Monday, December 10, 2007

The Not Quite Ready for End Time Player

My quiet Sunday AM spent reading Fall of the House of Bush* went south when I got a stack fire in the woodstove that, at 900 degrees, surpassed any other previously experienced in 20 years by this wood-burning prior cabin dweller. With the roof making ominous creaking noises, and a brand-new double-walled metalbestos pipe scorching hot, and no desire to see my small, but beloved breadbox of a house disappear in its own end-times conflagration, I called our Valley’s finest. Although the arrival of an engine did not escape notice in my neighborhood – with the later consequence of phone messages left offering shelter, clothing, etc. and much grief from 'Dweller – the stack fire was indeed limited to the stack.

Better safe than sorry.

The stack fire will need no explanation to those who use wood to ward off the chill and/or lower fuel costs. However, as I found out today, there are as many theories running around as to what causes massive creosote build-up in stove pipes (even those just cleaned a scant two months ago as mine was) as there are people who stand around (in this case, five) and watch a couple of other volunteer firefighters sweating in their gear trying to re-install a metalabestos pipe after its been pulled to make sure the roof insulation isn’t smoldering. Suffice to say that excessive creosote and the dread chimney fire are as much a part of living economically in the far north as are five-gallon water jugs, blue tarps, and Styrofoam outhouse seats.

All in all – a big shout out to the folks who spent several hours of their Sunday morning making sure I still had a home from which to blog. Thanks guys - you rock! And ‘Dweller, your next Peartinini is on me.

*A recent arrival from my anti-fascist refugee father – from Hungary in ’56 – who having survived his own “end times” under Hitler, Stalin and the rest of the Soviet-era Apparatchiks, knows neocons fascists when he sees them.

6 comments:

CabinDweller said...

I'll settle for your monster egg nog on Saturday, Flic.

And your lesson is one not lost on, well, me. I called the chimney sweep to come do the stack here at the CabinDwelling Compound. It would be far too embarassing to have the department come out to my house.

(But I would if I thought the house was on fire, or might become so from a chimney fire. There is a fine line between pride and stupidity.)

CabinDweller said...

Oh, and nice photo. :) Was that for insurance purposes? Or have you become such a habitual blogger that you paused from evacuating your dogs and valued possessions to take a picture of the stove pipe??

FlictheBic said...

I actually did ignore the 911 operator who was still on the other end of the line (telling me to evacuate the house) to pause and snap a photo, knowing this was blog worthy. However, no, I am not so benighted as to have stopped to snap a photo in the midst of smoke or flames pouring out of the house.

Ishmael said...

I was impressed by your ability to snap a sharp photo in the midst of an emergency.

I had a girlfriend tell the story of a stove in her childhood home in Ninilchik glow red hot from being overstuffed with coal one cold winter night. The cure involved a shovel, buckets and throwing glowing coal into the snow.

Anonymous said...

FireyBlazingHandbasket — wondering, who do you think is the biggest, most understandable wal-mart hater in Fairbanks? Curious ... Whitehornet

CabinDweller said...

Hmmm. Most understandble Walmart hater? Well, if you mean the most coherent Walmart hater - hmmm - me? :)

If you mean the most hater with most justification, probably the smaller retailers, not that there are many left. But perhaps more folks who crab about how everything is made in China ought to think why that is? Mr. Wallyworld and the corporation were instrumental in introducing cheap Chinese goods into the American marketplace and strongarming domestic manufacturers to lower and lower prices to the point that they went under.

Seriously, no one could stand up to WalMart.ce it became the behemoth it is today.