Post frame RV storage with the door height, length, and clearance your camper or motorhome actually needs, so it comes out of storage in the same condition it went in.

RV Storage Buildings Built

Around Your Rig

An RV is one of the largest purchases most families make outside of a house, and for most of the year it sits still. Where it sits determines how well it holds up. Left outside through an Eastern Iowa winter, a camper takes sun on the roof all summer, ice and snow load through the winter, hail whenever it comes, and moisture working at seals and seams the entire time. Add a monthly storage lot fee and the cost of leaving it outdoors adds up in two directions at once.

Premier Buildings constructs post frame RV storage buildings across Eastern Iowa for owners who would rather keep their rig at home, under a roof, on their own property. The buildings we put up range from a single bay sized for one travel trailer to larger structures that hold a motorhome, a boat, a tractor, and a workbench under one roof, with room left to walk around all of it.

The design work on an RV building is mostly a measuring problem. Height, length, and door width are what make a storage building useful or useless, and there is no fixing them after the fact. We start every RV project by getting the actual dimensions of what you own, then adding the clearance you will want for the rig you might own later. That page of numbers is worth more than any other decision on the project.

The case for building your own RV storage is usually a simple comparison. Outdoor lot storage costs money every month and gives your rig no protection at all. Indoor rental storage costs considerably more and puts your camper somewhere you have to drive to, which in practice means fewer spontaneous weekends and more hassle loading and unloading. A building on your own property removes both problems, and unlike rent, it is an asset that stays with the property.

Post frame construction is what makes that building affordable at the size an RV requires. Because the structure carries load through columns to engineered footings rather than a continuous foundation wall, there is far less concrete and excavation in the project, and the framing carries the same loads with fewer members. That lowers the cost per square foot, which matters a great deal when the building has to be tall and long by definition.

Clear span construction matters just as much. The roof spans the full width with no interior posts, so you can back a forty foot motorhome in, open a slide out, and still walk around the whole rig. The same open floor is what lets one building hold the camper, the boat, the lawn equipment, and a work area without any of it blocking anything else in.

Door height, sidewall height, and building length are worked out from your rig's real dimensions with clearance added, not chosen from a list of standard sizes and hoped to fit.

Indoor storage takes UV off the roof and seals, keeps snow and ice off the slide outs and awnings, and removes the hail risk that outdoor storage never solves.



MORE THAN ONE USE

Most owners size up once they see the numbers. A clear span building holds the RV plus the rest of what is currently taking up the garage, with a work area at one end.

RV buildings fail in predictable ways, and almost all of them come down to dimensions decided too quickly. A door two feet too short, a building six feet too shallow, a slab that cracks under the axle weight, or an approach the rig cannot turn into are the four mistakes we see most often in buildings other people put up. Every one of them is avoidable at the design table and expensive afterward.

Door height and sidewall height worked out from real measurements

Recreational vehicles are tall, and the number that matters is the height with the roof air conditioner, antennas, and any accessories included rather than the height printed in the brochure. Large motorhomes and fifth wheels commonly sit in the range where a standard residential garage door will not clear them, which is why RV buildings typically use a taller overhead door and a sidewall height above it to accommodate the door track and opener. We measure your rig at its highest point, add working clearance, and set the sidewall from there.

Length and width planned for slide outs, awnings, and doors

Depth has to cover the full length of the rig plus room to walk behind it and open the rear doors, and if you tow, plus the tow vehicle if you want them stored together. Width has to allow for slide outs extended, awnings deployed if you use the building for maintenance, and enough room on both sides to open the entry door and walk the perimeter. A building sized to the exact footprint of the RV is a building you will resent every time you use it.

A slab and approach that handle the weight

Motorhomes and loaded fifth wheels put serious axle weight on a small contact patch. The slab gets specified for those loads with appropriate thickness, reinforcement, and subgrade preparation rather than poured to a general purpose thickness. Just as important is the approach outside the door. We plan the apron, the grade, and the turning path so you can get the rig lined up and in without a fifteen point turn every time.

Ventilation, moisture, and options worth considering

An unheated building still needs to breathe. Ridge and soffit ventilation keeps moisture from condensing on the underside of a cold steel roof and dripping onto what you are storing. Beyond that, several options are worth a conversation during design: insulation if you want to work in the building through the winter, electrical service for battery tenders and shore power, a floor drain for washing the rig, and a drive through door on the far end so you never have to back in at all.

The National Frame Building Association describes post frame construction as an engineered building system in which vertical structural columns transfer loads directly to the ground or to an engineered foundation, allowing wide clear spans and tall sidewalls without interior support. That combination is what makes a building large enough for a motorhome practical to build on a private property budget.

Source: National Frame Building Association, nfba.org

A structure with a door in it is not finished storage. Between the shell and a building you can actually pull a motorhome into sits the concrete, the apron, the grading, the door package, the ventilation, and whatever power you want inside. Left to the owner to coordinate, that list is where projects stall and where the details that matter get compromised to save a week.

We deliver RV buildings finished to the point where the only thing left is driving the rig in. One project, one point of contact, and the dimensions confirmed against your actual vehicle before anything is ordered.

Common Questions About RV Storage Buildings

Answers to what owners ask us most before building RV storage.

When you choose Premier Buildings to build your RV storage, you are signing on for more than a building. You are signing on for honest pricing, a realistic schedule, and a local team that knows Eastern Iowa. Below is a snapshot of what working with us actually looks like.