Where do you park your Montana? - Montana Owners Club

Wordsmith · 05-04-2005, 11:11 AM

First, the reasoning for this question. It has been very wet in our neck of the woods and the way our back yard is situated, much of the water runs there though I created several small channels to run the water off at different angles. With this wetness, the weight of the Montana concerns me, which is why I pulled it out today on a sunny day as opposed to tomorrow when there is supposed to be more rain—the rain needs to go away and come again when everything goes bone dry in the summer!

Right now, we have created a new “road” of crusher run gravel going back to the already established pad we had for our Prowler comprised of the same material, but I was wondering what creative alternatives some of you might have and if any of you might have experienced difficulties with wet ground.

As always, thanks for any input!

dcowie · 05-04-2005, 11:23 AM

I live in SW FL near the coast where land values are skyrocketing. Finding a reasonably priced rental storage lot to park Monty is almost non-existent. The community we live in does not provide space and we cannot park it on our lot. The price for parking in an open lot ranges from $120 to $150 / month. This might be a good topic for a survey for those who rent storage space.

faeb and genb · 05-04-2005, 12:26 PM

We barely had enough room beside our house. But could't move it in winter ground too soggy. So poured a concrete pad from st to start of back yard to park it on. If I let slides out they hang over on neighbor's yard. So far no problems.
Gene

Searchers · 05-04-2005, 01:27 PM

We pay $25 a month for covered storage here and hope they never find out what others have to pay!

DiananColin · 05-04-2005, 02:15 PM

We park our Montana in a local outside storage area, security monitored and pay $62 Cdn per month. We are not allowed to park on our property due to local by laws.

Montana_562 · 05-04-2005, 02:39 PM

Parked on blacktop pad beside garage.
Purchased home in Indiana for the garages and RV space.(Room for the boat also) Grandkid is 2 blocks away!
In NW Arkansas, we paid $25 + tax for secured outdoor storage.

sreigle · 05-04-2005, 02:45 PM

Wordsmith, we pay an average of $22 per day to park ours. Some months less. But we get to keep it hooked up to electricy, water, and sewer, so it's probably worth it.

Sometimes we decide we want to park it elsewhere so we move it.

fulltimedreamer · 05-04-2005, 03:10 PM

We park ours in the driveway at the end of our house. I have a 30 Amp power connection and a water connection. In a few days I will have a sewer coneection as well. I started digging under the foundation tonight. I was able to get under the foundation. Now I've got to go into the crawl space and break through on the other side. I will tie into the sewer under the house. It will be nice to be able to dump my tanks at home.

Wordsmith · 05-04-2005, 03:17 PM

Steve, somehow I just knew I was going to get a post like that from you

but I just do not think the sewer deal is going to work out for us here!

I have toyed with the idea of running an electric line from the house to where we park it.

We really do not want to store the Monty off our property, especially after what we have done already to make room for it, including major pine tree removal. I also like the ability to go out to it whenever I need to on my own terms, so I do not foresee storing it somewhere else, especially since the backyard is large enough as long as I can get the backing thing down. Right now, I am going to have to back it in excess of 250 feet from our cul de sac, down our curving driveway, and then curve it the opposite way into the back yard where the old gravel padfor the Prowler is. Making some type of concrete slab or asphalt road has come to mind. Any thoughts on what might be cheaper? Right now, as I indicated above, we have sunk a fair chunk of change into this camper and making room for it so I really want to keep the prices down.

Lamar, do you want to come over to just outside of Athens and lend me a hand?

You seem to be able to do it all. When contemplating running electricity out to the camper I wish my father was still around. He was an electrical engineer for Georgia Power but would do some wiring work on the side. Sadly, he retired before I was old enough to understand what he would do in the basement, and then he just never did it again.

campbud · 05-04-2005, 03:36 PM

We park ours up by the side of the house on concrete. I think if we could not park it at home I would not have one. We like to be able to go in it and do things w/o getting into the car to drive to it.

Bill Hill · 05-04-2005, 03:59 PM

As you all might have guessed, property in the Los Angeles area is sky high, plus we live in a townhome complex, with little street parking, much less a place for our Montana. We have to store ours in a lot for now. The lot is a self-storage, wine storage, equipment/party rental outfit. They even have indoor storage for RVs. The entire area is concrete, there's a dump station and a wash rack. We pay $165 per month, but save 10% by paying 6 months at a time.

The good news is that when we move to Prescott AZ in 1 year, 10 months, 21 days(who's counting!) we'll have an oversize garage for the truck and a 18x45 foot RV garage on the property. That way we never have to winterize or worry about sun damage.

RC and Samantha · 05-04-2005, 05:08 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Wordsmith

First, the reasoning for this question. It has been very wet in our neck of the woods and the way our back yard is situated, much of the water runs there though I created several small channels to run the water off at different angles. With this wetness, the weight of the Montana concerns me, which is why I pulled it out today on a sunny day as opposed to tomorrow when there is supposed to be more rain—the rain needs to go away and come again when everything goes bone dry in the summer!

Right now, we have created a new “road” of crusher run gravel going back to the already established pad we had for our Prowler comprised of the same material, but I was wondering what creative alternatives some of you might have and if any of you might have experienced difficulties with wet ground.

As always, thanks for any input!

We have parked our Big Sky at home since we first got it. We have it on a driveway of gravel. We have not run into any problems, but our layer of gravel is quite thick. Last summer was very rainy. I have to admit that the water runs away from the area pretty well.

We always use either wood or those yellow blocks under the landing gear and stabilizer jacks.

Best of luck with housing your Montana. It is really convenient having it at home. With the Montana stocked up during the summer months I often go out there "shopping" when I run out of something in the house.

The only problem we have is our Grand Daughter, Aleyah wants to play in it all the time when she comes over. Heck it's like the best Play House any little girl could dream of. LOL She absolutely loves it.

Patty

JD and Marsha,

Dave e Victoria · 05-04-2005, 05:19 PM

We were parking in a storage lot owned by the local homeowners. But, it is outside and very difficult to get into and out of. So, we just invested in a storage condo called "big boy's toys".There are around 150 storage units in the complex. Our unit is 50 feet long by 14 feet wide. It is 16 feet tall with a 12 x 14 rollup door. The unit cost almost 40,000 but with the way property is going up in Phoenix, I figure it is a better investment than the stock market. As a reference, we bought an airplane hanger in 1999 for 45,000. They are now selling for 100,000. I used to keep my motor home there but the door is not tall enough for the Monty.

sreigle · 05-04-2005, 05:40 PM

J.D., when we had the stick home we parked the Montana next to the garage. Like RC and Samantha, we put in gravel next to the concrete drive and back along the garage. I think it was AB2 gravel, if I remember correctly. It had the dust in it so it set pretty hard rather than having loose gravel. I crowned the gravel area enough so water ran off to the sides and didn't puddle. In later years I had a couple of areas that did puddle but not where the Montana was parked. After about 2 years I had another layer of gravel laid down since the original had been pressed into the earth and was getting a bit weak. I had a third layer put down a couple of years later. After that it never seemed to need another layer again. Those additional layers were thinner than the original layer.

Wordsmith · 05-04-2005, 05:58 PM

Steve, that was exactly our original thinking on the gravel driveway we have been trying to create. There is quite a bit of dust in the crusher run we had placed in the yard, and it really locks down tight once it has been in place a while. I am yet to come in with some larger stone, partly because of my indecision about what to do. One thing I noticed with the Prowler was that there was still some splash on the rims even with the crusher run. Did you ever experience that?

Patty, taking into consideration what you and Steve said, I might need to simply get some larger stone to run over the base and make it thicker like you say yours is. Just how thick would you say yours is?

Additionally, though, it might be useful to price a concrete slab and asphalt, just to see how high it might run. I confess I have been leery of doing so out of fear of “sticker shock.”

D and M On The Road · 05-04-2005, 07:11 PM

We keep ours at a gated, outdoors storage facility for $52 a month. We also are getting free sun damage on the decals.

We hope to move to a new house within a year and build a covered storage pad for the Monty next to the house with sewer and electric.

DCP · 05-05-2005, 02:08 AM

Here in Centerville Ohio we are not allowed to park Trailers or RVs in the driveway or on the property. We pay $20 a month to store it on a outside RV lot about 10 minutes away. I am green with envy for those of you that have inside or covered parking!

melnjoy · 05-05-2005, 04:24 AM

J.D.
Putting in a concrete slab is not that bad as far price goes as long as you can do it your self. Here at my place I pay under $70 per yard that is 5 sack, pee gravel, and stealth fiber glass. I much rather use the fiber glass then rebar or fencing. I have had my slab down for about 5 years and not one crack. I have reliefs at 12x12'
1 Yard = 82 square feet @ 4" thick.
Mel

richfaa · 05-05-2005, 05:23 AM

We are able to park our Camper along side the house as long as it is behind the leading edge of the house.Some years ago the city found out that our downspouts fed into the sanitary sewers and we had to disconnect them. I said ..would that not be a sanitary drain for my Rv and the city said yes so we have our own dump station and very clean grey/ black. We had a 40 X 12 extension poured along side the house and through the rear gate when we got out 32 foot TT and now even as we speak they are outside adding another 22x 12 foot extension to the drivway for the Fifth wheel that will soon be there. I am not doing it my self but it will be just about what melnjoy has done execpt for 5" thick. Our original driveway developed many cracks and now that they are tearing it up I see that the base was crappy.

sreigle · 05-05-2005, 08:53 AM

J.D., if you can do the concrete yourself, that would be a good way to go. I have never done concrete and since our drive would be visible from the street and to anyone anywhere close to our house I didn't want to risk a bad looking result by doing it myself. I got bids for laying a concrete drive then decided to go with gravel. The primary reason was the cost was in the $7500 range for ours. A close second was I knew we would not stay in that house forever and a drive in that location could be a selling liability. With gravel it would be a lot of work to remove the gravel and re-seed with grass but it would be less daunting than removing concrete. I would have otherwise preferred the concrete drive but that just didn't seem the best option for us.

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