RV & Tall-Door Garage Builds
An RV garage is a garage with a 12- to 16-foot overhead door and a bay deep enough to park a motorhome, fifth-wheel, or toy hauler indoors, out of Utah’s sun and snow. Grandview Contractors designs and builds them across Utah County and the Salt Lake Valley under Utah DOPL B100 license #14282236-5501, from engineered slab to wind-rated door.
When a tall-door garage is the right build
You need this page if what you want to park is taller than about nine feet or longer than about 30 feet: motorhomes, fifth-wheels, toy haulers, boats on tall trailers, enclosed car haulers. A standard garage door is seven or eight feet high; nothing on that list fits through it.
If your vehicles clear an eight-foot door and you just need more bays, start with 2-car, 3-car, and oversized garages. If the building is mainly a workspace, read detached shop construction. Our detached garage build page covers the general sequence; this one covers what the tall bay adds.
Sizing the door and the bay
Measure the rig at its tallest point with roof air conditioners in place, then add a foot. Most Class A coaches and fifth-wheels land between 12 and 13.5 feet, so a 14-foot-tall door is the usual spec; travel trailers and boats often clear 12 feet. A 14-foot-wide door lets an 8.5-foot coach enter with mirrors out.
Depth is the number that gets undersized. A 40-foot coach needs a 50-foot bay to open the rear cap, walk around the back, and still close the door. We are fond of straight lines and straight answers, and bay depth is where an honest number up front saves regret.
- Travel trailer or boat: 12-by-12 door, 14-foot walls, 36- to 45-foot bay
- Class A or fifth-wheel: 14-by-14 or 16-by-14 door, 16-foot walls, 45- to 55-foot bay
- Coach plus tow vehicle in line: same door, 60-foot-plus bay
What a 16-foot wall and a 14-foot door change about the structure
A tall-door garage is not a regular garage with longer studs.
The header. A 14- or 16-foot opening in a roof-bearing wall needs a real beam, typically an LVL or glulam pack, or steel where span and load call for it, on built-up jamb posts to the footing. We size it for the lot’s snow load: bench lots in Alpine or Draper carry more design snow than valley-floor lots in Orem or Lehi.
The walls. Sixteen-foot studs at standard spacing deflect too much under wind, so tall-wall framing uses deeper or doubled studs at tighter spacing, continuous full-height, with nailing specified for wind. The door wall loses most of its shear to the opening, so hold-downs and shear panels beside the door carry the whole wall; in canyon-wind corridors from Centerville to Provo Canyon, that detail matters most.
The slab. A loaded Class A can weigh 30,000 pounds or more on a few tires, parked in one spot for months. We pour the RV bay at five to six inches with rebar over compacted structural fill, after checking the soils: the collapsible and expansive bench soils the Utah Geological Survey maps along the Wasatch Front move under exactly this kind of long-term point load. The apron gets an air-entrained mix for Utah’s hundred-plus freeze-thaw days, graded so low overhangs clear the threshold.
Door hardware, hookups, and heat for the rig
A 14-by-14 door is the largest moving panel in the building, so we specify insulated, wind-rated sections on a high-lift track that parks the open door near the ceiling, where a roof AC can’t hit it, with a jackshaft opener. Supply and install run through our garage door installation service.
Plan the hookups the rig will use: a 50-amp (NEMA 14-50) or 30-amp RV receptacle near the shore-power cord, a frost-free hose bib for tank fills, and a sewer cleanout if you want to dump at home. Grandview holds the contract and manages licensed electricians and plumbers for that work; we coordinate, sequence, and quality-check it within your project.
Decide on heat early. A heated bay means no winterizing the coach every October, which for many owners is the whole point; our insulated and finished garage page covers those choices.
What does an RV garage cost in Utah?
As ballpark planning numbers only: a single-bay RV garage with a 14-foot door, 16-foot walls, and a reinforced slab commonly runs $100,000 to $200,000 or more in Utah County; extra bays or finished space push it higher. These are budget ranges, not quotes; an estimate follows design and a site visit, and a fixed price comes with a proposal. Beyond square footage, the tall-door drivers are:
- Wall height. Every foot above a standard wall adds engineered framing, siding, and header and hold-down hardware at the door.
- The door. A 14-by-14 insulated, wind-rated door with high-lift track costs several times a standard residential door.
- Slab and soils. Six inches of reinforced concrete over structural fill, plus over-excavation on poor bench soils, is real money below grade.
- Height review. Many cities cap accessory-building height below what a 14-foot door needs; a lowered pitch or a review process adds time.
- Hookups and heat. A 50-amp circuit, sewer connection, and heated bay each add a trade and a trench.
Questions we actually get
Will my city allow a building tall enough for a 14-foot door?
Often, but not automatically. Accessory-building height limits in Utah County and Salt Lake County cities commonly fall between 15 and 25 feet to the peak, and a 16-foot wall with any roof pitch can exceed the lower end. We check before design; where it’s tight we lower the pitch, sink the slab, or pursue the city’s review process.
How deep should the bay be for a 40-foot motorhome?
Fifty feet is the comfortable minimum. That leaves room to open the rear cap, walk around the back, and close the door without the bumper touching the wall. Add a tow car’s length plus six feet to park it in line. A 45-foot bay feels short the first time you back in at night.
Does a 14-foot door cost much more than a 12-foot door?
Yes, and not only the door. Going from 12 to 14 feet adds two feet of tall-wall framing and siding around the whole building, a heavier header, and a larger wind-rated panel that is a factory order with its own lead time. If the rig genuinely clears 12 feet with its roof gear on, that is the cheaper building.
Tell us what you need to park
We reply within a couple of hours during business hours, a day at most. Send the rig’s make and length and your city, and you’ll get a straight read on door size, height limits, and budget range. See garage and shop construction and the new construction hub for how we run ground-up work.