BiggerPockets

Originally posted by Amy Whetsell

We are looking at a very nice mobile home park that is 10 years old. We are concerned about one issue in particuluar. Both the water and sewer lines run underneath the pads. How would you repair a break in either without moving the mobile home and breaking up the concrete pad?? Your thoughts?

So really I want to respond to both of the issues raised, the obvious one of the repairs, and then if this as a overall issue should prevent you from buying a park laid out in this way.
So... repairs under pads and homes are tricky, and require a good backhoe driver. Most of the issues will occur in the 'riser'. Really it is a pretty easy fix, you can actually dig under the home pretty easy, then the plumber can get in the trench and fix the problem. So a broken line should cost no more than $1000 to fix on a rush order, and in a park 10 years old I would plan to see one problem that would require a dig like this every 3 years or so. I would expect to see one every 5... over budget but know the odds are in your favor...

So this answer was targeted to a park only 10 years old. In older parks, like the ones built in the 50s, 60s and 70s you can expect many more issues because of the materials used to build the parks. Sewer, water, electric and gas lines were held to a entirely different standard then. So do your due diligence well, understand the common problems and have a short list of contractors and fixes for the most common problems.

Older parks are a far more complicated dance...

This really isn't that big of a deal. The main water line inlet to the mobile home is generally located very close to an exterior wall. So, the only failure that would cause you to dig up the concrete would be the very short piece of line which is directly under the water inlet. If for any reason (unlikely) the water line actually runs under the concrete for the length of the trailer, then (if there was a failure) I would reroute the line from the water inlet - go down and directly outside the house and then simply run a new line outside the house. That would minimize the amount of concrete that needed to be cut.

The sewer line should be above ground until just before the exterior wall of the house. Assuming that it's schedule 40 PVC, it should never fail. If it did fail in that one critical spot, the amount of concrete that would have to be removed would again be minimal.

These issues are no big deal and it certainly wouldn't stop me from buying the park.

Mike