Muddy after rain. Pad slopes a half-inch off-level. The site that nobody wants in July because the picnic area is in a low spot and gets a small lake every time it pours. Most of these are not site problems. They are drainage problems and grading problems that have compounded a season at a time, and they are fixable cheaper than the cost of the reviews they generate. The fix is a per-site annual inspection, a post-storm walk after any 2-inch rain, and a binder that tracks the pattern across the park.
What the per-site inspection actually catches
An annual walk of every site, with a tape measure, a 4-foot level, and a clipboard, takes about 10 minutes a site. For a 60-site park that is one full day in shoulder season. The walk catches the four problems that drive most of the negative reviews:
- Pad out of level. Most pads drift over time. Frost heave, settled gravel, washed-out edges, root lift. An annual level check with a 4-foot level catches it before the guest does. A pad more than 1 inch out front-to-back or side-to-side needs to be re-graded in shoulder season.
- Pad edge crumbling. The first sign of erosion is the pad edge breaking down where tires rotate during pull-in. Catching it at year one is a wheelbarrow of gravel. Catching it at year four is a re-build.
- Site slopes toward the pad, not away. If water runs onto the pad from any direction, the pad will fail. The cure is regrading the swale and clearing the downhill culvert, not adding more gravel.
- Sewer riser is in a low spot. A camper hose laid downhill from the rig to a riser sitting in a puddle backflows on every flush. The fix is raising the riser. Cheap. Almost nobody does it.
Drainage is the underrated infrastructure investment
Parks tend to spend on the visible: cabins, the pool, the office. Drainage is invisible until it fails, then it is the most visible thing on the property. The principle that holds across the parks we audit: water moves where you let it move. If the site does not actively drain in three directions, water finds the fourth direction, which is usually under the pad.
| Symptom | What is actually wrong | The actual fix |
|---|---|---|
| Standing water 24 hours after rain | Drainage swale clogged, or pad is below grade | Clean swale, lower grade around pad, do not raise pad |
| Erosion channel forming across pad | Water is concentrating at one point upstream | Spread the upstream flow, gravel sock or check dam |
| Sewer riser dirty after every storm | Site grading directs water toward riser | Raise riser 4 inches above grade, regrade around it |
| Picnic area unusable after rain | Picnic area sits in the natural low point of the site | French drain to nearest culvert, gravel base under table |
Leveling is a measurement problem, not a guesstimate
The most common bad habit we observe is staff "eye-balling" pad level. A pad that looks level by eye is almost never level enough for a 40-foot rig with slide-outs. Two leveling jacks at the corners of the rig amplify any tilt the pad has. A 1-inch difference across an 8-foot pad becomes a 3-inch difference across a 40-foot rig with slides extended. Half-inch off looks fine on the empty pad. It is the difference between a comfortable sleep and a sleeping bag sliding toward the back wall all night.
Buy a real 4-foot level. Check every pad once a year. Mark out-of-spec pads with a wood stake in the corner and add them to the shoulder-season regrade list.
Field note: Walk the park within 24 hours of any rain event over 2 inches with a phone camera. Photograph every standing-water location, every erosion line, every blocked culvert. File the photos in a "post-storm" folder by date. After three years of photos, the same sites appear over and over. Those are the sites that need infrastructure attention, not seasonal patching.
Access roads and turning radius
The complaint that gets noticed at check-in is "the site is too small for my rig." The complaint that gets noticed two months later, in a review, is "we scraped the side mirror on a low branch." Both are access problems. Annual checks: trim every overhanging branch to a 13-foot 6-inch minimum clearance, walk every internal turn with a 40-foot rig template, mark any tight turn on the site map honestly. Larger rigs go to larger sites. The map should reflect reality.
Free template: per-site pad and drainage inspection log (PDF)
The PDF below is the annual inspection log we hand out to maintenance crews. Pad condition, drainage check, access and tree check, utility check, post-storm addendum, and an action-item table for follow-up. Print one per site, per year, file in the site binder. Patterns across sites are what tell you where the next infrastructure dollar should go.
About the author
Sean Hakes is the founder of Campground Management. He has spent the last decade walking park sites with a tape measure and a clipboard the day after big storms. Send him a note if you want a hand setting up the annual inspection binder for your park.
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