Carbon Monoxide!?

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Weird. The smoke alarm went off, not incredibly odd when I am using the fireplace, but it wasn't the smoke detector. It was the CO alarm. I was totally surprised. It had never gone off as long as I have had one, over many many years. Yep, after resetting it a few times. It was getting a reading over 200 ppm CO. When I took it downstairs I got a reading near 300 ppm. I started getting light headed at this point. After thinking maybe the furnace heat exchanger failed and puzzling around a bit I figured out what happened. As part of the huge winter storm that recently covered almost half of the US, we lost our electricity. So, being well prepared, I rolled out the generator and started doing what I normally do. The generator (although it was completely outside) was creating CO to get in the house. Using the fireplace draft (and possibly other leaks) the whole house created a vacuum around the seal of the basement garage door. After the CO got into the house the forced air heat...
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Blackout! What to do when the electricity fails

Well we had quite a snow storm.

The electricity is back on now. Actually it was only out for about 24 hours, but these things always seem to happen when you are not fully prepapred. I suppose that is the very nature of preparedness. Expecting the unexpected is not really straightforward. In fact it is impossible and it is a stupid cliche and a basic oxymoron.

We had a bout 2 foot of snow in a day. We had a little from before, not much though.

Here is a picture of the look outside when I got up. Mind you I plowed and cleared snow before I went to bed.



..and after I made the initial cleanup with the snow blower and bobcat.




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