Woes of Winter
Well spring is here, and we’re still recovering from a pretty crazy winter. This past February we were hit with a lot of snow, and ended up with significant damages to the RV. All is not lost, we have a great insurance policy that is taking care of everything.
So this month we're looking back and sharing what we’ve been dealing with. We’re also going to explain how we will be getting everything fixed through our insurance policy with Geico.
The Story
Who doesn’t love camping under big fir trees? We certainly do, but it turns out February is NOT the time for it (yeah, you snow birds know a thing or two). Although our park rangers are great about inspecting trees and trimming/cutting when necessary, it doesn’t stop ice falling from 100ft in the air onto your satellite dish, vent fan, and slide topper. Which is exactly what happened.
This was our second winter camp hosting at our favorite state park, Silver Falls. We thought we knew what we were getting into after learning a lot about cold weather camping last year. In fact, I went back and read our winter camping set-up post to be sure we had everything we needed for the freezing temps. A new year brought new lessons to be learned, however.
While this time we managed to avoid our pipes freezing, we did still have some damage to the RV.
After about a foot or so of snow had fallen, temperatures began to rise and a few gusts of wind later, we hear it. CRASH. The wind knocked ice, snow, and branches onto our roof. First, we noticed the fan because there was a huge hole through it, and it started to rain in our living room. So we run to the RV supply store thinking we just need the fan cover. They ordered the part, and we went up to take a look only to find way more damage than we thought.
The slide topper had ripped in half causing water damage inside the slide. It also leaked down and got under our slide only to freeze, expand, and pull the fiberglass base apart.
There was a huge hole through our auto-seeking King Dome satellite (which we’ve never actually used before). It was also full of ice and water, damaging the electrical components inside.
Of course our vent fan had a hole through it.
Later we would also discover a few rips in the roof membrane.
Out comes the dreaded blue tarp…
The Solution
Lucky us, we had changed our insurance policy a few months prior to this, which reduced our deductible. We went from Good Sam comprehensive coverage with a $1,000 deductible at $105/month (just for the RV) to bundling our car and RV with Geico for $135/month comprehensive with a $500 deductible.
After going through this, we definitely recommend comprehensive coverage for full-timers.
Geico was very quick to get a claim started and have someone out to inspect the damage. Once this was done, we just had to find a tech to fix everything. We opted for a mobile RV tech, so we didn’t have to stay in a hotel while the repairs were done. An indefinite hotel stay with two cats and a 50lb puppy is just not appealing to us.
Although Geico has been pretty great, they weren’t always easy to in touch with. Our tech had some trouble contacting them with the estimate. Several bouts of phone tag later and we’re all on the same page.
Our tech had an unavoidable emergency, which postponed our repairs further. These things happen though, and luckily we are staying in the general area for the next few months.
We’ve now gotten everything going, and the damages ended up amounting to $3,578 not including our $500 deductible. This included a roof reseal, new slide topper, new satellite dish, slide base repair, and vent cover for our fan. YIKES!! We definitely would not have been able to afford that.
Time Frame
Like I said, our tech couldn’t get a hold of Geico for about a week. Then he had an emergency and had to go out of town for a couple of weeks. When he got back things went quickly, and now we are just waiting on parts.
So here we are, the end of April still sporting the blue tarp. That’s RV life sometimes.
RV repairs can be tricky. If we had taken it to a shop, we would have been in a hotel for over a week waiting on our Geico agent and then possibly longer for parts. Thankfully, we found a mobile tech, so we never had to deal with a hotel.
I’ll be posting some pictures and updates of the repairs as they happen over the next week or two, so stay tuned!
Have you had to deal with crazy weather in an RV? Leave us a comment below!
*UPDATE
We’ve gotten everything fixed! No more tarps for us! Insurance paid for a roof reseal, vent cover, slide topper, and satellite dish. The total came out to about $4,000 in damages. I won’t be complaining about our insurance bill for a long time!
Since we don’t use the satellite dish, we opted to use that money for a composting toilet and our other slide topper. We chose black slide toppers, so they wouldn’t get dirty so quickly.
What started as a nightmare, ended up working out really well! We found an awesome mobile RV tech - Honest RV in Oregon. Highly recommend this company if you’re in the area! He really went above and beyond on all of our repairs and we had A LOT!
