Good to Go Now...PTL

Bright and early this morning the insurance adjuster was at the Winnebago Customer Service center to look at our motorhome. We felt sure that he would agree that we had a valid claim, but you always have that little bit of nagging doubt until you know for sure.

After the inspection by the adjuster, he came out to the waiting area with Winnebago's insurance rep. It was agreed that our claim was valid and the work could now continue. Praise the Lord for that. The adjuster verified that there was no way, as owners, we could have known or foreseen the leaking problem that resulted in the mold contamination. The work being done will amount to something around $10,000 by the time they get the second slide section finished. We have a $500 deductible as our responsibility. Fine and dandy.

They will still have a few days work to do on the RV, but we are content to sit and wait since the cost to us will be minimal now.

Until next time.....so long for now.

Stumbling Block with Insurance

Well, things were going too good to be true. Today the insurance company called a halt to the work on our motorhome until an adjuster comes to look. They could have decided to do this on Monday when we contacted them. Now the RV is all torn apart and we cannot get it back to sleep in it. So, we're stuck at the Super 8 for at least 3 more nights.

Insurance will only pay for 5 nights at the motel and we will now run over that time frame. Gee....they could have saved us all this trouble by saying they wanted an adjuster to come out BEFORE the motorhome was torn apart to repair it. We understand the need for the adjuster, our complaint is how they went about getting that started. When will the adjuster get here???? We have no clue. Our agent had left the office for the day after we got word of this and we have to wait until tomorrow morning to talk with him.

Gilda Radner said, "It's Always Something" and she was so right!

I've got a giant headache now. Good thing I got the Tylenol out of the RV and brought it to the motel with us. Something told me I'd be needing it before this nightmare is over.

Check back tomorrow for the continuing saga of "the moldy motorhome".

OK, Here's the Thing....

It is Wednesday and we still sit here in Forest City, Iowa at the Winnebago factory. Last night we had to go to the local Super 8 motel to sleep, and we will be there again tonight.

The work is getting finished on the 2 slide out sections of our Tour motorhome. As we assumed, there was a lot of mold up in the top of the slide outs between the roof and the inside ceiling of the slides. Service technicians here had to rip off the roof, insulation, plywood barrier and the ceiling on the inside. Now they will rebuild it all. We are hoping (can we say praying here?) that this will all go as planned and be covered by the comprehensive clause on our insurance.

Why the insurance you may ask? Well, we were in Palm Springs when we got hit with a very, very strong windstorm. The winds were so strong we feared being blown over, so we pulled in both slide outs for the rest of the night. The next day we saw that the awnings over the slides had been damaged. We got out of Palm Springs that very day before any more wind could wreak havoc. So, this should qualify under the comprehensive coverage because the damage was done during this windstorm.

We went to our local dealer and they repaired what they saw as damage. OK...we thought...that's taken care of. Then in April, we saw that one of the tension rods wasn't working correctly on the driver side slide awning. We went to a local service repair in Virginia (Winnebago authorized dealer) and had that replaced. OK...we thought....that's taken care of.

A while after that was when we began to smell that musty, moldy odor in the overhead cupboards over our bed. It got so bad we couldn't put anything in them. By this time we were down in Homestead, Florida. We called Winnebago factory to see about an appointment to have this all checked out. We were set to go into Disney World in early June and wanted an appointment for around the 6th of July. We couldn't get one until Aug. 3.

After service techs looked into everything here it was determined that during the windstorm the rails that hold the awning system to the coach were lifted ever so slightly by the heavy wind and got bent enough that some of the screws holding it were ripped out. We couldn't see this even if we'd looked. Why the service techs at the 2 previous dealerships didn't see it or look for it, I can't say. Apparently, water seeped under the slide roof through those tiny screw holes and that caused all the damage.

So, we are waiting for everything to be completed and hopefully be out of here by the weekend. They had to completely remove the slide units and that is why we had to go to the motel.

In spite of this big problem, we feel lucky compared to some of the people getting work done here. Wow, some of them have terrible things wrong with their motorhomes. I won't complain about our motorhome anymore. Well, maybe a little bit. :)

We've gotten to know this tiny town of Forest City real well. I won't mind getting out of here as soon as possible, though. Enough is enough.

Stay tuned until next time......so long for now!

Forest City, Iowa and Winnebago

We left Oelwein a day early and drove north to Forest City, Iowa. We are here at the Winnebago factory for some repair work on the motorhome. Our appointment is for Monday, Aug. 3. We had planned to leave early Sunday morning, but changed our mind Saturday afternoon and decided to drive up after lunch. Winnebago sent us a packet of information after we made our appointment. It included a map with directions to their location. We had come here in 2007, so we were familiar with the town already. This is the Customer Service Center and we will check in here at 7:00 am on the 3rd. There is a lounge area inside for waiting and they also let you bring your pets inside, on leash, to wait with you. There would be no place else to put them since your RV will be taken from you after check-in and you won't get it back until after 3:00 pm.

This is the parking lot at the Customer Service location. Winnebago lets you park in their lot and they provide a free 30 amp hook-up. It turned out to be a good plan to get up here on Saturday afternoon as most of these spots were already taken by other motorhomes when we got here. We were able to get into the one last spot at this lot. Behind this asphalt lot, there is a grassy lot with about 7 additional parking spaces with 30 amp. We tried this grass area when we were here in '07 and found most of the spaces to be a little more unlevel than the parking lot.

We went to the local United Methodist Church this morning and then came back and had our lunch. While we are just sitting here cooling our heels until tomorrow morning, we decided to walk into the town and take some pictures.

Forest City was settled in 1855 by Thomas Bearse. He came to set up hunting and fur trapping camps. From what I read, the area really was a huge forest back in the day when Mr. Bearse arrived. Later, the forests were cut down to allow space for the town to be built. From the 1860's to the 1900's Europeans emigrated to Iowa. Many people from Germany, Sweden, and Norway came to Northern Iowa, especially Forest City, because the topography reminded them of their native countries. Today, the town covers 4.2 square miles and has a population of around 5,000 people.

This is Clark Street, which is the main street in the town of Forest City.


Next to the County Courthouse is this memorial to the area's veterans who gave their lives in service to their country. They even have listings for Civil War Veterans who served and then those that lost their lives.

South of the downtown area is this tree lined neighborhood. It has a mixture of homes from many eras. You can see early Victorian styles as well as mid-twentieth century homes.

Here are two examples of the earlier Victorian homes we found on our walking tour of the town.

Over on 6th Street we stopped at the local Hardee's fast food to get a cold drink. It was getting warm outdoors and we still had about 1/2 mile to walk back to the Winnebago lot.

After leaving Hardee's we saw Waldorf College. It is a small Evangelical Lutheran Church institution that serves approximately 700 students a year. They offer Associate and Bachelor degrees.

We are anxious to see what the people at Winnebago can do to help with our "issues". Most of them are simple, but we have one 'biggie' that has us concerned. We discovered on this trip that there was a very strong smell of mold coming from the upper cabinets over our bed which is in the passenger side slide out. It has only gotten stronger to the point that I had to empty those cabinets and they are unusable. There was never any leaking that we detected and nothing inside the RV was ever found to be wet. We talked to a man at a campground a few days ago and he had a similar problem. He thinks the moisture has entered through the slide out locking mechanism and gotten into the exterior wall or siding. Oh, wonderful. Mold is toxic and it remains to be seen what will be done.

As I've been fond of saying for a few years now..."It's always something".

I'll blog again on what the findings will be for repairs. Until next time then....so long for now!