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Showing posts from March 24, 2024

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 oout 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 (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 heating eff...
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Environmentalism and Earth Day

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I remember the first "Earth Day" in 1970. I remember it well. I was in third-grade at Oakview Neighborhood School in West Irondequit, NY. We had energized school lessons regarding care for the environment and there was a common thread in our cultural changes that we all need to care more about nature and ourselves. There was almost no opposing dialog. We had seen large fish kills, weird colored skys, and bodies of water we wouldn't even think about swimning in, including Lake Ontario. This was almost 10 years before the awakening of " love canal " in nearby Nigagra Falls NY. Generally, in 1970 the dialog was about polution and what we can do to reduce polution. Polution consisted of many things, trash along the highways, untreated sewage and industrial dumping and runoffs. Don't forget about sound polution, also part of the polution spectrum. We were also significantly concerned about needlessly cutting of trees and wasting paper. Since 1970 we have made g...
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