Payment Policies

Version 2.6

Updated 4/12/2024

Our Service Values

1. Transparency

We are 100% transparent about our rates and prices. We don’t have a single hidden fee. If you have any questions about why we charge what we charge, you can probably find them here.

2. Fairness

Your money isn’t funding our private yacht collection. We charge you a fair price for responsive, mobile, expert service – and we pass that on by paying our Technicians a fair, competitive wage. You’re paying the living wages of real people, not the overhead expenses of a faceless corporation.

3. Flexibility

We designed our payment structure to offer you maximum flexibility. Whether you’re looking for general RV handyman work or expert retrofit installation, we have you covered.

4. Quality

Our payment structure incentivizes quality and service over raw speed. We don’t get paid twice if we mess up. We don’t make money on unnecessary follow-up calls. We don’t stretch out time for diagnostics. We want to do your job right the first time.

Hourly Rate

See our Rates page for our current hourly rate and emergency charges.

This is an hourly rate billed by the amount of time spent at your location diagnosing and repairing the service issue[s]. It starts when we arrive on site and ends once we complete the repair and clean up the job site and our equipment.

The hourly rate covers the cost of one (1) Certified RV Technician at your location.

We charge one (1) hour minimum per service call and bill every quarter-hour (15 minutes) thereafter. We round to the nearest quarter-hour.

If we finish our initial job within an hour, we will spend the remaining hour with you answering questions, inspecting your RV, or otherwise making ourselves valuable. You paid for an hour; you get us for an hour!

Further Details

We don’t charge Service Hourly Rates for our mistakes. If we make an unforced error such as forgetting a common part, additional time is on the house.
Evening and weekend service is available for an additional flat charge per service call. See Rates and Services for the current charge.
The 1-hour minimum applies to each Service Call. If we are required to come to your location multiple times, you will be billed a minimum of 1 hour each time.

To be clear, we usually begin by charging by the hour, not a “shop” or “book” rate. We believe this to be the easiest, most flexible arrangement for our customers.

We often discount half-day or full-day engagements by lowering the hourly rate charge.

For many projects, we are happy to charge by the industry-accepted book rate. Currently, we use the Spader RV Flat Rate Manual. We are happy to provide book rates upon request.

Usually, we can save you quite a bit of money compared to book rates! Regardless, we do not “stretch out” diagnostics or repairs longer than the allowed book rate, as a rule.

Estimates

We completely understand that you have a personal budget and need to control your costs. So do we! We recommend just giving us a call and asking for an estimate for how long a job will take. Our “guestimates” are usually fairly accurate.

If you need something more formal, we are happy to provide a time & materials estimate via email for $35. We’ll reference an industry flat-rate guidebook to estimate how much time the project should take and the total cost of major repair parts. This is not a contractual quote, and it may not reflect the actual time or charges.

Trip Fee

See our Rates page for our current trip fees.

We charge a variable trip fee based on driving distance from our home base in Somerset, Pennsylvania. There is a minimum trip fee regardless of distance. So if you are within a close distance (say, 0-20 miles), you generally only pay the minimum fee, and not any additional mileage.

We only charge for the one-way trip to you, not the return trip.

If we are required to come to your location multiple times, we will bill multiple trip fees. For instance, if we diagnose your air conditioner as irreparable for the first trip, we will charge a second trip fee when returning to install a new air conditioner. While we carry as many common parts as possible, sometimes, what is broken must be ordered and delivered before we can fix your problem.

Further Details

Be aware that most warranty claims require at least two visits: one for diagnosis, one for repair after claim approval.
We don’t charge Trip Fees for our mistakes or “learning time.” If we were to forget a common part, for instance, we wouldn’t charge a trip fee for the extra scheduled call.
Trip fees over $150 can be split with the “Neighbor Waiver.” If we are traveling to your location AND your neighbor[s] also schedules service, we will split the trip fee up to 3 ways. However, you all must schedule the service in advance, and any cancellations void the waiver for all parties.
On a similar note, if we’re camping at a campground and servicing another RV in the same campground on the same service call, the trip fee may be reduced by up to 50% (but not lower than the minimum trip fee).
We use Google maps for the mileage calculations. Our home base in Somerset, PA will be chosen as the starting point.
Our rate is set to compensate the technician for travel time, fuel, and other incurred expenses.

If your location is farther than 75 miles from our location, please contact us for a custom quote, which may include an overnight per diem.

High-clearance or 4WD roads may cause issues. Please ensure we can safely reach the location of your RV! Let us know the road conditions and access rules when submitting your Service Request.

Warranty Claims

If you haven’t already, please read the FAQ, “Do you process warranty claims?”

We do not process most RV Factory or OEM warranties (call for details). However, we do process extended warranty and ESP claims through several providers.

Warranty labor rates are higher than our standard hourly rate. Please see Rates and Services for our current warranty shop rate. This is necessary for the extra administrative work required to process a warranty claim and communicate with our customers. Labor for warranty claims is calculated by the actual time-on-task or Spader Flat Rate Manual book hours, whichever is higher.

Warranty claims normally require at least two service calls (billed separately, paid at the conclusion of each service call): one for diagnosis, one for repair once the claim is approved in part or in full by your policy provider.

You are responsible for any fees or charges not covered by the terms and conditions of your warranty policy! It is your responsibility to understand the limitations of your policy and your financial responsibilities.

If you cancel a claim in-progress or decide not to submit a claim after or during our initial visit, we will charge you the standard hourly rate and mileage fees thus incurred. Full payment is due immediately.

Parts Policy

We do our best to stock common items, but with the bazillions of RV brands on the road, obtaining the correct part sometimes requires us to order it.

When possible, we will order and pick up the parts locally. Else, we will source the parts from our supply chain network. We can usually get a part within 48 hours.

We stand behind our parts and service. Therefore, we can only warranty parts that we purchase and install. We reserve the right to refuse to install customer-supplied parts.

Ordered parts over $100 require payment upfront. We try to sell parts at a competitive retail or MSRP cost. Once you pay for the part, we will order it ASAP.

If parts are needed to complete your repair, we will schedule a follow-up appointment. See information on Trip Fees for billing rates.

If a job is canceled after parts are ordered, we will ship those parts to you at actual shipping cost plus $35. If you wish to return the parts, a 20% restocking fee and return shipping charges apply. Your refund will be the amount remaining after all charges are deducted.

Consultations

If you simply have a technical question but do not require a Technician in person, we do offer some limited tele-assistance. Note that we cannot accurately troubleshoot most problems over the phone!

Our standard consultation hourly rate is $100 an hour (or equivalent). We bill in 15-minute increments and a minimum of 30 minutes.

All voice consultations are via video chat. We’re Android people, not Apple (no Facetime, sorry).

Payment Policy

Payment is due at time of service for each trip. We do not offer extended payment terms; full payment must be made once the Service Call is complete.
If multiple trips are required, each trip is to be paid for at the time of service.
We accept cash, debit cards, credit cards, personal checks (with driver’s license), certified and cashier’s checks, PayPal, and Venmo.
We will email you a receipt showing the breakdown of what’s being charged by Trip Fee, Labor, Parts, Shop Supplies, Taxes, etc.
Labor and/or parts may be subject to sales tax depending on location and type of service. We are required to collect and remit this sales tax.

Scheduling

We try to schedule as accurately as possible, but as you can imagine, things can change rapidly in this business! Weather, part shortages, cancellations, flat tires, traffic, a PEX fitting hidden away in the bowels of the RV underbelly … it’s Murphy’s law! So we appreciate your patience.
We provide a day and general timeframe (morning, evening, late afternoon, etc). If we anticipate a change to the schedule, we will alert you as soon as possible! In the rare instance a reschedule is required, we will also contact you as soon as possible.