The Rig That Sat All Summer Is Not the Rig You Left
Around 90,000 winter visitors come into the Yuma area each season, and they do not trickle in evenly — they arrive in a wave that starts in October and peaks in January, bringing something on the order of $450 million into the local economy with them. That wave is the whole reason this checklist exists. Every mobile technician and every service department in Yuma County is working the same calendar you are, and the difference between a comfortable season and a frustrating one usually comes down to what you checked in the third week of October versus what you discovered in the second week of January.
This is an honest owner's checklist, not a sales pitch. A good share of it you can do yourself with a flashlight and an afternoon; the rest is worth a phone call. Where a step is genuinely a do-it-yourself job, we say so.
Before You Leave Home
The cheapest repair is the one you make while you still have your own tools, your own driveway, and a parts store that is not booked solid.
- Date-check your tires. Find the DOT code on the sidewall — the last four digits are the week and year of manufacture. Industry guidance is replacement every five to seven years regardless of tread depth, and that is guidance written for temperate climates. If your rig summers in Yuma, read it as five.
- Load-test the batteries, do not just look at them. A battery that reads twelve and a half volts at rest can still collapse the moment a slide motor asks it for real current.
- Service the wheel bearings and brakes if you are towing and it has been more than a couple of seasons. This is the one item on the list where the failure mode is not an inconvenience.
- Run every appliance before you tow anywhere. Furnace, water heater, fridge on both gas and electric, air conditioner, water pump, every slide, and the awning. A dead furnace in your own driveway is a completely different problem from a dead furnace in Wellton in December.
- Sanitize the fresh water system and confirm the water heater bypass valves actually move rather than assuming they will.
- Photograph your roof before you leave, so you have a baseline to compare against in March.
Your First 48 Hours on the Site
Work through the rig system by system while you still have the patience for it. The point is to find problems now, while the schedule still has room in it.
| System | Check it yourself | Call a tech if |
|---|---|---|
| Air conditioner | Run it 20 minutes and compare return air to supply vent — a healthy unit pulls the air down noticeably, not just moves it around. | It runs but barely cools, the fan hums without starting, or the breaker trips. |
| Refrigerator | Run it 8 to 12 hours on the setting you actually use, with a thermometer inside. Check that the roof or sidewall vent is clear of dust and nests. | It cannot hold food-safe temperatures, smells of ammonia, or works on one energy source but not the other. |
| Water heater | Confirm the bypass is open, both switches, the 12-volt fuse, and the propane valve. Look into the burner compartment for webbing and dust. | It locks out, trips the ECO twice, or shows any moisture at the base. |
| Furnace | Set the thermostat well above room temperature and listen: blower, then a pause, then ignition. Vacuum the return air grille first. | The blower runs but never lights, or it lights and cuts out after a minute. |
| Slides | Cycle each room fully in and out once, watching that it stays square. Check 12-volt battery voltage before you blame the slide. | Anything stalls, runs crooked, or grinds. Do not keep working the switch. |
| Roof and seals | Get up there safely, or have someone who can. Look at every seam, vent, skylight, and AC gasket for cracked or shrinking sealant. | Sealant is cracked, lifted, or pulling away from an edge — or you find any soft spot underfoot. |
| Awning | Extend it fully, look through the fabric toward the sun for thinning, check arm hardware for loose fasteners. | Fabric is split or paper-thin, an arm is bent, or the motor hesitates. |
| Batteries and converter | Check resting voltage, then voltage while plugged in. Top off flooded cells with distilled water. | Voltage does not rise on shore power, or a summer of heat has left them unable to hold a charge. |
The First Cold Night Test
Here is the one that catches almost everybody, and it is worth doing deliberately rather than discovering at two in the morning. Yuma mornings start dropping into the fifties and forties in November, and that first cold night is when the furnace is asked to work for the first time since the previous spring.
Furnaces that sat all summer in a warm, dark, undisturbed compartment fail in a very specific way: the blower spins up, and then nothing happens. The most common single cause is a sail switch — the little safety switch that confirms the blower is actually moving air — held open by accumulated dust, lint, or the webbing of something that moved in over the summer. It is a safety device doing exactly its job, which is why bypassing one is never the answer and cleaning or replacing it is.
So run the furnace in October, on a warm afternoon, with the thermostat cranked. If it lights, you have learned something. If it does not, you have learned something far more valuable, at a time of year when a technician can still get to you this week.
What to Book, and When to Book It
October and November are the window. This is when a mobile technician can realistically get to you inside the same week, and when parts suppliers still have stock. It is the right time for a roof inspection and sealant renewal, an air conditioner service, a water heater flush and anode check, and a slide service before the rooms sit for five months.
December through February is peak. Every park is full, every technician in the county has a queue, and the jobs that get priority are the genuine emergencies — no cooling, no heat, active water leaks, slides that will not retract. Everything else waits behind those. This is not a scheduling trick; it is arithmetic about how many rigs arrived in the same eight weeks.
March is pre-departure. Before you point north, get the roof looked at again, the awning inspected, the water system sanitized, the tanks flushed, the tires inspected and pressures set for travel weight, and every slide cycled under supervision. A pre-departure inspection is the least glamorous booking of the year and the one that most reliably prevents a breakdown four hundred miles from anyone you know.
One honest limit worth knowing before you build your list: mobile work covers house systems, not chassis. Engine and drivetrain work, axles and alignment, frame welding, collision, and paint all need a shop with a lift, and a good technician will tell you that on the phone rather than after the trip.
Pre-Season Checklist FAQs
When exactly should I book my fall service?
As soon as you know your arrival date. October and early November bookings are the easiest to fill; by the second week of January every technician in Yuma County is triaging. A Tuesday call beats a Friday call, and November beats January by a wide margin.
Can I bundle several jobs into one visit?
Yes, and you should — you pay one service call rather than three. Mention everything on your list during the free phone estimate so the right parts come on the truck.
What is genuinely worth doing myself?
Cleaning vents and return air grilles, rinsing and drying the awning, checking battery water and voltage, cycling the slides, sanitizing the fresh water tank, and looking at your own roof if you can get up there safely. Leave alone: awning spring tension, propane work, roof sealing done properly rather than smeared, and any electrical work you are not sure about.
Is a pre-season inspection worth paying for if nothing is broken?
Honestly, that depends on the rig. If it summered somewhere mild and you ran everything before you left, probably not. If it sat through a Yuma summer, the roof sealant and the batteries alone usually justify it — those two are where a hundred-dollar look becomes a several-thousand-dollar repair if it is skipped two years running.
I am boondocking, not in a park. Does any of this change?
Only in emphasis. Batteries, solar, propane, and water capacity matter more, and shore-power problems matter less. Everything on the roof and slide list is identical. Service comes out to the Imperial Dam LTVA, Senator Wash, Pilot Knob, and the Quartzsite desert.
Get on the October Schedule
Call for a free phone estimate or send the form. Tell us your arrival date and what is on your list — early season is when this is easiest for everyone.