Mr. Fix It battles the Ants

Mr Fix It is right into the final maintenance tasks before we leave next Saturday. He has already worked on the air conditioner but this morning early, before it got too hot to be on the roof he dived into the bowels of the machine to fit a new soft start unit.  This will allow the air-con to build up power as it starts instead of it banging on at full power  as it cycles. This is not a technically accurate description but, as he is up on the roof still I’m not yelling up at him get a better one, so that will have to do.  But the net effect of this is supposed to be two fold. The massive jolt to the van as the compressor starts should eliminated and it should run on our generator if needed. Not that we plan to do that much but it would be nice if that were possible even for an hour on really hot outback travel nights.

But the technical description is not the real topic of this blog.





Mr Fix It On the roof of the caravan



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m inside going through cupboards. K Is clomping on the roof of the van. I hear  mutterings and thumping.  Drill noises. Louder conversations with passers-by. (Staff are all fascinated by what happens at the Ferg’s camp.) I have a policy of ignoring all noises not directed to me, although I keep an ear out for any sound that might indicate a slide or fall just in case.

“Jolly things” I hear.

Now…. the word jolly uttered by my husband is a sure indication that disaster has struck. In fact the whole family know that a sentence containing jolly twice, followed by a huff is the equivalent of anyone else’s very loud swearing.

Realising that something is seriously wrong I rush outside. “Something up dear?”

“Jolly ants,” he says. “Throw me up the surface spray.”

Spraying noises. Sweeping noises. Ant carcasses flying of the roof. A huff or two and all is well.  Ants disaster of epic proportions averted.

I blogged early on about ants. K says they were in every nook and cranny of the air-conditioner except the fans he had cleaned last week. All over the mother board, under the seals and everywhere. How did they get in? Through the tiny space left around the power cord! And while this is an amusing story, the little insects were pretty close to shorting out the motor and in the kind of heat we get here, that would have been a disaster.

Ants vanquished, the cover goes back on the Air-conditioner.

All good now

 

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move