Homes built for RV's

I studied just enough drafting in high school and AutoCAD in college to get me into trouble. GGG

BTW - 3D Home is a good, inexpensive program to play around with your house designs.

We hope to build a slab on grade Gambrel Barn on as little as 2.5 acres, but hopefully 5 to 10 acres, near a farm.
It will have a lean-to on one side - large enough for our RV.

To anyone driving by it will look like a farm barn and no one should be able to tell when we are away.

To save money on building we plan to have:
One master bedroom with its own bathroom, one guest bedroom, a guest bathroom for visitors, one laundry room, and all the rest of the space will be open. Bigger savings with the least amount of walls, wiring, insulation and appliances needed.

We hope to use the kitchen in the RV to cook. Inside the barn home, we’ll have plumbing and wiring on the one outside wall to hook the coach too. We will have a small kitchenette setup with a microwave and larger refrigerator in the house. I’ll be able to add the kitchen in the barn house; once we are not able to drive any of our RVs anymore. That way we save from having to buy kitchen cabinets and all the appliances right away.

Also the flat screen TV in our RV is big enough to enjoy – yet small enough to lift out of the coach and install in the Barn house, loft living, when we stay there for months on end.

Once we are too old to travel we can then add the kitchen into the barn house, because all the plumbing and wiring will already be there.
Note: all doorways will be oversized from the start to allow for a wheelchair in the future – if ever needed.

I have yet to use my VA benefits (US Army) and I hope they are still available when we are ready to build.

We currently have our older home which we hope to sell this year, and a 154 acre farm we purchased in 2010 which we plan to keep. We so want to become snow-birds back to the USA for winters.

I’ll be happy to work with anyone who might want to build such a building now.
I would like to see it built sooner rather than later. BTW – If you are willing to build it yourself; I know an architect who might do drawings, if needed, if you want to submit them as your own to your building and zoning office. In some areas 3D home will do just fine if you are building it yourself. It provides a lot of info they are looking for and includes a detailed materials list that is helpful.

In some cities/townships you might have to hire an engineer to meet your city’s needs. In some places they have an engineer on site who will walk you through everything they need.

Tony

Neil, if you look on the right wall (door open and higher than the MH) you will see my sprinkler system. Living on the lake we have 120 psi city water which I'm feeding into four 155 degree sprinkler heads. Used CPVC pipe wrapped in alum tape and before I replaced my NoCool firebomb I used a fifth head on a hose that I could put behind the unit, not just outside the vent. I rarely leave the refer on when in the MH bay, even now that I have a Amish unit. I have two remote sounding smoke alarms in the MH bay. The single car garage for the DW's car has two heads in there and one remote sounding alarm. I have 6+ fire extinguishers in the house and 4 in the MH plus one in every vehicle... actually it's 5 including the auto system in the vent for the MH refer. I have a 100' 3/4" water hose beside the front entrance with an adjustable spray head that will only be used to hook to the 120 psi frost proof hydrant in case of fire. This summer I'm planning on putting 4 rainbirds on my roof in case of a fire in the USFS next to us if forced to evacuate..
Did I mention I might be paranoid about fire?

Let see, sprinkler system for the RV area & the best insurance you can afford just in case that Norcold fires up.
Neil

AikenRacer wrote:
Does anyone know where I can get some pics/ideas/plans for homes built to accomodate Class As? My idea, upon retirement, is to build a new home, closer to the east coast. Want to build it with an attached garage for our class A. I want to be able to open up an interior door in our home living room and step into the mh. I want the front of the home not to look like an RV home. Thinking about a fake front that is really a door for the mh. Also, want to design it so that if and when we get where we don't have the mh anymore, the rv garage section can be easily converter into living area. Got a good plan in mind but would like to see other ideas...

Ivy Log has done what many would like to do and his is just beautiful -- Look at this old thread for some other ideas;

RV Garage option,

Over the last 10 years or so I have dabbled in the design of modular and Manufactured homes and they lend themselves to the RV lifestyle (JMHO) Earlier in the article I listed a number of web sites to gain additional info.

Hope this is of some help -- Ivy Log (IMHO) is a wealth of knowledge on not only the door design but also on the use of LED's to extend your Boondocking -- soon the LED will be the standard of the retail world and the electrical savings are significant.

BOL,

Ivylog wrote:
How about this?

The MH bay is 4' lower than the main level of the house.

Ceiling is 12' on the left and 16' on the right.

Door pivots on 2" pipe nipples threaded into floor flanges and is made out of 2x6 with insulation.

On the right side there is a set of steps and a door that goes into the LR/Kitchen area. When no longer RVing I will put in a false floor 4' up (same level as the house) and the outlets are already at the correct future height. At the far end there is a Atrium door that will open to the enclosed sun room. Have 100 amp service plus water and sewer for now and later.
OP, you should have requested that it be on a lake too.:B
Yes, I designed and built it myself.

I really love this design! I will have to keep it in mind when I go to build something!

I like the idea of making the RV parking garage about 3 or 4 feet below the grade of the rest of the house, so it will be easy enough to build a ramp that will go into the front door of the RV and be at the same level.

The way you hinged the door is also unique, and seems to work well, and it will not look like a typical garage door, is very well insulated, and opens very wide.

As for the original post, I am also thinking about building a home soon, and started looking at Passive Solar Homes. When I googled that, I found many passive solar heated homes, and many designs. The extra large garage is a simple add on, you can have the contractor put into the plans, and build. More like a enclosed carport on the one side of the home.

Some tips, make the door 13 - 14' tall, at least 10' wide, getting a 8.5' wide RV with mirrors into a 10' wide doorway is a challenge, getting it back out is even more difficult if any turning is involved. Make it about 45' long. Yes you will use the extra space for storage at some time in your life. 50' long would be better.

Consider if you will be backing into the garage or backing out of it. Also consider that today's RV might have a door in one location, yet the next RV might be in another location. If you have the RV parked in a 3' to 4' deep pit, consider a "Loading dock" like area beside the RV to step into it. And if there will be passenger side slide outs, you will need a ramp of some sort, or something to get from the dock area to the doorstep of the RV. This way you can have the entrance door located say 3' from one end on one RV and perhaps in the center of the garage on another RV.

If you change to a fifth wheel, then it must be the back in type, with the entrance door on the passenger side. So looking at the house as you back in, it would be on the right side. These pictures are driving in, on the left side of the house, and would not work at all with a trailer that must be backed in.

Also consider if they downsized to a class B or smaller class C, then the dock height is still going to be 4' but the new entrance door and floor height of the replacement RV might only be 3' off the ground.

I bought a book called "The Passive Solar House" by James Kachadorian, and plan on building my home with a ventilated slab, as described in the book. It will be able to store about 400,000 Btu's of heat in the foundation, and by bringing in warm air in the winter to the foundation to warm it up, it should keep the house at a stable temperature all night long. By venting the air at nights in the summer, it will store enough cooling to prevent needing to run the A/C except for the very warmest days of the year. And then I will probably be running a 4 ton 2 speed heat pump on low speed, more to dehumidify than to cool the place down. At 16 SEER, running on low speed, I will actually be getting close to 18,000 Btu's of cooling capacity per 1 KW of electric used. But much of the cooling will happen after midnight, when a fan will bring in cool outside air, and drop the temperature of the slab from 75F to the outside air temp, say 65F or so, and provide most of the next day's cooling. On the very warmest nights, I can run the A/C to do the same thing, and use nighttime cooler air to run the A/C much more efficiently, as well as take advantage of the cooler night air, and lower energy cost at night.

Yes I like the idea of it being next to a lake as well. Be careful of some homeowners associations, who will say you can not park a RV outside your home. They can be very restrictive.

Fred.

Check these new models out:

http://lakeashton.com/home-designs.php?series=adventurer


Resales can be found cheaper at:

http://www.lakeashtonresales.com/

We live here and love it!

RV Homes Laughlin Nv Here you go, these are nice, but a little pricey.

A family in my neighborhood built one as a traditional salt-box house, gable end toward the street. It fits into a '40s-'50s tract development on 40 and 60 foot lots. I'm sure a local architect designed it for him.

One trick would be to build the dirt up around the house above grade. Put the driveway just below grade. That way from the street, the tall garage door does not look as big as the top of the garage door is level with the rest of the windows. Also because the house is higher above grade, the garage door will look smaller.