parking material

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Beerman

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 28, 2005
Posts
97
Location
Hanna City, Illinois
I'm planning on building a little spot to park my motorhome in my backyard. Its a 33ft ultrastar. Anyideas what to use? I dont want to use concrete or blacktop has anyone  built anything with gravel or tanbark?  or maybe patio blocks? Thanks
Brian
 
Concrete is best, Blacktop comes in a couple of differnet flavors, Do not use asphalt, , I'm thinking about gravel but will be very interested in  the comments others have.  (The other flavor of blacktop is a tar/gravel mix and, I suspect, should hold up.)

Patio stones are not up to RV needs for support, way too thin Patios are designed to support perhaps 300 lbs on a square foot

Your rig may well need 3,000 lbs per sq foot support
 
I've seen many folks use baserock, which is crushed rock, available from your local landscape supplier. It packs down pretty hard, especially if you rent a compactor from your local equipment rental store. One nice thing about this is that, if you change your mind later, it's not permanent.

FWIW when I built a concrete pad in our side yard, I used concrete on top of baserock. But in the area between the driveway and the side yard I merely used baserock with a decorative rock called California Gold on top for good looks (because it was visible from the street). I used approx 12" of baserock, which was plenty.
 
I used 16" of crushed concrete (probably works about like Tom's base rock), then covered it with 3" of topsoil and grass. Looks like the rest of the lawn but you can't get stuck.

Robert
 
Depends a lot on what your soil is like to begin with.  My area is dry sand, which is somewhat easy to disturb but compacts so little under the weight that it actually makes a very firm support.  I use several  4 inch thick solid concrete block (4x8x16) laid side by side to make pads where the tires normally rest and just drive over the grassy sand.  Works fine.  This might not work in areas where the soil holds water and readily turns to mud or where the soil compacts a lot under the weight.

Crushed rock makes a good drive and pad in most places - if the soil is loose or compacts, the rock is driven down into the soil to stabilize it. Might need to add a few loads of rock after the first several months or a year.
 
Check your phone book as to who does it but PAVER'S work great.  They are small beicks about 4 by 8 inches.  Cement contractors will know who installs paver's.  A friend has a 50,000 pound Prevost and the paver's have worked great.  None have moved.  BTW, they MUST be installed correctly.

JerryF
 
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