The Park House has hot water heat so it has a boiler, rather than a furnace. Saturday, the heat would not turn off so CenterPoint Energy had to come and turn it off. It was 81 degrees in the house. The problem was that the boiler was dirty, the soot made the flame explode out of the front of the combustion chamber and burned a couple of wires that controlled the turning off function. So we were without heat at Park House for a few days. The weather was in the high 30's most of the time so it wasn't a huge problem. The inside temperature dropped only to 54 with the addition of some free space heaters provided by CenterPoint.
Today the cleaning man came and did a very thorough job on cleaning out all the soot. Then another CenterPoint Energy man came and restarted the boiler and checked it and tested it and it looks good.
He noted that the boiler was installed in 1954 so it is 58 years old!!! That is a pretty long life so I suspect we will be in the market for a new one in the next few months.
He also told me that there were two pilot lights on the boiler, something that I had somehow forgotten in the last ten years. The other pilot light is in the back and I think I may have lit it by accident a couple of times in the 31 years I have started the boiler, but I have never opened up the back of the boiler (where it is) and lit it. I have occasionally had a very, very faint smell of gas around the furnace and he said that is probably why. He tested the connections for leaks and for CO2 and said it tested perfectly. He was actually somewhat impressed it was working as well as it was.
Tina and I (mostly her) spent many hours this past weekend cleaning out the laundry room and work room. We managed to sort things into give away to people we know, donate to thrift stores and put in the trash. We already gave some stuff away to people. It feels great to be getting stuff out of here.
A month ago, we had the floors sanded in the living room, dining room and front hall. They look very nice. We tossed the living room furniture which was old and falling apart and bought a new couch and two recliners. Daniel and Luke spend a lot of time watching the gigantic TV in the living room so the recliners work well for them.
Last Sunday, we had an Area meeting of about 30 people at Park House and there was plenty of room for everyone to sit and mostly see each other. Lots of positive comments on the improvements that we have made so far.
Still tons of work left to do, but that is another story.
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