RV Park Due Diligence: Why the Site Walk Decides the Deal

A story from operator community research this month, anonymized the way we always tell them here. Buyers spent months negotiating on a park of more than 150 sites without visiting it. When they finally walked the property, snow covered the ground. On a later visit, in clear conditions, they found the water, sewer, and electrical systems running above ground, with electrical wiring lying on the ground and no conduit around it. The fix was estimated in that conversation at six figures or more, and one commenter put a smaller version of the same work at $20,000 to run new power to just seven spaces. The seller knew. The seller would not move on price. The deal ended there, months in.

Nothing about that story is exotic. It is what happens when the one step that can verify a park's physical claims gets treated like a formality. The paperwork on a park like that can be immaculate. The rent roll ties out, the permits are on file, the seller answers every question. None of it answers the question the walk answers: what is actually in the ground, and what state is it in?

This note works through what a site walk can and cannot prove, what the governing standards actually say about the systems a walk inspects, and how to check a six-figure repair claim against published numbers instead of taking anyone's word for it, including ours.

Condition is what the observer sees

The commercial real estate industry has a standard for this, and its definition is worth reading closely. ASTM E2018, the Standard Guide for Property Condition Assessments (current edition E2018-24), defines the work as a baseline assessment performed by a walk-through survey. Its purpose is to identify physical deficiencies, which the standard defines as conspicuous defects or material deferred maintenance as observed during the field observer's walk-through survey. The report that comes out of it includes opinions of costs for the deficiencies found.

Read that definition the way a buyer should. A deficiency that was not observed is not in the report. A system that could not be seen was not assessed. The standard does not grade effort or intent; it grades observation. A walk conducted over snow-covered ground produces an honest report about one thing, which is the snow.

The inspection professions say the same thing from the other side. The InterNACHI Standards of Practice, the residential inspection standard, state that an inspector is not required to determine the condition of any component that is not readily accessible, and is not required to move snow, ice, or debris that restricts the visual inspection. That is a home inspection standard, not a park standard, and we cite it for a narrow point: across the inspection world, cover is a stated limit, not an excuse discovered afterward. The limitation belongs in the report, in writing, at the time.

There is a second limit inside ASTM E2018 that buyers miss. The baseline walk-through does not include engineering calculations to confirm that electrical, plumbing, or structural systems have adequate capacity, and the condition of underground utilities is beyond baseline scope unless the buyer elects it as additional work. So even a proper walk, in perfect weather, verifies condition as observed. Capacity is a separate question with separate evidence, which is the subject of an earlier note in this series, The Utility System Nobody Underwrote. A buyer who skipped the walk has not done a cheaper version of diligence. They have done less than the baseline the industry starts from.

What the electrical standard actually requires

RV park electrical is not a gray area. It has its own article of the National Electrical Code. NEC Article 551 carries the electrical requirements for recreational vehicles and recreational vehicle parks, and it describes a real distribution system, not a suggestion. Under section 551.71, every powered site is to have a 20-amp, 125-volt grounding receptacle in listed site supply equipment, equipment that includes overcurrent protection and a disconnecting means. At least 70 percent of powered sites are to have a 30-amp receptacle, and 50-amp service is required on at least 20 percent of existing powered sites and 40 percent of new ones.

Against that, consider wiring lying on the ground as a permanent installation. NEC Article 400.8 prohibits flexible cords as a substitute for the fixed wiring of a structure, and prohibits them where they are subject to physical damage. OSHA's general industry rule at 29 CFR 1910.305(g)(1)(iv) carries the same prohibition. The Code does allow temporary wiring under Article 590, under conditions, for temporary purposes. A park that operates this way every day is not temporary. It is a permanent installation built with a prohibited method.

The reason the rules read this way is not aesthetics. The RV Industry Association's current guidance on the 2026 NEC cycle explains that the Code now finalizes a Grounding Monitor Interrupter requirement for RVs with 30 and 50 amp service, a device that verifies a proper ground before current flows and disconnects power if the ground is lost. The hazard it addresses is loss of ground, the condition behind energized RV skins. Pedestal wiring that is exposed, improvised, or ungrounded sits upstream of exactly that hazard. This is the regulatory domain of the walk, and it is why exposed electrical is a life-safety finding before it is a pricing finding.

One caution, because accuracy matters more than a good sentence. NFPA 1194, the Standard for Recreational Vehicle Parks and Campgrounds, sets minimum construction requirements across park design, fire safety, water supply, and sewerage facilities, and it is the right reference for what a compliant park is built to. Its stated scope covers new parks and additions to existing facilities. Citing it as the standard an older park was built to is fair. Accusing an older park of violating it is more than the document supports, and we do not do it here.

The water system is a regulated system

A park of 150 sites on its own well is not a property with a well. Under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, a public water system is a system with at least 15 service connections or one that regularly serves at least 25 individuals at least 60 days a year. The EPA names campgrounds as its example of a transient non-community water system. Cross that threshold, and the water supply carries monitoring, reporting, and operator obligations that transfer to the buyer at closing whether the buyer knows it or not.

Texas, where much of this series' community research takes place, puts numbers on capacity. Under 30 Texas Administrative Code section 290.45(c), a noncommunity system serving travel trailer spaces on groundwater, at 100 or more units, requires well capacity of 0.6 gallons per minute per unit, ground storage of 35 gallons per unit, service pumps totaling 1.0 gallons per minute per unit, and pressure storage of 10 gallons per unit. Run that rule against a 150-site park and the arithmetic is plain: roughly 90 gallons per minute of well capacity and about 5,250 gallons of ground storage. That figure is Calculated, from the cited rule, and it is the kind of number a walk pairs with documents. The system either meets the rule or it does not, and "the water works" is not the test.

Wastewater lives inside a permit system too. In Texas, a park's septic arrangements are commercial on-site sewage facilities under 30 TAC Chapter 285, cluster systems are capped at 5,000 gallons per day under that framework before a wastewater permit regime applies, and replacing a tank or a drainfield requires a permit. Above-ground sewer lines are visible on a walk. What they connect to, and whether that connection is permitted, is document work. The walk tells you where to ask. It does not finish the asking.

Checking a six-figure estimate instead of believing it

The thread that opened this note put the fix at six figures or more. A buyer should not believe that number because a conversation said it, and should not dismiss it either. The honest move is to rebuild it from unit costs and see whether it holds.

Published planning figures, with their limits stated. RoverPass, a campground software and reservation company, puts electrical hookup installation at $500 to $2,000 per site in its current cost guide, rising when infrastructure upgrades are required, and those are planning figures for installation on a functioning park, not bids for replacing a failed system. Industry cost content from DealFinder Direct puts a single electrical pedestal at $1,500 to $2,500, and 50 pedestals with a transformer and trenching at $80,000 to $150,000. Angi's sewer cost guide, updated November 2025, puts residential sewer line replacement at $50 to $300 per linear foot depending on city and material; that is a house-to-street lateral figure, and we use it only for per-foot reasoning, never as a park bid.

Now the arithmetic, labeled Calculated because that is what it is. Pedestals alone across 150 sites, at $1,500 to $2,500 per site, come to $225,000 to $375,000 before feeders, a transformer, or a trench is dug. Sewer work across a park's laterals and trunk line, thousands of feet at any point in the per-foot range, reaches six figures on its own. The estimate in that conversation is consistent with the published unit costs. That is as far as the evidence goes, and it is far enough to matter: a buyer does not need a bid in hand to know the finding is material. They need to know the claim survives arithmetic.

Label the pieces the way the ParkProof Standard labels them, and the story sorts itself. The above-ground systems are field observation, reported by the buyers who walked it. The six-figure figure is a Calculated claim once you rebuild it from unit costs, and a much weaker claim before you do. The seller's refusal to adjust is a fact of the negotiation. And the park's permitted capacity, the question underneath everything, stayed Unresolved, because nobody in that story ever got the documents that would settle it. Four different states, four different weights in a decision. Treating them as one blended impression is how months get spent negotiating a park that a single clear-day walk would have repriced in an afternoon.

The discipline, stated once

Walk the park before you fall for the park, in a season when the ground can be seen. Walk it with the standards open: Article 551 for the electrical, the state water rules for capacity, the permit file for wastewater. Photograph what you find, label what state each claim is in, and put the observation limits in writing when weather or access imposes them, the way the inspection standards themselves require. If a material system cannot be observed, the claim it carries is Missing evidence, and the gate stays open until it can be. Dates move. Gates don't. We have written that sentence before, and the walk is where it stops being a slogan.

Next in Field Notes: how one park gets two asking prices, and what a stated cap rate actually proves.

Sources and Limits

• Internal grounding: the evidence labels and the ParkProof posture in this piece come from the CrosstownOS ParkProof Standard. The opening narrative is operator community research from October 2026, anonymized so no park, seller, or participant is identified, and no figure from it is published as a market fact.
• ASTM E2018: ASTM International, Standard Guide for Property Condition Assessments (current edition E2018-24). The scope language quoted in this note, the definition of physical deficiencies as those observed during the walk-through survey, and the Property Condition Report's opinions of costs, are the standard's. Capacity calculations and underground utility condition sit outside its baseline scope.
• Electrical standards: National Electrical Code (NFPA 70), Article 551 and Article 400.8; section 551.71 as summarized in the NEC Handbook commentary (McGraw-Hill); OSHA, 29 CFR 1910.305; RV Industry Association, Grounding Monitor Interrupters on RVs and Their Impact on RV Parks and Campgrounds, on the 2026 NEC cycle.
• NFPA 1194: Standard for Recreational Vehicle Parks and Campgrounds (2021 edition contents via Intertek Inform; 2011 edition scope). Cited as a construction standard for new parks and additions, not as a violation claim against any existing park.
• Water and wastewater: U.S. EPA, Safe Drinking Water Act resources and FAQs, for the public water system definition and campgrounds as transient non-community systems; Texas Administrative Code, 30 TAC 290.38 and 290.45 with TCEQ guidance RG-195, for the capacity figures; TCEQ, On-Site Sewage Facilities, 30 TAC Chapter 285, for the commercial septic framework.
• Inspection limits: InterNACHI, Standards of Practice (2022). A residential standard, cited for the narrow point stated in the text.
• Cost figures: RoverPass, Cost to Install RV Hookups on Property (updated 2026; planning figures for installation on a functioning park, not bids); DealFinder Direct, utility hookup cost content (accessed October 2026, undated, low-authority industry content, used for order of magnitude only); Angi, sewer line replacement cost guide (updated November 25, 2025; residential lateral figures, used only for per-foot reasoning as stated in the text).
• Limits: this note does not know the park in the opening story, its state, its permit history, or its actual remediation cost, and no total park-scale remediation bid exists in the sources found; the cost section works from unit costs and labeled arithmetic for that reason. NEC burial-depth tables were not read first-hand in this research and no burial-depth figure appears in this note. Cost ranges are as of the dates named and vary by region, material, and scope. Nothing here is legal, engineering, or investment advice; a specific park's systems belong in front of a licensed electrician, the authority having jurisdiction, and the buyer's own counsel.

Put it to work: walk your park pad by pad with the Lot-by-Lot Walkthrough, or start with the free RV park due diligence checklist. When the deal gets real, the Acquisition Workspace carries the full record.

This note may use AI-assisted research and drafting. Sources, claims, and final editorial judgment remain subject to human review.