RV Park thoughts, suggestions & ideas.

[AlanB]

Rox,


This brings up a question. How far would be the ideal distance for a picnic table from the RV? Pad is 12 feet wide. RV is 10 feet wide, but the slideouts will add another 3 feet, or two feet over the pad.

Should the table be parralle to the RV or perpendicular?


Thanks,
Eddie

I think there is no correct answer to that question, which is why I would not make them fixed. I may put it on a concrete pad, and I may chain or some other way secure it, but I would leave some room for "play"

Could you put a pipe down into your pad as a kind of "socket" and then allow the person using the space to either put in the upright part or not?

Not sure if it would be stable enough, but how about pouring some 5 gallon buckets of concrete with a large fence pole centered in them and a t or hook or something welded across the top. Keep them kind of scattered around and some by the office, some people would not want them, and some would want 4 or 5 around their place for lantern's, clothes line, etc. etc.

 

[EddieWalker]

In our limited time with a Motorhome. It amazes me what campgrounds call a level site. The hydraulic jacks on our motorhome can lift both axles about 6" off the ground. Yet many of the parks we have stayed at, our motorhome cannot be leveled with the jacks. If you are renting a 65' site. I would expect that length of level. Not just the 20' in center of the site.
One other item would be with the secure RV storage. Include some undercover storage. I am sure your dad would like to be storing his motorhome under a roof instead of out in the open.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the Christmas Card!!!


I agree with you that there is no excuse for having unlevel sites. There are a few challenges in a few areas to go from the road to the site without taking out too many trees, but in the end, the tree will lose. I'm gonna have level sites!!! hahahaha

There is another local RV Resort that has a perfect 5.5.5 score from Good Sams. There are only a few parks in the country to get perfect scores and this one is just half an hour away. I won't get into how rediculous the scoring is or why I don't think this park is even close to a perfect score, but one thing they did really bad is not make there sites level. Some are, but a few drop more than two feet from one end to the other.

The owner blames the contractor, but when I talked to a few of the contractors, they said he told them to just get it done and he didn't care about it. Somebody is lying, but I won't get into who I believe.

I've never thought about the storage idea. Can you elaborate on it? How big and where would you put it? Pictures would realy help if you have any.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Amen!!!! You know, we found RVers to be some of the nicest people in the world, but we've seen enough of the ones who travel with pets (dogs, in nearly all cases) that I've said if I owned an RV park, I think I'd strictly forbid dogs (or any other animal that ever went outside the owner's RV). It does seem that RVers are usually the worst dog owners in the world. And yes, there was a time long ago when we traveled with a German Shepard in our motorhome.

Of course, all the suggestions in this thread are related to "destination" parks, and from Eddie's own description, that's what he's going to build. A whole different set of rules may apply to "transit" parks, which I think might be much more profitable and less work if they are in the right location.

Example: We spent 5 days once in Van Horn, TX. We arrived about 3 p.m., the RV park was very small, absolutely no facilities or recreation except water, electric, sewer, and cable TV hookups, restrooms and showers, coin operated washer & dryer, and a very tiny swimming pool. The entire park was flat and level and graveled. There was no one in the little locked office, but a sign on the door to go to the service station on the other side of the car wash next door to register. If I remember right, there were 75 RV sites; 3 occupied. Then about 4:30 p.m., the office opened, RVs started coming in off I-10 and by dark, the park was completely full. By 9 a.m. the next morning, only the 3 who had been there before, and us, were left. And that same thing happened every day that we were there. That must have been the lowest maintenance, highest profit RV park I've ever seen.

Bird,

I agree with you one hundred percent. If I could, I'd not allow any pets. If just one out of a hundred barks or the owners don't pic up it's poop, I have dozens of other guests that are not happy. Unfortunately, there really is no way to keep that large of a customer base out and hope to survive. Most will be good guests and take responsibilty for there pets so we'll just have to deal with the few bad apples.

Dogs are not the only problem. Kids can be allot worse than dogs and even harder to get there parents to accept responsibility for. I've been to parks that won't allow kids in them and I've been to parks that have adult only areas. It's a very tempting idea, but the reality is they are also a major customer base and I doubt I can succeed without them.

At one time I started creating a list of rules to try to keep everyone happy. But after a very short time, my list of rules started looking like something very opressive. I haven't finalized my rules, but I do know I want to keep it to a minimum and hope for common sense and manners to prevail.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

How about Saturday Hog Shoots? Betcha no other RV park has that as an activity.

Hey Bmac, glad to see you here.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie,

You absolutely do not want to run coax. More expensive harder to work with etc etc. Run cat 5. Internet stuff is kind of weird, sometimes the newer is cheaper. If someone has a bunch of cat 5 to get rid of and it goes cheap then buy it but if someone needs it for something special (I am not sure what that would be) you might have to pay a premium for it. The current stuff made and sold is cat 6 before that and still very much used is cat 5e all those wires look the same. The only difference is in the amount of data it will handle. Cat 5 cable will handle 1,000,000 bits of data a second cat 5e and cat 6 will handle 1,000,000,000 bites a second obviously you dont need cat 5e and cat 6 but that might be all that is available. Your problems will be distance ones cat5/6 is only good for 300 feet. Some planning will take care of that problem though. For instance when you have a line of pads when you get to three hundred feet Add a small box in addition to the AC power and put in a Ethernet switch. On the internet you should be able to get one that handles 4 lines out for under 20.00 if you plan it right you can run 300 feet to that switch then come out from it 4 directions. Make sure you get switches and not hubs. Very minute price differences now but a world of performance difference. The connectors for cat 5 cable take a tool that is about 40.00 to buy and never wears out. They are a bit hard to make until you get a handle on them. but not a real hard thing to do.

What you are talking about is not a sub T1 the technical term for that is Fractional T1 not trying to be a snoot but is always better to know the correct term when you are talking to the installation people. I personally am not a big fan of fractional T1 lines. They have to run all the same stuff to do a fractional line as a regular T1 and they could charge you the same price as a fractional in my opinion. As I suggested before you really need to try to stay away from sattelite dish networks. The problem with them is the sattelite is way out in space and when you send a signal to it and it sends it back to its server on the earth it takes time to make the trip. My experience with home sattelite dish networks. ( basically DirectTV network) is that from the time I hit the key to do something there was a 1/2 second latency delay before stuff started coming back from a web site for instance. Now when that started coming back then it was fast but every time i hit a key was 1/2 half second before something happened. This is still a lot faster than dial up modems but it is noticeable. You might look into microwave internet, texas might be perfect for that. I know there was a place here that had it set up for a while. basically they put a microwave antenna on your property (like on top of a building) and align that with their microwave tower. no latency times like a sattelite dish and you can get high speed internet. I know someone that did not have access to dsl but their family across the creek did. My friends payed for the dsl line to the family then set up a microwave tower to their house and are running a web provider service off of that. You might also talk to your phone company about paying for the cost of a fiber optic line. I am sure that is very expensive but it might be cheaper in the long run than the price of a fractional t1. When they were talking about the fractional T1 where did they say the nearest POP is ( Point of Presence) usually T1 lines are based on the distance from the nearest POP.
Also with a T1 or a fractional you have to have a router. I am not sure if the ones you get for home would handle that. If you want to you can instant message me and I will give you my phone number I will be glad to answer any questions in this area I can.

Hey Gemini,

Thanks for the heads up on coaxial. The park I mentioned earlier here that has ther perfect 5.5.5 score from Good Sams ran coaxial for his internet. He did allot of things I want to avoid, now this is just one more.

I'm kind of hitting a mental block on the whole internet issue. I know it's a very high priority, but it's like I have too many options and none really jump out at me as the one I like the best.

My conversation with the phone company was fairly short. I wanted to know if I could get DSL here or if they what it would cost to make it happen. They said no and no. hahaha I told the guy what I was doing and if they had any suggestions. He said to run a sub T1. I'd never heard the term before, just like I've never heard of a fractional T1, but I believe you when you say it's the same thing. He said it would be allot cheaper to run and for my neads, it's all I'd need. I kind of doubt that because I've learned that you can never have enough bandwith. He wouldn't give me any prices and said they'd have to send an engineer out to figure out what it would take. Somehow I get the feeling it's gonna be pricey.

I also have satelitte internet right now and hate it. It works, but it's not reliable, it's not consistant and service is done from a different contractor every time who spends most of there time badmouthing the last contractor that was out here without being able to fix the problem.

I've never heard of any microwave system. That will give me something to look up.

You didn't mention the cell service. Verizon advertises it, but I don't know if it's any good or something that will work for me.

The wi fi companies said they'd put up a satellite dish to make there's work, which seems to me two negative systems. wi fi and satelitte.

What would fiber optic do? If there's a line real close, would that be good? How would it be good?

I really think this is the one area that makes my head explode trying to figure it out. Most everything else I have some abiltiy and understanding of, but this one might be an area that I just hire somebody to deal with.

Of course, I'm not that way, so I'll just keep looking around and asking questions.

When I get closer to needing your help, I'll PM you. I don't want to bother you until I'm ready to start making some decision and really need your assistance!!!

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Since the name of the park will be "Wild Kingdom RV Park", name the horse area the "W. K. Corral"

Hey Jerrett,

Tha's a good idea. That and the open dog run areas should have names. Big dogs and small dogs will have there own areas. What to call them?

Should it be a corral, a hotel, a motel or something else?

My preference would be something that makes you think of distant lands or exotic locations and animals. That's sort of how we came up with Lake Marabou for the fishing pond. I went through a book on African Wildlife and read every name I could outloud. We wrote down about two dozen names that sounded good and choose Marabou because it sounded like Africa to us and was simple to spell and pronounce.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I think there is no correct answer to that question, which is why I would not make them fixed. I may put it on a concrete pad, and I may chain or some other way secure it, but I would leave some room for "play"

Could you put a pipe down into your pad as a kind of "socket" and then allow the person using the space to either put in the upright part or not?

Not sure if it would be stable enough, but how about pouring some 5 gallon buckets of concrete with a large fence pole centered in them and a t or hook or something welded across the top. Keep them kind of scattered around and some by the office, some people would not want them, and some would want 4 or 5 around their place for lantern's, clothes line, etc. etc.

Hey Alan,

Another advantage to the poles being cemented in is that it allows for easy access to either end of the table for those in wheelchairs. The sliding pipe design doesn't unless you build it with a large overhang on one end. If I built the tables like regular home tables with legs that go straight down, then I have to make the benches shorter. That's easy enough, but now I'm into allot more metal and expense making them.

One Hundred tables at $100 each is ten grand. It wont take much to double that price and put it at $20,000 just for picnic tables.

Rox mentioned concrete in buckets earlier and now you bring it up again. It's just one of those things that I have a mental block on. In my mind, they seem un apealing to me. If you broght your own, that's fine, but if I pulled up into a site and saw five gallon buckets there, I'm thinking trash. I know there are some very practical uses for them, but first imprssions are very important. Storing them at the store or any other place raises more concerns than advantages.

The pipe in the concrete is an idea I had awhile ago, but I dismissed it becuase I figured I'd be the one providing the lantern pole. If it's in a socket or permanently set there, I have the same problem. It's gonna be in somebodies way. There is no good location to put it except in the table. The table is the central location, it's where everyone will gravititate to and it's where they will be when it's dark outside. If the lantern pole is removable, what happens to it? Laying aroudn the site isn't very apealing, especialy when one guest leaves and another arrives. Having staff do this is also not very appealing.

I keep coming back to the tables being permanently mounted and the lantern pole going through the top of the table at one end where it can be attached to one of the poles supporting the table.

I could also mount it to the middle of the table with a threaded pipe base plate. It would be solid and out of the way. Might even look attractive if I painted it. What do you think? Good idea or a bad one?

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[ronjhall]

Hi Ron,


I've never thought about the storage idea. Can you elaborate on it? How big and where would you put it? Pictures would realy help if you have any.

Thanks,
Eddie

I have seen several. One that stands out was one I saw on I 40 near Amarillo last spring. It was filled with Diesel Pushers and Fifth Wheels. Looked to be about 50' deep X 300' long X 14' high. They were open to the east. Kind of like a lean-to but with just the west wall. Up north here there are places you can store your RV/Boat inside that are insulated with heat. People that have expensive RV's will pay to use them. Next time I see one I will take some pictures.
One person I have not seen post in this thread is Sully2. You may want to PM him for some input. He has been around RV's for a while.

 

[AlanB]

Was not thinking ADA but you certainly must.

I would eat the elephant one bite at a time, and would rather have high quality picnic tables then plenty of cheap broken ones. I think you may be able to find someone though to build them at cost.

What if instead of a 5 gallon bucket it was a decorative flower pot?

My limited experience is that no matter where you put it, it will be in someone's way, and you will be REALLY pissed when they move something that should not be moved. (ie plan on how to replace those permananently mounted Picnic tables someone will remove one with a car etc.)

 

[EddieWalker]

I have seen several. One that stands out was one I saw on I 40 near Amarillo last spring. It was filled with Diesel Pushers and Fifth Wheels. Looked to be about 50' deep X 300' long X 14' high. They were open to the east. Kind of like a lean-to but with just the west wall. Up north here there are places you can store your RV/Boat inside that are insulated with heat. People that have expensive RV's will pay to use them. Next time I see one I will take some pictures.
One person I have not seen post in this thread is Sully2. You may want to PM him for some input. He has been around RV's for a while.

Ron,

I totaly misread your earlier post. Yes, I'm going to have covered storage for RV's. I've started clearing the area, but haven't been able to burn yet. My goal is to make them 52 feet deep and have each stall 14 feet wide. I think I can get ten stalls per buildng without having too much dirt work. I'll build one building to start and then have room for three more.

What I was thinking you were talking about was some sort of covered outside storage at each camp site. Kind of like those secure lockers that you find in bear country. I have no idea why I thought this, but it's what went through my brain when I replied to your earlier post.

Thanks,
Eddie