Raising pads

I am purchasing a park that the city is requiring that the pads be raised to the base flood plain height for each new trailer brought in- anywhere from 2-5 feet - has anyone every done this and more important what cost were assoiciated with it?

Jancy,

Disclaimer: I have never done this.

I do LD’s in a park “up the hill” from New Richmond, OH. This town is just a few feet above the Ohio river. It was a federal disaster area in 1997. Now ALL new homes and mobile homes in the area have to have their first floor of living space anywhere from 3-15 feet above the ground depending on location to meet new flood plain heights.

If this was required in New Orleans, there’d be no issue about rebuilding.

Anyway, what people have been doing varies from 3-5 foot concrete pilings to a 16 foot high steel structure with a doublewide on top. (my handyman was one of the builders). I can tell you singlewide mobile homes 5 feet higher than usual look VERY strange, tall, thin, precarious. Plus all the steps to get up to them. The best looking solution has been to pour a foundation with five foot walls above ground, garage in bottom and doublewide on top. Vinyl side the bottom to match. You’ll be hard pressed to get a home up that high with bottle jacks thus more likely need one or two cranes and a full erection crew to weld cross ties to place each home.

New Richmond is poor and few people are willing to spend the money for all this hassle. Unless your park is in a high demand area where there is just not enough housing to handle the growth, I’d pass.

If you are determined to go forward with this, call a local foundation company and ask what it would cost to do X number of these. Alternatively call a local steel erection contractor and get a figure steel pylons and cross beams or whatever will be needed to strengthen the structure.

What a fun and challenging job. You CAN do it but SHOULD you?

Happy Trail(er)s,

Steve