Setting Up a Mobile Home

Mobile home set up can be done by a home owner but it is specialized, hard work and is generally best if left to those who do it for a living.

At its very basic, it consists of blocking and leveling the home and connecting the utilities. A little more would be checking to make sure that all the systems in the mobile home work as they should ~ the electrical, heating, air conditioning (or evaporative cooling), plumbing & hot water, propane (or natural gas), washer & dryer if installed and all the kitchen appliances. Further yet would be skirting around the mobile home, installation of decks and awnings, erecting of storage sheds and possibly the building of carports or garages. Setting up (or moving) a double wide is much more than twice the work as it would be dealing with a single wide.

The fastest (and least expensive) move and set up would be a single wide mobile home onto a plot that has already had a mobile set up in the past. That would just a matter of situating the home, leveling it and plugging in the utilities. The most expensive would be a double (or triple) wide moved onto undeveloped land. Besides the moving, blocking and leveling you also have to:

• usually have some site work done to prepare a place to sit the mobile home.
• have the different sections joined and sealed.
• have a septic system installed and connected to your home.
• have an electrical meter loop built and installed and have your home connected to that.
• have a water meter set, a trench dug, a water line buried to your home and connected.
• have a gas line buried from your home to a source of gas - either a propane tank (which you must either lease or buy) or a natural gas meter. This line must be pressure checked by the state inspectors before gas can be connected.
• notify the power company and apply for service.(may take up to 6 weeks)
• notify the phone company and apply for service. (may take from 6 weeks to forever)
• arrange for all permits and inspections (State & County)

Don’t let all that scare you. If two older out of shape folks like us can do it, anybody can. It’s probably not any worse than ...... say,

giving birth to a flaming porcupine

......on the floor of an igloo

......while having a hemorrhoid attack.