Feb
19
to write wittily or well.
Although my upstairs heat is working again–after four of the coldest nights in Ashvegas in many years. I know it’s been at least five years since it’s been so cold, because that’s how long we’ve had our solar hot water and heating system.
If you’re considering solar, and you have an ancient cinder block home, and you have to run the water pipes to the upstairs air exchanger outside the house, on the north side of the house, and you neglect to properly enclose and insulate them because you’re lazy and it would cost more cash, then you can count on them freezing and screwing your upstairs heating capacity–when it is ass-cold.
Single supa Edgy (that would be me–partnered with traveling enviro-dude who was off saving the world elsewhere while we shivered under our blankies) did crawl into the attic with the intention of trying to figure out what the problem was when the heat initially failed. I also needed the phone number of the heating company, which they kindly emboss on their air exchanger. I could have used the phone book, of course, but that would have been the wimpy way out. There, in my shredded paper-filled attic, I discovered two things one never hopes to find in one’s upper story. One would be a large hole in the side of the house. Two would be small beady eyes and a swishy gray tail. Yep, I initially blamed the squirrel for the heating debacle. But it seems she’s just an additional problem.
Solutions? Fliss suggests acid rock. Mom suggests cut-up Coke cans glued to the hole. I suggest calling in the professionals and paying them tons of money to take care of everything.
And then I’m going to sleep. For a long time. In a warm, squirrel-proof home.
