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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The weather has been unusual. The extended forecast was calling for thunderstorms everyday for about 10 days. The forecast has been pretty much right.

Things are great. The realities of life are something to enjoy right now for the most part. I really slept in this morning. I got up at 7:30. I should have been rested and I know I am now after I finally get the mental wake-up cloud cleared.

Friday night I went to a great auction in Cinncinatus, NY. It was an estate for a guy who collected everything, but mostly unusual tools. So if you can imagine a collectible tool auction and the crowd that would gather discussing what the tool actually was could be quite a hoot. "Some kind of puller" was the defacto answer. It was a good brain tease for some really weird "yankee" tools. I bought a big box of files and rasps, a Geiger counter, misc. hardware will all sorts of things ($1 a box) and I got the light fixtures for the outside of the barn (I was not about to be outbid on those and ended up paying $47.50 for 4.) They were exactly what I was looking for. They are white porcelain with a 660 W (600 volt) capacity porcelain bulb socket. They are going to look great with the pipe coming out of the barn bent up and down into these fixtures. I will use a 200W to 300W (non-frosted) incandescent bulb. Of course, I have all the control wiring running underground to the barn so I will be controlling these lights from inside the house. It will be very nice.

Dwayne and I went and took the antennas off his house Saturday (he has moved out). I cut and split some firewood, plugs and wires on the Subaru, took some more metal to the scrap yard, and used my new power washer. I don't know what I did before I had one of those. I was very hesitant to get "yet another engine" but it will actually save work.

Bonnie and I are planning a trip down to Washington DC at the end of August for the Toastmasters International Convention Speech Contest (The World Championship of Public Speaking) and to meet up with some folks.

I have to get ready for this winter!

Here is a link that is an entrance to to some interesting folks and their job (Communications tech.) Don't miss Bob Zook, Bruce Blackburn and some of the others you will find linked in here.

Chuck Kimball

All of the kids were here at the same time last weekend.

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Carbon Monoxide!?

-
Image
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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