Addition to RV parking bay

[sanddan]

The RV parking bay was an addition to the end wall of my 36' by 48' pole barn shop. This gave me a 14' wide by 36' deep bay to park the motorhome. The only down side to this was the low door height, 11'6" due to the 12' eave building. Since my motorhome was one of the shortest available when built this worked ok for about 12 years. We got the bug for a bigger MH and found what we were looking for in our 03 Country Coach 40' diesel pusher. Lots of room adding 7' to the length and 2 slides but the big down side was it would not fit in the existing RV bay due to it's 12'2" overall height and longer length. I came up with what I think is the least expensive way to modify the existing building to fit the new coach. I'm extending the length by 12' and raising the roof on the front half of the bay enough to allow fitting a 12' wide by 14' tall door. This is more than I need for the current coach but many of the newer motorhomes and trailers are taller so this would add flexibility in the future. Here is my cad model showing the new construction in red.





First step was punching 2 holes for the new posts and getting the lumber delivered.

 

[sanddan]

First full day of construction involved placing the new posts and getting the new roof line established. The work is being done by a GC I know, a one man band, who brought a helper for this part of the job. I mostly stayed out of the way but did do some fabrication making metal brackets to attach the post extensions. 9 hours later the basic frame was up.





View attachment 802403



The rest of the framing is to be completed this week and we can then order the metal. I also had the garage door guy take the old door down and make a list of new parts we will have to get so we can convert the 12'x11'6" door to a 12'x14' door. It looks like we can reuse about half of the parts from the old door.

 

[Movover]

I have to ask.. How did you get that hole so round and smooth, here in Maine we use an auger and it comes out nothing like that at all, is it sleeved?

 

[sanddan]

It was done with a 24" auger on a machine designed to do holes. We have clay about 6" under the top soil so it was digging in vary uniform material. Even with the super dry summer we've had here in Oregon the clay about 10" down was moist and very easy to dig. Each hole is 6' deep and only took about 5-10 min to dig.

 

[RogueFab]

I was going to ask the same thing about that hole. It looks like a pipe!

It's not all that much clay in my area in OR. Great work so far

 

[sanddan]

I was going to ask the same thing about that hole. It looks like a pipe!

It's not all that much clay in my area in OR. Great work so far

Thanks. Unlike much of the Portland area we have zero rocks, just pure clay. Digging a similar hole in the spring would end up being filled with water.

 

[sanddan]

The build is going a lot slower than I would like but the builder is fitting me in when he can find a spare free day in his schedule. The two of us, me on the ground and him on the building, managed to get most of the framing completed. The roof framing is up and just needs to have the eves trimmed. A long day hucking the 20' long 2x6's up, tough on this old guy but it's done.








Next up is ordering the metal now that we can measure accurately. It also looks like I will have to order a complete new door as just buying the needed parts to change the door from 11'6" to 14' tall was $600 more than all new. It looks like the old door will be going on CL ASAP. Anyone out there in the Portland Oregon area need a metal door cheap? 11'6" by 12' wide.

 

[sanddan]

I haven't posted any updates but it's finely done except for painting the door which won't happen until next summer. It turned out great and the slightly lighter shade doesn't look bad at all. I plan on leaving it that way for the foreseeable future. I'm very happy I went with the 14' tall door, plenty of extra room which is nice. I also went with an electric opener, mostly for peace of mind that the door will be ALL the way up when moving the RV. The first pic is before the add on was started.