Thursday, January 19, 2006

Feeling the Heat

We have heat now. Barely. Something was yea, verily broken on the furnace, though not the thermostat as I suspected.

And I’m an idiot.

Though my idiocy has been well documented on occasion and it’s always lurking there under the surface, I took away all doubt, at least in the mind of the Furnace Guy who came to visit yesterday afternoon and “tsk-tsk’ed” and clucked about the sorry state of affairs he found in our utility room.

When I began the demolition downstairs, one of the first things I did was dismantle a part of the return air duct, so I could properly tear out the wall. This left a gaping hole, not only in the wall, which was my intended purpose, but it also left a large UNFILTERED hole leading directly into the furnace. I then proceeded to kick out the jams and go to town on the old drywall in the ceiling.

Was I wearing a mask? Hell, yeah, I was. I’m an idiot, not a moron. That dust is nasty!

But I really, REALLY should have replaced the filter on the furnace. According to Furnace Guy, that should have been done every day while construction/demolition was in progress. Let me repeat that, EVERY day. Seems like a bit of overkill, but then I’m an idiot, remember? I didn’t even think about the poor furnace which has been sucking all that dust into itself and now basically has a case of Black Lung, as if I’d sent it to work in the coal mines just as it reached puberty.

Now we also have a bit of a fire hazard in the HVAC system, what with all the possibly flammable dust, in addition to screwing up some part who’s name I can’t recall. I started making reservations at the Holiday Inn, but Furnace Guy said he was being overly dramatic and that fire wasn’t actually imminent.  Just what I need, a thespian instead of a qualified HVAC guy. He probably really just wants to direct, anyway.

He replaced the damaged part and said that we should have the thing torn apart and cleaned and put back together.

“How much will that run us?”

“Well, we bid by the job, not the hour, but this here’s about the worst I ever seen.”

“Is this something that someone marginally handy and clever with a screwdriver and duct tape could handle?”

“I wouldn’t think so, sir, but you know on the side of our truck, we have a sign painted on there that says, ‘We fix do-it-yourself jobs!’”

“Wonderful. Well, I’ll take a swing and see what I can do with a Shop-Vac and call you in the morning.”

So I’m going to call the guy in the A.M. first thing. Because, though I am marginally handy and am freaking GENIUS with duct tape and I’ve been slightly clever on occasion, taking apart the furnace and putting it back together again just wasn’t in the cards last night. Plus, Ellis is sick and she’s gotten Reha sick as well. And if those two aren’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Jon scribbled this mess on 01/19/06 at 07:04 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

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