Community Forums

Waywards · 06-03-2018, 11:12 AM

I parked the RV on the grass at the pictured location for a season. While that worked, it was beginning to rut the ground up. There was no danger of it getting stuck but it looked messy.

Diesel RV’s are heavy. Mine is 16 tons and that’s on the light side for “Diesel Pushers”. I thought of just dumping limestone on the ground, but decided the weight of the vehicle required a small amount of engineering.

Costs depended mostly on materials. Concrete was 3 to 4 times more expensive than stone. For cost comparisons, concrete bids came in a $3,800. Limestone was $1,250. This included site prep, materials and haul away of waste debris.

I could of done the limestone job myself but would require renting a Bobcat, trailer and plate compactor. Cost wise, I would not save much. Sometimes it’s just better to pay someone to do the work.

The site was excavated 10 to 12 inches deep. A (very substantial) landscape cover was laid in the bottom. Three courses of limestone were laid. Each layer was compressed. The limestone had more finings in it than the pictures suggests. The larger stones came to the top when compressed.

It rained the next day which caused the limestone to compact and harden even more. You have to work to kick up stones with you shoe except around the edges where the larger stones surfaced.

Driving on the grass to get to the pad does not disturb the ground much. I do wait a couple of days if it has rained to avoid unnecessary ground gouging.

The pad is 32 feet x 12 feet.

seeg · 06-03-2018, 11:21 AM

I park mine on gravel and it's worked well for several years. I was going to pour a concrete pad but I thought why, as most of the spots we camp in have gravel pads unless were in a high end resort.

vsheetz · 06-03-2018, 11:24 AM

Good job. I have similar using DG for a parking pad and driveway. Been in place for many years.

RickNC · 06-03-2018, 11:29 AM

That is the correct way to do it! The grade of crushed stone he used is often referred to as “Crusher Run”. A mix of 3/4 stone down to dust. It can be produced from any type of stone including old concrete. It is the most common base for driveways and parking lots.

Waywards · 06-03-2018, 01:04 PM

Shortly after parking the RV, the neighbors stop by to check it out.

Radacravitz · 06-03-2018, 01:29 PM

pad looks great and so does your visitor.

Jim.B1 · 06-03-2018, 02:12 PM

Thanks for the photos, and thanks for including some costs.
I wish more people would include costs on their RV Garage and Pad projects.

Scottybdivin · 06-03-2018, 03:17 PM

Nice job. It will serve you well. The only problem I have with mine is that the gravel is hard on the knees when your working on the RV. I just keep a pair of knee pads handy.

xrated · 06-03-2018, 04:00 PM

Behind my Toy Hauler, you can see my original gravel pad....it was big enough for a 7' x 16' enclosed trailer that I had......

After buying the T.H., I obviously needed to extend the gravel pad and when I did, I bought some 4" x 6" posts and laid down to surround the pad and drilled holes in them and drove rebar through them to help keep them in place....

After getting all of that done, I added a cover for the new T.H.......

Like you said, a lot cheaper than a concrete pad, and for our purpose, it is working out just fine.

CampFire Junkies · 06-03-2018, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xrated

Behind my Toy Hauler, you can see my original gravel pad....it was big enough for a 7' x 16' enclosed trailer that I had......

After buying the T.H., I obviously needed to extend the gravel pad and when I did, I bought some 4" x 6" posts and laid down to surround the pad and drilled holes in them and drove rebar through them to help keep them in place....

After getting all of that done, I added a cover for the new T.H.......

Like you said, a lot cheaper than a concrete pad, and for our purpose, it is working out just fine.

Xrated- interested in looking at a cover such as yours. Can you please give me some information?

xrated · 06-03-2018, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CampFire Junkies

Xrated- interested in looking at a cover such as yours. Can you please give me some information?

Sure, no problem..The length of it is 36' (T.H. is right at 34 1/2'). The height of the legs are 12' and the width of it is 12'. Ideally, I would have bought a 14' wide cover, but I'm right at the edge of my property line with the 12' width...and the T.H. fits, so that's what counts. With the shape of the trusses, the center of the cover is approx. 15' 2" from the ground, so plenty of clearance on top for the A/C unit and Television antenna. My T.H. is approx. 12' 6" height to the top of the A/C. The brand on this one is MetalMax, but there are a lot of companies out there that produce these. If I'm not mistaken, MetalMax is available in 12 or maybe 13/14 states and I am in E. TN, so right in the heart of their business area. I've got approx. $3K in this one, plus whatever it cost to get the work done for the additional length of my existing pad of gravel. I also had to pay a bit extra for them to move it over approx. 3' after they completed erecting it, so that it is now about 1 foot away from the gutters on my existing detached garage...You can see in my second picture that the gravel comes all the way up to the existing garage, and the actual legs of the cover, on the garage side are about 30" from my outside garage wall.....and that leaves approx. 1 foot from the cover sidewall to my garage gutter. The 2 1/2" x 2 1/2 galvanized square tubing base and legs seem to be pretty substantial, and they also drive a "rebar" type barbed stake into and through the base and into the ground approx. 2'....about every 6 feet. Holler if you have any other questions.

HC-1 phil · 06-03-2018, 04:51 PM

Here is our new RV pad and workshop after a recent move. Total cost roughly 30 k.

CampFire Junkies · 06-03-2018, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xrated

Sure, no problem..The length of it is 36' (T.H. is right at 34 1/2'). The height of the legs are 12' and the width of it is 12'. Ideally, I would have bought a 14' wide cover, but I'm right at the edge of my property line with the 12' width...and the T.H. fits, so that's what counts. With the shape of the trusses, the center of the cover is approx. 15' 2" from the ground, so plenty of clearance on top for the A/C unit and Television antenna. My T.H. is approx. 12' 6" height to the top of the A/C. The brand on this one is MetalMax, but there are a lot of companies out there that produce these. If I'm not mistaken, MetalMax is available in 12 or maybe 13/14 states and I am in E. TN, so right in the heart of their business area. I've got approx. $3K in this one, plus whatever it cost to get the work done for the additional length of my existing pad of gravel. I also had to pay a bit extra for them to move it over approx. 3' after they completed erecting it, so that it is now about 1 foot away from the gutters on my existing detached garage...You can see in my second picture that the gravel comes all the way up to the existing garage, and the actual legs of the cover, on the garage side are about 30" from my outside garage wall.....and that leaves approx. 1 foot from the cover sidewall to my garage gutter. The 2 1/2" x 2 1/2 galvanized square tubing base and legs seem to be pretty substantial, and they also drive a "rebar" type barbed stake into and through the base and into the ground approx. 2'....about every 6 feet. Holler if you have any other questions.

Thanks for the great information!