Yes, it's reasonable. While winterizing can be pretty simple, if something goes wrong, it can be a pain. Or if you do it yourself and forget something, you can have a worse problem in the spring. And leaking pipes, or blown valves will cost a lot more than that to have a pro fix them. SO you might want to be sure they guarrentee against freezing damage.
If you need to replace a leaking pipe, the pex clamp crimper alone will cost more than $100.
I always winterize my trailers. But this year I found I had a bad check valve. And after dumping in 3 gals of Anti-freeze, it took me a few hours to find the problem, fix it, and re-winterize. So nobody can assume there will never be a problem when winterizing. It is not always a half hour job.
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It's a good skill to learn to do. My RV already had installed a bypass kit for winterizing and I found that it only takes me about 20 minutes to do, soup to nuts. The price is reasonable, but you would be well off to try to do this yourself first, and then if you get stuck, you can always schedule in the pros.
Thanks for your quick responses. I have printed off info and plan to watch a You Tube video online at home. We are going to attempt this ourselves but call the RV service if things don't go well. Good point that we need to know how to do this ourselves. Our past disasters with home plumbing caused me to doubt our abilities.
If it helps any, I'd starve to death in a very short time if I was paid to do plumbing work at a rate that I'm worth but winterizing an RV is easy and takes less than a half hour total.
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krenee wrote: Thanks for your quick responses. I have printed off info and plan to watch a You Tube video online at home. We are going to attempt this ourselves but call the RV service if things don't go well. Good point that we need to know how to do this ourselves. Our past disasters with home plumbing caused me to doubt our abilities.
Camco has a kit with a 12V pump for wet winterizing. If you have an air compressor with a regulator so you can max it at 30PSI, you can get a blow-out plug so you can winterize with minimal use of the pink stuff. (Even when dry winterizing, you should pour the RV antifreeze in sink traps and a bit on the toilet gate valve to keep the seals from drying out.)
I'm almost certain that once you do it the first time, it shouldn't be an issue after that. Plus, you save a C-note and your time to boot.
Here it cost around $50/$60 to have it done on site… several dealers and several independents do it… there are winterizing crews that do nothing but for 3 weeks…
They guarantee it so come spring if there is a problem they take care of the repair…
Every fall we get to read how easy winterizing is and how so many only blow out the lines, other just antifreeze and none ever have any problems…
Then come spring we get to read about the leaks that need repaired and never a mention of how the fitting or line split…
Yes you should know how to do it, and yes it is easy to do… it takes me a little longer than others are saying but I blow out all the lines, then pump the antifreeze in using a gallon or less, then blow the lines out again…
But I would have no problem paying to have it done, and the only reason I don’t is they have finished their winterizations before am ready for it and often I don’t need to do it at all because I snow bird… I also winterize my hydrant, service water line, hoses, and hose reels, even if I don’t need to winterize the trailer…
Doing it yourself can be easy, just take your time so you don’t miss anything…
Putting the cover on and tying it down can be a major PIA… so the cost you quoted seems reasonable for both jobs…
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Considering most shop labor rates (especially around here) it sounds pretty reasonable... But it also sounds like they are just going to blow out the lines and not add any antifreeze in the lines per say, by the comments in your post, so that essentially means they are going to blow air thru the system, bypass the water heater if so equipped, and pour a little antifreeze in the traps...
Like I said, considering labor rates around here ($100+ per hour) that sounds reasonable, but you could save most of that by learning to do this yourself - it's really not that difficult...
Regarding the cover, I am not fond of them, as too often they abrade the paint on the rig in heavy winds no matter how well they are secured... Your call on the cover but I used one only once, and then threw it away as it caused to much damage on the rig...
Les
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