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Hello! I am moving up to Boise in a few months with my husband, daughter, and sister. My sister plans on buying an RV to live in full time. I see a lot of houses having RV parking, but do they have the hookups for it? Does anyone else live in an RV and have any tips? Is it expensive? Sorry any insight would be great!
Any house I looked at, including mine, that advertised RV parking is just a larger driveway, or a place beside the house to park an RV/trailer.
For power hookup, you can always run an extension cord, but unless you add a new plug and possibly a circuit, it will be limited usually to 20AMP service. I would guess in most houses a 30 AMP connection would require an electrician to wire it in to the fuse block.
Never seen one with a gray and black water drain, but I guess there could be.
Since they are designed to run on propane for heat, winter camping can get pretty expensive. Summer with AC is where a 30AMP connection would be required.
Might want to check zoning too. City I lived in when living in MI had an ordinance against anyone living in an RV. The occasional visitor in a RV was not troubled, but a full time would have been if a neighbor had reported the situation. But not sure about Boise or any of the suburbs.
CC&Rs are a big issue so I'd check them for sure. Some subdivisions require RVs to be enclosed, most would at least require them to be behind a 6' privacy fence beside the house. Most houses with RV parking don't have any special hookups, but as noted above you can run an extension cord to them for electricity. Some houses do actually have a dump line that runs to the sewer but I'd say that's the exception. As far as living in one full time, you could run into city ordinance restrictions so I'd check that out. Really if your sister is wanting to do that she ought to rent a spot at an RV park.
We have a fifth wheel that we use for camping and trips out to the coast and whatnot, but just occasional stuff. It's plenty comfortable for that sort of thing but I wouldn't personally want to try living in it full time. Most of the snowbirds who live full time down south during the winter have 40'+ units that aren't too practical for camping, but they are more comfortable for long term living.
You definitely need to check the CCR's to see what is and isn't allowed in each subdivision. Some area's didn't want builders to install extra amenities (water, gas & sewer taps) for the RV pads since some people would try to use them for rental units which is typically against the zoning in most areas. When advertised as RV Parking, that is really about it - a place to park the RV legally adjacent to the home. Some subdivisions won't even allow an RV garage. There is no quick way to tell how restrictive the CCR's are without taking the time to read them and then deleting entire subdivisions when you realize they don't meet your needs.
Whenever I have a home built for someone with RV parking (even in an RV garage), I have them look into adding the RV dump as a minimum since it greatly increases the convenience of the RV. RV garages are getting very popular since people like having the RV in their home verses parked off site to load and unload. A client of mine parked his in an outside commercial storage yard and when he went to load it for a trip last summer he found out some kids had broken in and vandalized it ruining their planned trip.
Unless you buy a few acres nobody is going to want an rv parked next to their house with someone living in it. Thats what they do in the ghetto. Most ccr's will not allow it and for good cause.
If your sister is considering living in an RV park, here is some info that may be helpful. During our home build last year, we were moving from CA to Eagle, ID. We stayed for about six weeks at the KOA in Meridian while our home in CA was in escrow and it allowed us to oversee the last few weeks of our custom build here. It was very clean, safe and the host couple and everyone there were very helpful. Monthly fee was about $400 plus your electricity (meter read for your usage). Laundry facilities, clubhouse, dog run, and restrooms with showers.
There are plenty of people that live full-time in RV's and there other RV parks close to Boise or the Nampa area. You can check them out online. As far as full-time RV life, I would recommend that she check out the website RV. Go to the forum for full-time RVing and there is a wealth of info.
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