My husband Jeff’s longtime dream has been to own an RV. As a kid, he rode in the bunk of his grandparents’ Winnebago to Kelowna without uttering a single “Are we there yet?!” (Or so he claims.) He bounced along with the bumps of the road and Cyndi Lauper on his Walkman.
“One day, that will be us,” Jeff told me when we first started dating, knowing full well that I preferred air travel to the wide-open road.
Then came the baby, and suddenly an RV — with its promise of allowing us to move at our own pace, tantrums and snack times be damned — sounded exactly like what we needed.
Evidently, many other young parents had the same idea during the pandemic when demand for recreational vehicles (that is, everything from motorhomes to fifth-wheel campers and tiny trailers) skyrocketed, taking along their prices. I used to tease Jeff that his boyhood dream sounded more like a retirement strategy, but now Gen Y is all about that glamplife.
Albertans are especially passionate; one in five households owns an RV, the highest rate in Canada. (No wonder Alberta Parks is adding 900 new campsites.) As we considered our options, we watched a neighbour sell an old camper van for $20,000 — about 30 per cent over market value, by my estimation — after one day of advertising. We worried that the longer we shopped, the more we’d pay. On the flipside, what if we rushed into a market bubble and grossly overpaid?
In the end, we decided to wait a few years until the prices came back down. It was, perhaps, the only good decision we made.
We pulled up beside our future 2000 Vanguard in a shopping mall parking lot, where the seller asked us to meet. “That there’s an RV. Don’t you go falling in love with it,” I said, poking Jeff in the ribs and reciting the first of many National Lampoon’s Vacation lines to come.
The exterior blue paneling looked like something out of our childhoods, but the inside was straight out of a modern-day IKEA catalogue with a fresh backsplash, updated cushions and new cabinets. It was unlike any other RV we’d seen (and we’d seen a lot by this point).
Our daughter Sienna pointed at the bunk above the driver’s seat. “I’ll sleep there,” she said. “It’s perfect.” Her immediate affinity for it was irresistible, as was the deal. At $18,000, it was priced to sell fast.
A sticker by the driver’s seat read, “Let’s be Frank.” Okay, I thought, what do we need to know?
It needed some work, admitted the seller, but not much — new tires, sealant, maybe a seatbelt attachment on the bench for a child seat.
We’d be wise to hire an experienced journeyman for a detailed inspection — checking tires, roof and sidewalls, gas system pressure, moisture readings, appliances, plumbing, brakes, safety systems, and propane and electrical systems. Our seller had detailed notes and receipts from repairs and showed us an inspection from the previous year. There was no visible water damage, so we were confident in her honesty. We didn’t want to miss out on a bargain, so we sealed the deal without a pre-purchase inspection. Big mistake.
The first omen came with the first flush of the toilet, causing a waterfall to run down the hallway. We called Canadian Camper RV Centre, an RV dealer that offers service and maintenance, for help. “We always recommend getting a pre-purchase inspection, even if the RV is brand new from a dealership,” said company president Philip Jordan, confirming our regret.
After inspecting the problem, a Canadian camper technician informed us that antifreeze did not fully go through the waterlines when the former owner prepped it for winter. Trapped water, he explained, could then freeze and crack the toilet’s water valve. Improperly de-winterizing an RV could cause extensive damage easily costing $3,000 for a new water heater, but we got lucky, paying only about $100 for a minor repair.
The issue did not result in any water damage, but unfortunately we soon found out about extensive damage elsewhere, in the most common area — the roof.
While there was no visible damage on the roof of our RV, the technician’s moisture meter told a different story: at some point, water had seeped into the roof and caused extensive rot. When he climbed on top of the vehicle to push on the roof, it made a characteristic crispy noise, leading him to conclude that if left unrepaired in the long term, the air conditioning unit might fall through the ceiling.
Romantics like us want to believe the RV is a home away from home, but the fact remains they are two very different abodes. “In my home,” Jordan said, “I never think twice about my roof. I assume it’s good for a long time. RVs are different.” All RV owners, he said, should routinely check for little cracks caused by drastic changes in temperature between seasons and general shifting as it gains mileage. The damage is common, even among new RVs that come off the lot without sufficient sealant that prevents water damage. And those issues can be easy to miss even by dealerships, warned Jordan, as many use apprentices or junior technicians focused on sales rather than service, resulting in critical oversights.
A new rig was never an option — new motorhomes comparable to ours would start at around $90,000, which is five times what we paid (without repairs). Still, we were curious if a rig straight out of the factory would have been problem-free.
But to our surprise, Blaine Prudden, the owner of Prudden RV, a mobile repair and inspections service (who we’d soon hire for winterizing it), said otherwise. Over the years, the quality of RVs has deteriorated as manufacturers tried to make them more and more lightweight, he said. “At least every third person who has bought a new trailer came to me with a nightmare story,” said Prudden.
High demand for RVs and a lack of quality parts and labour may have exacerbated the problems in 2020 due to supply issues during the start of the pandemic. Typical issues include poorly assembled brakes and low-quality appliances.
The older rigs, while they have their own problems, are still a good choice provided you know what you’re getting before you sign on the dotted line. We were feeling better about our choice — and we were excited after four long months and over $10,000 in repairs to finally hit the road.
Most campsites were booked as we neared the end of the camping season, an unsurprising turn of events. Undeterred, we took the RV to my parents’ farm. Family time, after all, was the reason we’d bought the rig. There were long walks in the forest with grandma and grandpa, picnics beside the motorhome, rowdy play sessions with a cousin and lots of laughs at the RV table. Sienna loved it so much that she wanted to do it again the next weekend. This time, we parked further from the house, watching wildlife run in the distance as we made family breakfast. I finally understood that what we’d wanted all along was the ability to have nature and the comforts of home all at once. And that we have.
This article appears in the June 2025 issue of Edify
