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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Fall has been good. Plenty to do for sure. My boat will be in the water soon. I ended up putting a new speed controller and motor on it. It is a 24 volt propulsion motor with 12v accessories. Leaves are everywhere in the yard now. They need to get cleaned up. The pine cones and needles certainly keep coming.

My new electric car is fun. I had it plugged in at the Doraville MARTA station when we flew down to FL to see my Brother and Sister for Thanksgiving. I find opportunities to plug it in at most stores. The electric signs often have electric outlets as a convenience for electric vehicles. The cold weather really surprised me on the de-rating of battery capacity. I had read about the de-rating in the manual, but when the battery heater comes on and it reduces range quite a bit. The car is a perfect fit for my everyday needs. I am still shopping for a sports car.

Here are some pics I like from a few months ago.


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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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DJ and I climbed Stone Mountain today. Stone Mountain is an "impordent" part of Atlanta life. In any culture high places often have spiritual significance. No different in the modern-day growth-region of Central/Northern Georgia. It is an interesting walk. Stone mountain is a largely monolithic mass of granite. I had become familiar with the obvious out-crop just like the skyline of downtown Atlanta. I see it from the cockpit of my C-172 as well as the very-top overpass of "Spaghetti Junction". The walk gets steeper as you get nearer to the top. My altimeter watch indicated that we scaled a 70 story building, albeit in nature. I saw no one turn back. That also seems to be part of the culture. People as everywhere around here are openly conversive with strangers. It is a regular walk for exercisers and urbanites that need to do something different. It is close to Duluth and Atlanta. It took about 30 minutes by car to get there from Duluth. We spent about 2 hours on t...
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