4:30 AM: we are awakened by the shrill, asynchronous, electronic screams of our smoke alarms calling for us to “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
I hop out of bed, wind my way through the herd of large dogs dashing about in confusion over the painful assault on their ears. I check the house. It’s a small house: it does not take long to find that there is no fire, no smoldering appliance, indeed, no visible smoke. I grab a magazine off the kitchen island and wave it at the alarm nearest the kitchen. It’s all I can think of to do at the moment: fanning the hallway alarm silences them when I’ve been making toast. I’m not good at toast.
Amazingly (or perhaps coincidentally) that works: the alarms fall silent.
Blondie and Tinker stride to the door, “We’re outta here, that’s just RUDE.” I don’t blame them and wonder what set the alarms off.
The furnace had kicked on moments before the alarms sounded. I know that because I was laying in bed contemplating getting up to study. Normally I’d have been up already, but the night before, Marie and I took shifts sitting with an anxious (and barky) Fido. He would only calm down if one of us was right there next to him. We are both tired and wanting to get back a little of that lost sleep.
Because we have a fireplace, our home builder was required to install a “fresh air vent” to the furnace. On the walk-through inspection of our new home I asked the builder what that black pipe-thing in the furnace room was. He said, “That’s your government at work. They’re afraid you will seal the house up tight, and keep the fireplace burning, and burn up all the oxygen in the house, and pass out. So they mandate that we install this vent to pull outside air in through the furnace.”
“But, it we’re using the fireplace, the furnace should not be running.”
“The government may have good intentions, but they’re not always all that bright.”
In this case I think the fresh air vents worked backwards.
There is a wildfire burning near us. Not very near, but near enough to fill the air with smoke. My working theory is that since we just reached the low temperature of the night (so far) the furnace kicked on to warm us up. It sucked smoky air in from our rooftop, blew it out our heat vents, and set off the smoke alarms. To prevent that from happening again, I’ve stuffed a rolled up towel into the end of the “fresh” air vent. If I’m right, that should fix it for now.
If I’m wrong, it’s going to be a long day!
