The Winter Arrival Checklist: What Fails After a Summer in Florida Storage, and What to Check Before You Need It

July 15, 2026

Every November the same thing happens on the US 27 resorts between Avon Park and Lake Placid. Highlands County’s winter population arrives, the parks fill, and a few thousand rigs that either sat through a Florida summer in storage or just came off a long tow all get asked to work on the same week. A lot of them do not. The battery bank is flat, the water heater will not light, the AC hums, the slide grinds, and there is a stain on the ceiling that was not there in April.

None of that is bad luck. It is what six months of heat, humidity, and daily rain do to a parked rig, and most of it is cheap to catch on arrival and expensive to find in January. This is the list, in the order we check it.

Why the summer is the problem

Sebring’s hot season runs from the end of April to the start of October with average highs above 86°F, and the muggy season runs even longer, from late April to mid-November. July averages 79 percent humidity and has measurable rain on about 22 days; June is the wettest month; June through September deliver more than half of the 52 inches that fall in a year. Florida also leads the country in lightning, with 305 events per square mile in 2025. A rig that sat here from April to November sat through all of it with nobody watching.

Cover helps the roof. It does nothing for what is inside.

1. Batteries and converter (first, because everything else needs them)

Meter the house bank before you plug in. 12.6 volts or more: fine. Under 12.0: flat. Under 10.5: probably damaged. Then pull the caps on flooded batteries and look at the water level; plates above the electrolyte means the bank was boiled dry by a converter with no float mode, holding it at 13.6 volts in a 100-degree cabinet for six months. That bank is likely done.

Then plug in and meter the converter’s output after ten minutes: 13.2 to 14.4 volts means it works. Zero means a summer storm killed it, which is common, and it is why we carry a spare. The batteries page has the full check, and the fix is $150 to $900 depending on whether it is a fuse or a converter. Do not put a new bank on the converter that cooked the old one.

2. Water heater

Before you turn it on, check the bypass valve behind the heater is in the normal position, and open the outside pressure relief valve to confirm the tank is full; an electric element on an empty tank burns out in seconds. Then open the outside access door and look in the burner tube with a flashlight. A mud dauber nest looks like a small mud pot. This is the single most common November water heater find in the county, and it is a $150 to $250 cleaning, not the $700 to $1,800 replacement people brace for. While the door is open, pull the anode rod on a Suburban tank; hard well water and a summer sitting full eat them fast. The no hot water page has the sequence.

3. Rooftop air conditioner

Run it for an hour and do three things. Measure the split (return air versus supply air; 16 to 22 degrees is healthy). Listen for a compressor that hums and does not start, which is a tired capacitor, $200 to $350. And watch the ceiling under the unit for water, which is a condensate pan clogged with a summer’s worth of algae, $200 to $400 to clean and the most common AC call we take from June to September. A spring pan and coil clean before you leave prevents it; if that did not happen, the AC dripping inside page explains what you are looking at.

4. Refrigerator

Check the rig is level with a bubble on the freezer floor first; a site that settled over the summer is enough to stop an absorption fridge cooling. Then run it on each source separately. If it works on shore power and not on gas, the burner has a mud dauber or spider in it, same as the water heater, and it is a cleaning. If the display is blank on both, a summer storm took the board, and we test it with the converter. Look up the chimney behind the fridge from the lower outside vent for wasp nests and slumped insulation. The fridge not cooling page has the fifteen-minute check.

5. Slides and seals

Charge the bank fully before the first slide move; a stalled slide on a low bank is how a $700 repair becomes a $2,500 one. Then, with the slide out, look at the wiper and bulb seals from outside: black mildew lines, curled wiper blades, and flattened bulb seals are what a summer does to rubber that never dries. Press the slide floor from inside near the outside edge; soft or musty means water got in. Seals are $200 to $800 and they are the part of the slide that fails most here. If the topper is holding a pool of water, it has stretched. See slide leaking when it rains.

6. Roof

If you can safely get up there, look at every penetration and seam for lifted edges, mildew lines along the bead, and cracks. If you cannot, and most of the winter residents in the 55+ parks should not, get it inspected with photos. A seam that lifted in April took water all summer, and the stain on the ceiling is weeks behind the damage. A reseal is $500 to $1,200; decking repair after a wet summer is $2,000 to $3,000 and up. The roof leak page covers what you can check from inside.

7. Generator

Try to start it before you need it. A unit that cranks and will not fire, or fires and dies, or surges, has a carburetor varnished by ethanol fuel that sat through the summer, $350 to $800 to clean or rebuild. Check the oil, because generator oil is measured in running hours and is routinely never changed. And check the CO alarm’s test button and expiry date. Hurricane season runs to the end of November, and Highlands County has lost power almost countywide in both Irma and Ian; the generator you check in the first week of November is the one that starts if it happens again.

8. Water system

Sanitize the fresh tank; it sat full or damp through a warm summer. Unscrew the pump strainer bowl and clean the screen, which is where a summer’s sediment and slime ends up, and check the bowl for cracks. Hand-tighten every fitting on the suction side of the pump; plastic fittings relax in a hot cabinet and a suction leak is why a pump runs without building pressure. The water pump page has the rest.

9. Tires, propane, and the small things

Tire sidewalls: cracks from a summer of sun on a rig that did not move. Propane: check the regulator vent for mud daubers and the date on the tanks. Smoke, CO, and propane detectors: test buttons and expiry dates, because they expire, and a propane detector that is past its date chirps the battery bank flat.

When to book

The first week of November, and earlier if you can. Everything on this list is a routine call for a mobile tech, and every item is cheaper in November than in January. Better still, have the rig inspected before you fly down; we do pre-arrival checks with photos and a phone call on rigs across Sebring, Avon Park, Lake Placid, and the Lorida fish camps, so the water heater is already lit when you walk in. The repair cost calculator prices any of these before you call, and the pricing page has the full table.