Half way there…

Yesterday a new pipe was installed between Jim’s house and ours.  This new pipe would bring the ever precious clear liquid used to not only replenish ourselves, but our poor dehydrated Christmas tree.  Unfortunately even though the line was good to go coming into the house, since the pipes under the house hadn’t been used in a week they had all frozen solid.  🙁

Last night I worked at the Virginia High School Hockey game against Princeton.  The final score was 9 – 3 with a Blue Devil win (Virginia).  I was in charge of taking tickets at the door.  Erin gave me a call to let me know that the pipe had been installed, but we still didn’t have running water.  I told her that I’d pick up a heater at L&M before coming home.

My friend Tony came to the game with me.  I asked if he’d watch the door for me while I ran off to buy a heater.  He was kind enough to leave the stands and tear tickets apart.  I drove over to the store and found that there were a few different options for heaters.  I knew that I needed one that put out enough heat to heat the whole underside of the house, but one that wouldn’t burn the place down.  Its kind of a catch 22.  The two “bigger” heating options were a diesel heater and a propane heater.  I knew that diesel would be easier to obtain, and not require a special tank.  Since it was already 7:45 in the evening, I figured getting a propane tank filled would be a bit of an ordeal, so I opted for the diesel heater.  Turned out to be a 40,000 BTU “ReadyHeater”.

I went back to the game an let Tony head back to the stands, and finished taking tickets till the second intermission at which point I joined Tony and Steph (another teacher at VHS) to watch the third period.  Since Virginia was so far ahead, the Princeton team seemed to play a bit more dirty.  There were a few questionable hits and ensuing penalties assessed to curb such behavior.   The game was a lot of fun.  Hockey is definitely my favorite sport.

I got home around 10:30 after picking up some diesel from the Cook gas station.  Since it was kind of late, I didn’t mess with the heater and just went to bed.

Today Erin and I ran into town and visited with her grandparents and then stopped by the hardware store to buy a couple pieces of angled stove pipe to attach to the end of our ReadyHeater hoping to divert the hot air away from any combustible areas of the house.  We got back out to the house and found that neither piece of stove pipe would fit the heater.  We talked to Jim who was on his way back up from the cities.  He wasn’t too jazzed up about our new heater being a bit concerned that it might burn the house down.  He told us about a heater he had set out in the garage that we should try instead.  So I ventured up to the grage to find this miracle heating unit.  This is what I was presented with…..

I know… Like your thinking…. Really… this is going to heat up the entire underside of the house and thaw out all of our water pipes?  Here is the comparison between what I bought, and what was left in the garage.  Which do you think would handle the operation a little better?

So we plugged in the little one until Jim came home.  Unfortunately the breaker was popped by the heater and not much was accomplished in that time.  So when jim was there we set up the bigger heater.  We were still concerned that it might start the hosue on fire, so I stood outside for a while to make sure everything was under control.

After about 10 minutes of this über heater we had dripping in the kitchen.  After about 30 minutes we had running water in the kitchen.  At 1 hour we had dripping in the bathroom, and at 2 and a half hours we had running water at all faucets and our drains finally were thawed out.  We are leaving the water running and the heater going to make sure that all of the ice has been cleared out, but we are finally back to showering at home and having the ability to flush our toilet without dumping water from a 5 gallon bucket into the back of the toilet first.   I’d say that this was a successful weekend.

Ohh before the hockey game yesterday, Tony and I went out for dinner and then headed over to the curling club in Eveleth where we hung out with an Olympic bronze medalist and watched curling for about 45 min.  I think I’d really get into curling if I were closer to a curling club.  Its just not that feasible with a 50 mile drive.  I’ll probably go and throw a few stones this winter.  It was a lot of fun watching the “professionals” work their magic on the ice Friday night.  It sure is amazing how accurate they are.   I am looking forward to finishing up school this coming week and enjoying the Christmas break.  I hope you all have a very safe and enjoyable holiday season.

Cold enough I guess….

Well, I woke up this morning and found it to be 27 below zero outside.  I was very happy I had stoked the fire the night before, and that the house was still warm.  There were a few coals left so before leaving for work I stuffed in more wood until the stove was packed full.

Work went well today.  I am glad its Friday.  I am really looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.  When we got home from work today Erin and I discovered that the house was still warm, but our pipes had frozen.  🙁  This had happened about a month ago, but the difference before was all we had to do was plug in the heat tape and the water was running in no time.  Unfortunately this time the heat tape had already been plugged in and it still froze.  This means that the heat tape may not have been working correctly, or its froze up under the house somewhere.  We’ll have to do some more investigation tomorrow.  We had a heater going under the house for a few hours this evening, but we didn’t see any positive results from that.   We could be “roughing” it for a little while.

We are hoping to get a Christmas tree tomorrow.  We’ll see if the weather cooperates.  Hopefully our house will look a little more Christmasy after the weekend.