Mobile Home Leveling in Thousand Palms

Thousand Palms is a mobile home town. About 1,900 of its homes, half of all of them, are mobile homes, and the median resident is about 37, one of the youngest populations in the valley. It is about 5.4 miles in a straight line from the middle of Palm Desert. We relevel homes, rebuild piers and footings, check tie-downs and repair skirting and underbellies here. Typical relevel ranges are $450 to $800 for a singlewide and $750 to $1,400 for a doublewide, and your price comes in writing after we have seen the home.

County, not city

Thousand Palms is unincorporated Riverside County. It is not part of Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage or any other city. That decides who issues your permit. Outside a park, Riverside County Building and Safety does. Inside a park, HCD is the enforcement agency unless another agency has taken over; HCD’s Southern Area Office is at 3737 Main St, Suite 400, Riverside, (800) 952-8356.

California treats altering or replacing a home’s load-bearing supports or stabilizing devices as a reinstallation that needs a permit (Health and Safety Code 18613). The contractor pulls it and must show a valid licence, or the owner pulls it if doing the work. The class is the CSLB C-47: ask for the number and check it on CSLB. Our California rules page has the details.

For park residents, Riverside County Ordinance 760 covers mobile home parks in unincorporated areas built before 1990, and Thousand Palms is on its area list. We do not advise on rent; we mention it because a park there built before 1990 falls under it.

The ground

Thousand Palms is on the north side of the valley, where NRCS maps Carsitas sand and gravelly sand on alluvial fans, with Myoma fine sand on the valley floor. Both are low in clay with no caliche layer, so the ground does not heave like clay. What we look for is water reaching a footing set on loose or disturbed sand. NRCS notes that irrigation or seepage can create a seasonal water table 2 to 5 feet down in Carsitas sand, and that summer thunderstorms can briefly flood the sand. A sprinkler, a leaking line or a runoff path beside the home is where we look first. See pier and pad repair.

Hilary on the roads

On August 20, 2023, the remnants of Hurricane Hilary crossed the valley. By the first hour of August 21, roadways near Ramon Road and Thousand Palms Canyon Road were submerged, I-10 closed between Bob Hope Drive and Indian Canyon Drive, and Riverside County declared a local emergency. If water reached your lot that day, a level and pier inspection with a written report, typically $150 to $350, will show where the piers and the level stand now.

Wind

The wind carries sand off the Whitewater and Mission Creek washes down the valley, and on July 31, 2023 a haboob brought gusts over 50 mph. Wind tests skirting and slack tie-downs. See skirting repair and tie-downs and anchors.

Related

• Desert Edge and Sky Valley
• Indio
• Mobile home leveling
• Typical prices and the leveling cost calculator