Gate Guarding Utilities

Part of gate guarding is living onsite in the middle of nowhere in your own RV 24/7. To make this possible, guard companies provide support trailers which hold a generator (be sure to tell them if your rig is 30 or 50 amp), a large tank of diesel fuel, a large tank of water, various pumps, and maybe a toolbox to hold spare oil, filters, and work lights. Some guard companies provide better equipment than others and some provide more support for it than others. The company I am with has both great equipment and staff. The staff in particular take very good care of me and the equipment. With the addition of a large sewage tank thrown on the ground and pumped out regularly, guards have full utilities just like in a campground. They do, however, recommend using bottled water or installing a more expensive full rig UV water filter for drinking or cooking.

This week I have been experiencing the downside of portable utilities which will happen with any guard company and has nothing to do with mine in particular. First issue has been the water pump. My previous support trailer water worked almost perfectly. I only had to hit the lever to prime the water pump once in 10 days. This time I have a newer support trailer that needs to be broken in. I have had to prime the water pump once a day here. I don’t mind that when the water stops flowing while doing the dishes but it is a real pain when you get in the middle of a shower and the water stops flowing as happened to me last night. Eek! It has gotten better since I exercised the pump for an hour while pumping the water out and back into the water tank. Hopefully, in time, it will loosen up and behave itself.

Today my generator stopped several times. A quick call to my support guy got me help within the hour. First thing to do was change the fuel filter which had turned black. With spares onboard the support trailer, I could have done it myself except I didn’t have the right tool, a pair of medium channel locks. Dang! I have a lot of tools onboard but not those though I meant to get some soon. Oh well. My support guy came quickly and showed me how to do it when I do have the tool. That seemed to resolve it for an hour until the generator stopped again. I am so lucky my support guy is staying right down the road from me so I called him again. It turned out the fuel pump had died. Happily, he had a spare in his truck and was able to change it out quickly. I’m up and humming again.

During all this, I had no air conditioning and it was hot today. I wisely have a DC fan in my RV which I plugged in and pointed at my dang cat to keep her cool enough during all this. Another DC fan would probably be a good idea but I have been planning to install 2 Fantastic Fans which will create the needed airflow from DC power to help in this situation. I do have a small 1000W portable generator which could have run AC fans if my support guy couldn’t have gotten to me so fast. It won’t run the air conditioner but any air flow would have helped. Things to think about.