Has anyone looked into renting their RV out? If so, what has been your experience? I found a Web site - Private Motorhome Rentals and they have sent me info on renting my Motorhome through them. They do have a 20% commission, but do offer forms and rental rate suggestions as well as internet referals. It does look like a good way to go to offset ongoing monthly costs.
Does anyone have any experience and suggestions?

Personally, I would never consider it. We have stick and brick rentals, both long term residences and short term vacation, and seeing what people can do to those leads me to believe that a motorhome would not last long in that environment. Would the rental fees, do you think, cover the additional repairs needed after a renter gets done with your property? We would never, ever, rent any kind of structure to others that we intended to later use ourselves. If you are seriously considering it, be sure to talk to your insurance carrier and find the best way to protect yourself. There obviously would be tax implications. If there is financing, there may be a clause in the financing contract that would not allow commercial use. Good luck in your choice.

I would never rent or loan my bus conversion out. You would run so many risks letting them use/abuse your property. There is also insurance liabilities. If anything went wrong they could possibly come back and sue you. If they wrecked it they could blame the vehicle and the owner for the problem and sue you. If they caused an accident the person they hit could also sue you. If the vehicle broke down and they could not make their destination for their vacation they could sue you. In any of those instances they might not even have a chance at winning but you would most likely be spending lots of time with your attorney while trying to prove that none of the problems were actually your fault.

You would also have an RV to clean out or repair after use by other people. Some of your merchandise could disappear either by theft or breakage when it is returned. With added insurance, repairs or maintenance after it is returned you could actually spend more money than you would make.

From what I have seen from people that rent motor homes setting up and knowing how to use the unit no way would I rent our RV out.Plus one thing we like about RV`ing is knowing who slept in the bed the night before.Like you see some rentals with two and three dogs in them.I see most also do not know how to set up at camp.

I know of two people who rented out their RVs. Not to leave the park they were in, but just to stay in the park for a month or more. Both said never again, less it was people who used to be RVers. Both had non-RVers and said they were clueless. Even when they went over a list of what to do and what to expect, people still didn't get it.

Michael,

Before you do anything toward renting it you need to check with your RV insurance. Most policies have a clause that voids the coverage if the RV is rented out or used in any form of business. The news here covered a family who had a really nasty suit from someone that they had rented their RV to who caused damage to another and had no insurance. That was several years ago and I don't remember the details, but never forgot the issue!

I'm not thrilled with some of the stupid things I do when setting up camp or going down the road in my own RV. I can't imagine what some uninitiated renter might do to my rig. The idea of knowing who slept in the bed is a good one too, one of the main reasons we didn't want to rent beach houses anymore, no we take our beach house with us and know the bed will be comfy and bed bug free.
I would also agree with the insurance items mentioned previously.

-Ed

We have a man coming here in a week or two that has admitted he has no clue how to set up his RV. He even insisted that it is a mobile home. I explained that we do not accept mobile homes here and, after several minutes, found out that since he will be living in it full time and it has wheels he considers that it is not an RV but a mobile home. Would anyone want this guy renting their RV?

The problems I could think of with renters going to a camp ground with out full hook ups and two or three kids.

It's touching to read how MH owners are devoted to their RV. I can imagine their feelings. I am Dutch and have made 4 long RV trips; the latter trip in May, June and July this year. We have always rented A-Class Winnebago 32' from RoadBear in LA and SF. This year for the first time through private motorhome rental.

We traveled in a 38' dieselpusher Countryman from 2006. We started in Newhall, CA and made a trip of 6,500 miles from Bisbee, AZ to South Dakota and crossed 11 states. We had to see the Cummins workshop close to Denver, CO as the inline filter was clogged! They told me, that this filter should have been exchanged long ago! So, this can happen to a renter, too! They repaired it and the owner payed this with the creditcard on the phone. Further we had a wonderful trip and the owner sent us later an email, that no renter had ever returned the MH so clean as we had done!
The insurance was through BlueSky, but we could have done this through MBA, too. Easy to do and the cost is between $35 and $45 per day.

If I would have been an owner, I would feel rather uncomfortable someone with the experience of a private car or maybe a C-Class RV renting my motorhome. I drive 45' coaches weekly in The Netherlands and that surely helps.
It is still strange that anyone with a "standard" drivers licence can drive a huge motorhome in the USA.

Having said this, we will definitely rent another dieselpusher again to explore another part of the continent, probably the east coast.

If I were to rent an RV, I'd probably get the same email. Through all my apartment-renting years, I never lost a cent on a deposit because I always left them cleaner than I got them, but there are lots of people out there who never SEE a cent of their deposit after they move out because of the condition they leave them in.

With an RV, you would have the problems of unfamiliar systems and inexperienced drivers added to people's general slovenly nature. All that adds up to an understandable reluctance to turn the keys over to strangers.



That's not the case in all states. In Texas, for example, you're required to have a special license if your RV is over 26,000 pounds, which includes huge motorhomes. That said, I didn't get my enhanced license for a couple of years after getting my motorhome, and I suspect a lot of RV owners don't ever bother to get it.



Too bad I live in mine because I wouldn't mind making a few bucks off renting it to you. Be aware, though, that the maneuvering is a LOT easier out west than the northeastern U.S. Evidently when they were laying out roads a few centuries ago they didn't anticipate private parties tooling around in house-sized vehicles.

This is about road design and the history of it. Interesting article if true.

Saturn rocket boosters

A friend sent this to me. Thought you may find it interesting!

How was the diameter of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) determined?

The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineer who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by rail from the factory to the launch site. The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track.The US Standard Railroad gauge (the distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8
1/2 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number!
Why was that gauge used?
Because, that's the way the build them in England, and English expatriates built many of the US Railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that is the guage they used.
Why did they use that guage in England then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing, Okay!
Why did their wagons use that odd wheel spacing?
Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads.
Why?
Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
Who built those old rutted roads?
The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts?
The orginal ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer! The United States Standard railroad gauge of 4 feet 8 1/2 inches is derived from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses!
So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced
transportation system was originally determined by the width of two horse's
asses!

But you are one in how many that have never drove any thing that big or have never camped?I agree that some do qualify to rent a class A.I did at one time have and air plane that I rented out but you know that they had flown one before.Plus if they mess up most likly you would just call the insurance company and order a new one.
But I am like you about not having to have a license to drive a 40 foot motor home.We watched one last trip try to back in a paved spot with nothing in the way.He never got it in it and went a round the campground and came in the wrong way and pulled in and when he left it took a wife and half his inlaws to simply back out on about a 45 degree turn in the drive.I don`t think he could
back a car.Thank goodness he did not have a car or he would still be there.And he was not and old guy either and I am not stretching the truth.It was a beautiful couch.I don`t know if he had just bought it or what.But needed to get in a big parking lot and do a lot of backing.
Also how about people with 600 + HP boats and need nothing but money to operate it.