storage).
Retreats and Cowboys offer optional refrigerator/freezers from a manufacturer called NovaKool. The fridge is a 2.4cf AC/DC model that only uses about 2.2 amps per hour when on 12v battery, and it switches to electric when you plug the camper in to generator or shore power. This refrigerator is solid, simple and has almost none of the frustrating & challenging cooling characteristics of the typical 2-way & 3-way RV refrigerators on the market. It does not have to be level to stay cold!
Lone Star & Lone Star Jr offer Dometic AC/DC coolers. 55IM for the Lone Star and 35IM for Jr.
Capri now offers a solar panel option on all models. A solar panel is standard equipment on the Lone Star and Lone Star, Jr models, and optional on all Retreats and Cowboy models. We use the 175-watt Renogy flexible solar panel and it is taped/glued to the roof. We don’t offer any other solar panel option. However, we also make all new Retreats and Cowboys “solar ready” by installing an external solar plug on the camper that is wired directly to our battery compartment, allowing you to easily install your own solar kit and control box. There are multiple options for solar panels, many of our customers are using portable solar panels rather than roof mount panels. The Capri Camper roof WILL support solar panels.
Winterizing your Capri Camper
If your camper has a water tank and/or hot water heater and you are preparing for freezing temperatures this winter, here are suggestions for winterizing your camper.
To Winterize Your Camper with RV Anti-freeze:
1) Drain the water out of your water tank by turning on your sink faucet and/or your shower. It’s OK if a trace of water remains.
2) Be sure to turn on your hot water heater and drain that too.
3) Add at least a gallon or more of RV anti-freeze by using a funnel and using the water tank fill on the side of the camper.
4) Turn on the water heater, give it a few seconds, then turn on the hot water faucet at both sink and shower until pink antifreeze flows through, then turn faucet off. Do the same with cold water.
5) Be sure all faucets are closed. Checks for any leaks in the system.
6) The goal is to have antifreeze flow through all of your water lines, your water heater, pump and your water tank to prevent the water from freezing anywhere in your system.
When we winterize campers for transport we prefer to blow out the water line to make sure there isn’t any water in the line to freeze.
To Winterize your camper by blowing out the water line:
1) You need an air compressor and an attachment called a “blow-out” plug (they are $4-5 at Home Depot).
2) First drain all of the water out of the water tank by turning on the sink and/or shower. Drain the hot water heater as well.
3) Leave all of the faucets in the “on” position and attach the blow-out plug to the city water fill on the outside of the camper (it attaches like a garden hose).
4) Turn on the air and let it blow out all remaining water from the lines. This should take about a minute and you will hear it when the lines are free from any remaining water.
Front facing windows are optional on all of our models but discouraged. Especially the front center slider window. We can almost guarantee that a slider window will let water into your camper if you are driving forward during a heavy rain. The gutters where the glass slides, can fill with water faster than the weep holes can drain so when the gutters fill up, the forward motion of the truck pushes the water into the camper. We tell everyone to put towels down if they are driving in rain. The front window should not leak otherwise. Your other option is a fixed glass window. Same size, but no chance for a drip or a leak. Third option is no glass at all. 90% of the campers we are building now have no window in front, which we strongly recommend. The inside of the camper looks much better and keeping the camper comfortable in extreme temperatures is so much easier when you do not have a window just below the cabover.
30-gallon is standard in most of our campers if you have a shower but you have a choice or 30, 16 or 10 gallon tanks. In a camper with sink only, 10-gallon tanks are adequate. WE also offer a hand pump faucet option that requires no water tank at all. With a hand-pump sink you will get our standard stainless-steel sink basin and a hand-pump faucet tied to a feeder hose that runs down into the cabinet below. You may feed the tube into any liquid source to pump through your sink faucet.
Electric jacks are expensive, but well worth it if you plan to take the camper on and off the truck a lot. The remote control allows you to operate a single post or all four at the same time. Manual jacks come with a cordless drill adapter that allows you to pull the trigger on your drill and spin the jack posts down in only a few seconds. Raising the camper may require using the crank handles. It is not hard, but it can be tedious. We also offer dually extensions that will attach to all of our jacks for our customers with dual wheel trucks.
Capri Campers can be installed one of three ways. The traditional bolt-down method for campers that will rarely or never be removed from the truck, or for serious off-road camping. This is the safest and most secure way to attach the camper to your truck. We can easily bolt the camper to your truck bed using four 6” long hex bolts that are easy to ratchet out of the floor. Alternatively, we offer turnbuckles and retractable locking ratchet straps. For turnbuckle installation our campers will have four heavy duty hooks mounted under the wings of the camper (2 on each side) and there will be four access trap doors below each hook. After the camper is on your truck, you will be able to reach inside a trap door with a turnbuckle, hook above to the camper hook and then below directly to a hook mounted in your truck bed. Tighten the turnbuckles to secure your camper, loosen and unhook to remove the camper from your truck. We will install the four hooks in your truck bed using four small heavy duty eye bolts, plus washers and nut and a heavy duty steel plate that mounts under the truck bed out of sight. Retractable ratchet straps work in a very similar way. Once we see your truck we will suggest the method that will be the safest and simplest solution.
The advantages/disadvantages to these choices are obvious, but for those with a short bed camper, if you can accept the outside shower it leaves you a much bigger camper floor plan, including a lower sleeper that would be approximately 80” X 40”. The inside shower is great in a long bed camper, but if you want the inside shower in a short bed, you must give up the lower sleeper to accommodate the shower stall, and your sitting area around the table shrinks from a “U” shape to an “L” shape, enough for two people.
Long bed Retreat campers have room for upper and lower bunk beds along the passenger wall. Short bed Retreats with no inside shower also allow room for bunk beds. We offer two bunk options…we can add hinges to the top bunk so that it can lift and lock up into the ceiling when not in use. This is handy, but it covers the passenger wall window when up in the locked position. Hinged bunks also eliminate upper cabinets on the passenger wall and eliminate the option of hanging a TV on the back of the shower wall (or back wall). The bunk plank option is a sturdy plank that rests in a 3-sided groove to support the upper bed. A lot of folks like this option because the plank is removable. If you are planning a trip and don’t need the extra bed, just remove the plank from the camper and there is no more interference. With this option the plank is either in or out, there are no hinges to lift and lock the upper bed. With an upper bed plank, there is room for upper cabinets on that passenger wall and a small TV can be mounted on the back wall above the upper bed.
All of our wood grain panel choices and Azdel are standard in our campers. You may select Azdel or the wood grain that you like the best. The cedar option is an expensive upgrade, but it is the favorite of many of our customers. We use real aromatic closet cedar in random plank, tongue and groove installation. It takes at least 3 extra days to build a camper with cedar but the result is beautiful and it smells wonderful for the life of your camper. Cedar adds about 230 lbs. on a Retreat and 150 lbs. on a Cowboy. Cedar is also a natural insect repellent, making your camping experience even better! If you’re not allergic to cedar, this is an exciting option to consider.
Capri uses a Camco brand catalytic propane heater (Wave-3 or Wave-6). The propane heater is a radiant heat unit that works really well in the small interior of the camper. The Fantastic Fan and propane heater can both work with battery power and your camper’s propane bottle. Any time the heater is on, please have a window cracked or your vent open to let fresh air into the camper. The heaters should never emit LP gas, but they do gradually deplete the oxygen supply if there is no fresh air. The motorized (12v) Fan forces air into the camper or out of the camper. With windows open it creates a lot of air flow inside the camper. In even the coldest extreme outside, the propane heater in conjunction with the Fan can regulate the heat and make for a comfortable, safe environment. All of our campers have a CO/LP gas alarm inside.
We offer custom cushions (in most) and blackout shades (in all) of our custom campers. This is one of our special perks. We use a local seamstress to make our cushions and shades to order for each camper. Blackout shades are window covers that snap on and cover the window so that sun light does not get in. Rodeo cowboys love them because you can sleep during the day in a totally dark camper with the shades on. They also provide complete privacy at night.
FACTORY BACKUP CAMERAS
Even though most people remove or drop their tailgate once their new camper is installed, you don’t have to give up your backup camera. If you have a factory backup camera in your truck’s tailgate, you can order that exact camera from a company called Camera Source (camerasource.com). Just call them and give them your make, model & year of your truck and they will ship you the exact factory camera for your truck and it plugs right into your factory monitoring system. It can be mounted on the bumper of your truck or the rear of the camper. Remember that it should be mounted as close to center as possible in the rear of your truck so that the camera images will match the grid pattern on your video system.
We offer very handy four-step accordion stairs that fit perfectly under the door of our campers making it easy to get up and down into and out of the camper. We also offer heavy duty custom generator racks that slip into your trailer hitch. The right side of the rack has a recessed basket built to handle a Honda 3000 generator or anything similar, while the left side of the rack is a reinforced step making it easy to get up into the camper. The camper door should open easily over the generator and the generator sits right below the camper’s power plug-in.
There are no grey water or black water tanks in our campers. We do offer a self-contained portable toilet that has a 2-gallon fresh water flushing tank and 5-gallon holding tank. This toilet fits easily in the shower floor or can be moved virtually anywhere.
Capri Campers have no grey water or black water holding tanks. Our sinks and showers drain through drain hoses that are fed through your rear bumper and tied off underneath the truck. Easily accessible to feed into containers if necessary.
