Arvada RV and Trailer Pad Contractors

Two decisions come before anything we'd call a spec. First: does the rig live here, or keep living in a storage lot across town? Second: if it comes home, how much concrete does that take, because the honest answer is more square feet than people picture, and it lands in the corner of the yard nobody wanted to give up.

We'd rather have that conversation up front than talk somebody into a slab they resent. Some lots are wrong for it. A pinched side yard behind a gate, a cross slope needing a wall to hold it, covenants with opinions. When the lot works, though, a pad quietly pays you back every time you back in without thinking about it.

Bring it home, or keep renting a space

Our position: if the rig goes out more than a few times a season, home wins. Not because of what storage costs, but because of what having it fifty feet away changes. You load over three evenings instead of one frantic Friday. You catch a soft tire or a dead battery in April, while there's still time, rather than discovering it in a gravel lot the morning you meant to leave.

The case for storage is real too. If the only spot kills the last usable piece of lawn, or the approach needs a three point turn on the neighbor's grass, that's a bad trade. And if your neighborhood is covenant controlled, find out what's allowed before you spend a dollar. Ask first, in writing.

What we check before we agree a pad makes sense

• Gate opening and side yard width, measured against the machine that goes back there
• Overhead lines, eaves, and tree limbs anywhere along the approach
• How far the rig has to swing to line up, and what it swings over
• Cross slope of the parking area, and where water goes once concrete replaces sod
• Irrigation lines, drip tubing, and a locate call for everything buried
• Whether the drive apron can take the turn, or becomes part of the job

Longer, wider, thicker, or the apron

What the ground under the pad has to carry

A driveway spreads a car's weight across a lot of concrete. A parked rig does the opposite. Tandem axles put thousands of pounds into a contact patch the size of a dinner plate, then leave it there for eight months. Add four jack feet, each concentrating load onto a few square inches, and you have the least forgiving thing a residential slab ever gets asked to do.

Which is why we dig before we quote. Around Candelas, Leyden Rock, and Whisper Creek the lots were shaped before the houses went up, and side yards often sit on fill that was moved, spread, and driven over rather than engineered. Sometimes it's fine. Sometimes eighteen inches down sits material that acts like a sponge in April.

The fix isn't always a thicker slab. Usually it's a deeper base, dug out, replaced with clean road base, and compacted in lifts. Concrete is only as good as the plate it sits on.

Timing the pour around a camping season

Best case, we build while the rig is out. A pad is a two visit job, dirt and forms on one, concrete on the next, plus a week before anything heavy touches it. A trip in June is an ideal window. If the rig is home with nowhere to go, we can often stage the work in halves, but say so at the estimate rather than on pour morning.

Spring is our busiest stretch and the ground is at its wettest, so book early. Late September into October is the quality window: mild days, cool nights, a long slow strength gain ahead. Winter pads get built too, under heat and blankets, though we won't place on frozen ground for any deadline.

One rule for the first winter: no deicer anywhere on it. Snow slides off a rig roof in a ridge down one side, so give that pile a way to drain instead of soaking the same strip of base all season.