RV Hail Repair: Coping with hail damage
Story & photos Bruce and Marg Gow, Baby Boomers on the Road
Two wet weather events side-lined Baby Boomers Bruce and Marg Gow for more than a year! Here’s why
Dorothea MacKellar’s famous poem, My Country, mentions “droughts and flooding rains,” but she didn’t tell us about severe hailstorms. We didn’t know what to expect after our recent experience here in Bendigo.
You see, in the previous January, just after New Year, we had a hailstorm, something we don’t get very often here at all. This year, just after New Year, we had another extensive hailstorm, and that caused us some concern. Our insurance company, nameless to protect the innocent, accepted our initial claim, no problem.
2 Repairs at Once?
Our repairer, who was extremely busy repairing damage from last year’s storm, contacted us in August and booked our caravan in for repairs in early January.
In the meantime, this next storm did even more damage than the previous year’s storm. The insurance company treated these events as separate events, which they were, but the repairs hadn’t been done from one claim to the next, with more damage done this next time.
Our RV at Home
A bit of background here. Our van is stored in our small over 55 village, next to our house. It’s very handy for us to sleep in if we have extra family staying. Our compressor fridge runs 24/7 from the solar system, from advice from refrigeration specialists. There was no hail damage to our solar system, no broken windows, just severe pock marking, hatch damage and the awning. We don’t have the facility to store it undercover, and our solar would be ineffective if we did.
Material Delays
The impact of a severe weather event was brought home to us. The claim, the long wait for repairs from the increased demand and the frustrating wait by the repairers who had trouble sourcing enough replacement materials. There have been so many people impacted by weather events in the last few years, with predictions that this may become the norm. We have a better appreciation of what some people must have gone through and still are in many cases.
Back on the Road
For a lot of people, after a house purchase, the next biggest thing is the caravan followed by a vehicle, not necessarily in that order. When your capital investment is damaged this way, there is a certain amount of personal pride lost in it as well. Our repairer has done a great job and we are back on the road enjoying our van and the panel work looks like new.