Blowing dust from campground road

[larry_cad]

Stayed at a campground this weekend that has gravel and dirt roads. As I pulled out of my campsite I glanced in the driver side mirror and saw another camper waving his arms. I glanced in the passenger side mirror and I was stirring up a huge dust cloud with the exhaust. (I drive a diesel motorhome) I was not speeding, and in fact I was driving below the posted campground speed limit. My exhaust tip shoots straight out, not down. I let off the accelerator and the dust cloud got smaller, but I still had to get out of the campground and didn't expect anyone to offer to push me onto the road. When I accelerated again, the cloud starting again. I felt bad, but don't know what else I could have done. The sun had been hot all weekend and there was no rain.

Never had that happen before and just curious on thoughts.

[larry_cad]

slickest1 wrote:
Walmart Campers don't complain about the dust!

:B

[slickest1]

Walmart Campers don't complain about the dust!

[westernrvparkow]

down home wrote:
We make notes of campgrounds that are dustbins and try to avoid them.
Hard to enjoy yourself when every one that doesn't care sends clouds of lime dust and dirt when they pass covering everything including you.
I don't like trying to wash the rig when they fly by either.
No way with wind off radiator and tires to keep from stirring up a cloud of dust.
If they used 2 3/4 in rock instead of one inch might help. Every time a heavy RV rolls over the stuff it grinds it to dust.
Generally we find that many of these RV park Operators that don't maintain and upgrade are the parks we avoid. Eventually their bottom line gets very thin.

Large rocks and children do not mix Something about how children are wired. if an object fits comfortably in their hands it MUST be thrown. I think it is a law.
The large cobble you suggest is also bear to walk on. Not to mention it doesn't stay in place, is not easy to work with and is multiple times more expensive than road base and 3/4 minus washed gravel for topping.

[larry_cad]

Bruce Brown wrote:

RobWNY wrote:

I stand corrected. There is absolutely nothing campground owners can do to help with the dust because local taxpayers don't pay for it.:h

I didn't take it that way at all. I believe the point he was trying to make is it is expensive and, unlike the government, there are budget constraints to work with.

I was at the same park last weekend as the OP. While there certain was some dust it wasn't anything terrible. Ironically the weeks leading up to this past weekend it had all been wet and rainy. I'll gladly take a little dust as long as it comes with warm weather and sunshine.

I'll also give the park owner a big thumbs up for a very well maintained, friendly place to be. We will gladly go again, and I won't even mind Larrys dust. :B

🙂

[down_home]

We make notes of campgrounds that are dustbins and try to avoid them.
Hard to enjoy yourself when every one that doesn't care sends clouds of lime dust and dirt when they pass covering everything including you.
I don't like trying to wash the rig when they fly by either.
No way with wind off radiator and tires to keep from stirring up a cloud of dust.
If they used 2 3/4 in rock instead of one inch might help. Every time a heavy RV rolls over the stuff it grinds it to dust.
Generally we find that many of these RV park Operators that don't maintain and upgrade are the parks we avoid. Eventually their bottom line gets very thin.

[FIRE_UP]

Well,
We've camped/parked all over the U.S. and yes, there's plenty of graveled road campgrounds but, there's also quite a few of very nicely done paved ones too. For instance:

1. Winchester Bay RV park, Oregon coast
2. Elk Horn Ridge RV park, Spearfish SD
3. Petoskey RV park, Petoskey MI
4. Kaibab Lake Campground, Williams AZ
5. The Springs At Borrego, Borrego CA
6. Harbortown RV park, Monroe MI
7. Sparks Marina RV park, Sparks NV
8. Seven Feathers RV park, Canyonville, OR
9. Oasis RV park, Amarillo TX
10. American RV resort, Albuquerque NM
11. Lake Havasu State Park, Lake Havasu City, AZ

These are just some of the nicer ones we've been in.

And there's plenty more with very nice, paved roads and nice concrete slabs, some with grass etc. Of course, not all campground owners, or the state if the state owns it, or the Feds, if the Feds own it, or a private concern, if they own it, can make all the necessary improvements to make a campground less dusty and more enjoyable for all to relax and enjoy. As has been suggested, the cost is just prohibitive in many situations.

Not many gassers (Class A or C) will raise up any dust in a graveled or dirt road campground unless the driver's an idiot and is speeding through which, happens more than any of us would like. But, many, many diesel coaches, whether side or rear radiator, will spit up dust, depending on certain characteristics of each coach. Having a full length mud flap will make ZERO difference in many cases.

In a rear radiator coach, the fans, which are almost ALL direct drive with very, very few exceptions, push a ton of air, even at slower speeds. They vacuum up that air, then spit it through, or try to spit it through tightly finned, packed CAC and radiator systems. But, much of it get's bounced off of those fins and, since it can't go up, and it can't go right or left, guess where that extra forced air is going?

STRAIGHT DOWNWARDS!!! And there friends, is where much of the dust comes from. But, Side radiators will do some too because, again, not ALL the air from a hydraulically driven or, power take-off driven fan, can make it through the fins. So, where does the excess go, yep, you got it, STRAIGHT DOWN. So, if a diesel driver has SOME COMMON SENSE, and is piloting a rear radiator coach, they might drive as slow as possible to keep the RPMs down and therefore, keep the dust blowing to as much of a minimum as possible, yet still keep their coach moving along. On a side radiator, almost no matter how slow the pilot is moving it along, the engine speed is not related to the hydraulic powered version fans. So, those are gonna blow.
Scott

[Bruce_Brown]

RobWNY wrote:

I stand corrected. There is absolutely nothing campground owners can do to help with the dust because local taxpayers don't pay for it.:h

I didn't take it that way at all. I believe the point he was trying to make is it is expensive and, unlike the government, there are budget constraints to work with.

I was at the same park last weekend as the OP. While there certain was some dust it wasn't anything terrible. Ironically the weeks leading up to this past weekend it had all been wet and rainy. I'll gladly take a little dust as long as it comes with warm weather and sunshine.

I'll also give the park owner a big thumbs up for a very well maintained, friendly place to be. We will gladly go again, and I won't even mind Larrys dust. :B

[Two_Jayhawks]

westernrvparkowner wrote:

RobWNY wrote:
! Maybe if the campground gets some people complaining about the dust, they'll stone the roads or pave them and the problem is solved.

Not quite that simple. Paving with asphalt costs around $50.00 a running foot, not counting prepping the base. That prep is at least another $10 per foot, meaning a park with 1 mile of interior roads is spending $300,000+ for that pavement. Then you have the issue of maintenance. With gravel, you throw down a couple shovels of road base and potholes are repaired. With an asphalt road, not so simple. Same issue if there is a need to dig up a water, sewer or electrical line, the repair of the road will likely exceed the costs of the repair of the line. In severe winter climes like we have in Montana, the roads take a beating.
We do add rock to our roads on a regular basis. It too is expensive,and is only temporary. As vehicle drive over the rock, it is forced into the ground and the fines rise to the surface. The only other treatments are either a calcium chloride spray or one of several vegetable oil treatments such as a soybean oil.
Our exerience, and we have tried them all, is they also only last about 1 season. The best treatment is environmentally unsound, which is waste motor oil. That stuff works great but is very messy and either highly frowned upon or outright illegal many places.
Unfortunately, by late in the season dust becomes more of an issue due to the fact that any treatment of a gravel roads decays over time. I wish there was a better way, but with 40,000 LB plus rigs driving over the roads every day and budgets that don't have the advantage of taxpayer input, parks with existing gravel roads are likely to stay that way.

I imagine a CG owner has to look at what he would have to charge RVers to cover the improvement. We've been visiting CO for 20 years & very few offer paved or concrete interior roads or sites. Our new favorite RV park in CO offers all concrete sites & paved roads (rarity). It's more expensive and typically sold out too so obviously some RVers are willing to pay for it.

[magicbus]

That response is a bit disingenuous. Campground owners have to make a profit so they can stay around for our enjoyment, municipalities have no such concept.

Perhaps people wouldn't mind seeing a "dust control fee" added to their site charge to cover the $300K cost plus maintenance, but I suspect they wouldn't be so happy.

Dave

[RobWNY]

westernrvparkowner wrote:

RobWNY wrote:
! Maybe if the campground gets some people complaining about the dust, they'll stone the roads or pave them and the problem is solved.

Not quite that simple. Paving with asphalt costs around $50.00 a running foot, not counting prepping the base. That prep is at least another $10 per foot, meaning a park with 1 mile of interior roads is spending $300,000+ for that pavement. Then you have the issue of maintenance. With gravel, you throw down a couple shovels of road base and potholes are repaired. With an asphalt road, not so simple. Same issue if there is a need to dig up a water, sewer or electrical line, the repair of the road will likely exceed the costs of the repair of the line. In severe winter climes like we have in Montana, the roads take a beating.
We do add rock to our roads on a regular basis. It too is expensive,and is only temporary. As vehicle drive over the rock, it is forced into the ground and the fines rise to the surface. The only other treatments are either a calcium chloride spray or one of several vegetable oil treatments such as a soybean oil.
Our exerience, and we have tried them all, is they also only last about 1 season. The best treatment is environmentally unsound, which is waste motor oil. That stuff works great but is very messy and either highly frowned upon or outright illegal many places.
Unfortunately, by late in the season dust becomes more of an issue due to the fact that any treatment of a gravel roads decays over time. I wish there was a better way, but with 40,000 LB plus rigs driving over the roads every day and budgets that don't have the advantage of taxpayer input, parks with existing gravel roads are likely to stay that way.

I stand corrected. There is absolutely nothing campground owners can do to help with the dust because local taxpayers don't pay for it.:h

[Bigdog]

Several years ago, we were camped in the redwoods, just north of Legget and there was a rental class C that went thru the campground several times looking for a campsite and he had his gennie running and it was blowing dust about 10 feet out from his rig. One of the campers stopped him the second time around and asked him to turn it off sand his reply was that he had to have it on so the air conditioning would work. What was also interesting was that he had driven right past the sign at the entrance that said campground full and then the second that said all campers must stop and register here.

[rk911]

K Charles wrote:
Wouldn't it be nice if we could remove all the trees, all the dirt and all the animals that poop in the woods. Nature would be so much better. Leave the lights on all night so you can drown out the scary stars. Better leave the radio on too, birds make a terrible noise.

anyone remember the comic strip Traveks With Farley? one of the characters was
Velma Melmac, a housewife who parks her monster RV in Yosemite National Park each summer, doing her best to keep nature at bay by, for example, vacuuming the nature trails. it was a hoot.

Velma Melmac

[Terryallan]

I have my own dust control. When we are outside cooking. I just slightly wet down the dirt road by the TT. dust gone

[mtrumpet]

What I did in an attempt to reduce the same problem on dusty campground roads was to turn my tailpipe extension a little more outward (sideways) rather than have it pointing straight down. This of course diverts the exhaust blow a little off to the side. It seems to have helped a little, but it certainly didn't totally alleviate with the problem. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do short of turning our exhaust tips straight upward!