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Topic: Parking a Foretravel in driveway (Read 1197 times) previous topic - next topic

Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Don,

If I am picturing this correctly, you must pull (forward) into your drive, then back the coach out into the street.  The dimensions of our street and driveway entrance make it easier for me to back the coach into the carport and drive forward when leaving. 

I am curious as to what others have to do.

Don Hay
'92 Grandvilla, U-280
The Hayfever Express
Build #4055
'97 GEO Tracker
Life is like licking honey off a thorn.

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #1 –
Lucky enough to be able to pull in and turn around in my back yard.

Thanks, Mitch Sayer
Mitch Sayer
1990 GV 36'

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #2 –
I pull into my neighbors driveway, directly across from mine, then back into my driveway. 
David in VA
1994 Unihome Grand Villa U280

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #3 –
I bought the "perfect" house, 18 years ago, got a wide 3 car drive and 3 car garage, with only a 25' long drive.  So the coach will never fit.

I wish I could park here, and that will be a major requirement if we ever change homes.  Till then we have had covered storage with power, and soon to have inside shop storage with a friend and his shop.  Will be the best of all worlds soon.

The guy up the street built his house in the next development, and put in a rear garage door into the back of his home, from our development for his 45' Prevot! Not sure any of his neighbors even know he has a coach as he sneaks in thru our street.
Dave Cobb
Buckhorn Lake Resort The Club, #6202, Kerrville TX
check the map.  I do rent it out when I am traveling!
2001, U320, 36' #5887, in Kerrville, FT Club #17006, (7/23 to present)
2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee L, Summit, white
EX: 98 U295, 36' #5219, (mid door), (4/13-10/23)
EX: 93 U225, 36' (4/11 to 4/13)

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #4 –
I have an 80 foot long 'hockey stick' driveway with 50 amp at the turn into the garage.

AND a HOA that comes unglued at anything over a couple of days...

This is me in the corner (google thinks I'm next door). This picture was taken within the last year... Scary.

google maps 1020 Cox Court Oviedo FL - Google Maps
The selected media item is not currently available. Dave Head & Megan Westbrook
Titusville, FL - The Great Outdoors
'98 270 buying this month
Toad is a 2018 F150 XLT

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #6 –
Parking and storage of a large RV is always complicated and often expensive; especially when you live where the weather goes from one extreme to the other. Modern communities often have rules about where you can park vehicles and for how long. Our small city of 20,000, for instance, requires that an RV be parked off the street and either on a cement or gravel pad. And for some reason the code inspectors seem to be the most efficient and alert of all the city's employees. Leave your RV, or any vehicle, parked in front of your house out on the street for a week and you are certain to receive a citation. Some communities are worse.

Paid storage is generally $50 a month in our area but I don't know of any storage that offers electrical service of any sort; much less 30 or 50 amps. Finding covered and heated storage is virtually impossible on a commercial basis but we're an agricultural area and it's probably possible to find a farmer willing to rent room in one of his sheds.

So there is no parking for a 36-foot RV in the driveway or in front at our lake house; but when we sold our farm (which had, ironically, plenty of storage) we found and bought a large storage lot with a shop only a block away from the house. This was entirely by sheer luck. The lot is big enough so I can park the Foretravel either on the street-side of the shop (with a cover), at the back of the shop (hidden from the street) or (barely) inside the shop (which I had to rebuild after a fire in 2009).

Parking the coach between the shop and the street is a piece of cake. I have 3 possible entrances and plenty of room to maneuver. But the RV is exposed to anyone driving by and since we don't live there it is vulnerable. I can (and will) install a 50-amp service plug at this side of the shop to give the RV electricity, however. And I do have a fabric cover for the coach.

Leaving the RV  behind the shop means carefully maneuvering it down a narrow driveway between the west wall of the shop and a cement fence and into the large area behind the shop. This is easy for a car, or even a truck and trailer but a 36-foot RV doesn't exactly bend in the middle so it's a bit of a struggle. I have installed an exterior (protected) 50-amp service for the coach on this side of the shop.

Getting our 36-foot Foretravel into the shop will mean making several "K" turns until the RV is lined up with the bay that has 14-foot doors, and then backing it in. I have not yet tried this and may end up putting in a 14-foot bay door on the street side of the shop which, right now, has only a blank wall facing the street. The shop barely has room enough for a 36-foot unit; if we get a 40-footer there will be no inside storage option at all.

Once the DW retires in a couple of years we'll sell the lake house and use the 1-bedroom apartment in the shop as our summer HQ. Until then it gives us a secure place to keep the RV; with power and pretty much hidden from prying eyes. I suspect we are luckier than many owners. The previous owner filled his tiny driveway completely with the coach.

Craig
1993 U225 36' Unihome GV with PACBRAKE exhaust retarder, Banks Stinger and Solar Panels.
Toad: 1999 Jeep Wrangler 2-door soft-top.

"No one has ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke."

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #7 –
Hah - we drove through there last month! My son lives in Reading and we drove over to Villanova to see his campus digs...
The selected media item is not currently available. Dave Head & Megan Westbrook
Titusville, FL - The Great Outdoors
'98 270 buying this month
Toad is a 2018 F150 XLT

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #8 –
Our driveway is too steep to park anything with long wheel base.  Forrest is stored at a retired lumber yard under roof.  Whenever I need to bring it home for cleaning, etc., I park on the street & email local code enforcement that I'll be parking the coach on the street for whatever number of days...they leave me alone.
Peter & Beth Martin
No Forrest? What have you done?
MC# 15890 until Dec 2016; FMCA #F329677
Cincinnati, OH

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #9 –
I have a very long drive with a 18'x40' steel carport I had installed and I have full hookups. I back in and pull out of my drive to the left because I cant make the corner to the right because of my mailbox. I have to go down two streets and turn around and come back to get out of my neighborhood.

Mark
The selected media item is not currently available.
Mark and Tanya
Milton , Florida
US Navy Veteran (DV)
1999 U270 Special 40' CAI , 2015 Jeep Wrangler Sahara

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #10 –
It's true Don.. It is easier to back a long wheel base vehicle in a drive than pull in when your goal is to keep all tires on the culvert.
Dub McBride 1996 270

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #11 –
I back into the drive, empty out the coach then back around the house to the garage down below.  I have to line it up just right to get the Born Free in next to it but they both fit. Also if it is icy out, I have one shot at hitting the door as the drive is steep enough in ice not to be abe to stop till you get in the garge.
2025 Wanderbox Outpost 32 on F600 Expedition Motorhome
2015 Born Free Royal Splendor on Ford 550 nonslide version  for sale
Former Coaches  covering. 360,000 miles
1999 34 U270
2000 36 U320
2001 42' double slide U320
2018 Jeep Rubicon

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #12 –
Quote from: John S –
Also if it is icy out, I have one shot at hitting the door as the drive is steep enough in ice not to be abe to stop till you get in the garge.
Sounds nerve racking...
Peter & Beth Martin
No Forrest? What have you done?
MC# 15890 until Dec 2016; FMCA #F329677
Cincinnati, OH

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #13 –
With great insight 20 years ago  ::) (17 years before my 1st MH) we purchased our current home specifically with a level driveway so i could easily park my 19' Lightening sailboat on its trailer in the driveway.  The majority of the homes in our subdivision have VERY steep an curvy driveways due to the steep terrain in the area. Fortunately in 2007 I found that our 38" MH fits perfectly in the driveway with our CRV and F150 parked behind without obstruction to the sidewalk or street. Our HOA association is a bit more tolerant in that we can park in our driveway for seven days before having to remove it.  Our road is a circle and to the left (see attached pic)  begins a very much steeper incline toward the top of the mountain we live on.  However i can easily back out, hook the CRV and climb up and around the circle to exit the subdivision.

The attached satellite picture coincidentally captured me in the process of backing my MH out of my driveway preparing for to hookup to our CRV (parked down the street).  The superimposed red dot across the street is a "strategically" positioned fire hydrant that on one unfortunate occasion proved to be a participant in a minor "incident" when it made an unannounced jump at the side or my MH as I made my backing turn. Thanks to James and his crew at Xtreme for putting my baby back into pristine shape a couple months later.

BTW... i have now mastered that backing turn out of my driveway so as not to disturb "Mr. Hydrant" any more.  The Foretravel makes a nice tight backing turn.

When not at the house the MH is parked covered in a Public Storage facility about 10 miles away. 

Ron Sedgley
Former 2002 U320 - Custom 38' Owner
            (2007 to 2021)    Build No. 6001

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #14 –
Ron... I'd hate to have to miss that hydrant... but it sure shows up well; and what a great photo to show you actually moving the RV!

And John's icy slide down into his basement garage doesn't sound appealing to me, either. Yikes!

All the cool photos got me to wondering if I could manage to get a Google Earth image of both the shop and the lake house in the same scene.

My great foresight in buying our shop/storage lot was mostly because we had too much storage at the farm and accumulated so much stuff we needed a place to put it when we moved. Just at that point, and right on the way to the lake house, the shop came up for sale at a bargain price and we bought it. One of my great worries about moving away from a farm was not having shop for doing mechanical repairs and welding; although the need for that is greatly reduced. Maybe not so much with a motorhome, though.

My next-door-but-one neighbor owns the long building on the corner by the shop so we can use a driveway next to his building or two driveways on the street in front of our lot. Tons of room to maneuver in that area but the driveway in to the inside storage area is tight. I can park the RV anywhere in there but getting it aligned for the tall bay is going to be interesting.

The shop is 36x45 with a 500 square foot "apartment" occupying the area next to the driveway and an equal storage "loft" area above the apartment. The shop has two bays and one has a 14-foot door. The other bay, with a 10-foot door, has an old garage-style car lift that is non functional until I can figure out how to either fix it or get it out.

The lake house is close enough so that I can walk between them even though I don't walk all that well. It's an easy bike ride, however. The close proximity means I can work in the shop or on the RV conveniently but also that we can see the area as we drive by going to and from home so the security is not too bad. I'm toying with the idea of setting up a WiFi link between the house and the shop for security cameras.

I mentioned that the original shop had a fire in 2009 so we rebuilt it but added some height to allow me to move bigger things in for work. Another fortunate circumstance as the old shop would not have been suitable for a big RV. The second photo is while we were in the midst of construction. Actually, we still are. LOL

Craig



1993 U225 36' Unihome GV with PACBRAKE exhaust retarder, Banks Stinger and Solar Panels.
Toad: 1999 Jeep Wrangler 2-door soft-top.

"No one has ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke."

Re: Parking a Foretravel in driveway

Reply #15 –
Craig - nice upgrade to you storage building. 

The hydrant is really not that much of an issue.  I can easily back out of my driveway without any assistance and not come close to Mr. Hydrant.

At the time of the "incident" a very impatient neighbor coming down the hill as I was half way out the driveway distracted me enough that tried to hurry a bit and didn't pay attention to my position.  Of course the hydrant suffered only a few minor bits of blue fiberglass scrapings (thank goodness) to mare its day glow silver paint and continues to merrily plant itself right where is has been.  And the impatient "friendly" neighbor???... he had more important things to do than to worry about my situation and hurriedly sped right past me as soon as I cleared enough space for him to pass without even passing a glance my way.  sigh  :-\
Ron Sedgley
Former 2002 U320 - Custom 38' Owner
            (2007 to 2021)    Build No. 6001