Outside of going to a friend’s house for a New Years Eve party, the weekend was pretty much a typical weekend. A tree was close to falling onto the house Saturday and there was a chimney fire Sunday, but really, it was just the usual weekend.
Well, maybe a little bit of hyperbole.
There is, or rather was, a large hickory tree just behind the house that was struck by lightening back in August. It was an impressive strike. I was on the porch when it hit and it was loud! The strike split a large section off the back of the tree. Saturday, JN decided to tackle taking the tree down. Which, frankly, was a bad idea. He’s been obsessed about the tree, and I hadn’t called a professional to take care of it, so he decided it was time to take it down. Good intentions, but not a good idea. It’s one thing to get the chain saw out and take down an 8-inch small tree; it’s a whole ‘nother ball game when you’re talking about a 30-inch diameter, 80-foot tall tree.
Despite ropes and making some pretty good headway, it was evident that professionals were needed so I called a local tree guy.
Phil S and his dad (dba White Hill Tree Service) came right over. You can tell the difference when someone knows what they’re doing.
Phil’s a real card. Every time I asked him how much he was going to charge me, he’d ask me how much tax return I was expecting to get. Plus mentioning the fact his 6 children run up a big grocery bill. Finally, Phil gave me a price and headed back to his shop to get his equipment and to “wake up the old man, if he’s just sleeping and ain’t dead yet,” to help him.
Phil does the climbing, limb removal and ‘steers’ the tree on its way down. His dad does the main trunk cutting. They’re fun to watch since they joke a lot and obviously have a good time working together. After the tree came down, we cut it up into 18-inch segments which JN and I will have to split into fire place size. I estimate there’s at least 2 cords of wood. And, I’ll piece up some hickory chips for use in the grill / smoker.
It was interesting to look inside the tree. The lightening bolt went down the center of the tree, which was beginning to hollow. You could trace the complete path from about halfway up the tree, from an old branch stub, to the tap root – right down the center.
Phil is also in the National Guard and just got back from Iraq. His unit is also on rotation for Afghanistan deployment later this year or early next. He and JN had a pretty good time talking about Army life.
Saturday night, went to a low key New Year’s Eve party. I’m usually in bed by 9 or 10 PM so it was a struggle for me to stay up till midnight. Since it is a good 30 minute drive from my house, I decided to sleep on the sofa in the living room. Even with the noise, music, etc. of the other guests in the rest of the house, once I had a pillow and blanket, I was out like a light. Got up around 6 AM.
Sunday I didn’t do much. Finished putting together a couple of packages to mail out, watched some football, ran some errands and went to bed early (8 PM?) since I had been up the night before.
JN has a roaring fire going every evening. He likes to sit in the recliner chair next to the fireplace listening to music and works on his laptop. Sunday evening was no exception.
Around midnight, he hears a sudden rumbling sound, goes outside and sees flaming sparks coming out the top of the chimney. He runs back to my room, yells at me to “WAKE UP – THERE”S A FIRE – CALL 911!!” and takes off back to the living room.
I’m outside in an instant (on the way – the fire in the fireplace looks ‘normal’) but outside I see the same flaming sparks coming out the chimney. I quickly get the hose connected up and aim water at the top opening of the chimney. (FYI – Having your yard hoses on wall mounted reels are very convenient for day to day yard work. It’s also very convenient when you need to start spraying down the roof and chimney in about 30-seconds flat!). I’m also dialing 911 once I get the water stream started.
JN, meanwhile, grabs pots of water from the kitchen and douses the firebox and closes the damper (using a fireplace tool) to cut off the oxygen flow.
It’s all over within 2 or 3 minutes.
The 911 operator stays on the line until we’re sure the situation is under control. As a further precaution and to continue to cool things down, I get out a ladder for a better angle and adjust the spray to more of a wide finer spray (to lessen sudden contraction in the flue) and continue to spray water over the chimney opening grate.
I finally go back to bed. JN decides to sit up all night ‘just in case’ and is sitting on the sofa when I get up at 8 AM.
We clean out the ashes and half burnt wood and clean up the back wash from the hearth. Surprisingly, there’s very little mess. Then, we get the lights out and examine the flue. It’s darn near perfectly clean looking!
There’s a couple of interesting observations.
Always be awake if you have a fire in the fireplace. JN does this as he’s the one who builds the fires and stays up later then I do. If he hadn’t been sitting next to the fireplace, we very easily could have had the opportunity to see if the smoke detectors would have woken us.
Have the chimney cleaned on a regular basis. I do that and ironically, had called the local chimney sweep the week before last and made an appointment for him to come out mid-January. Usually I get him to come out in August or September but had neglected to do so this year. Darn near paid a heavy price for procrastinating.
Even with a regular yearly cleaning, you can still get build up so keep alert.
Avoid building fires that are too large. That is where we (JN and I) have been remiss. Modern fireplaces are not designed to heat a house. They’re more for enjoying a warm cozy room. If the fire is too large and hot to stand in front of – it’s just simply too large and hot.
On the plus side – both JN and I reacted quickly and instinctively. When JN woke me up I grabbed the phone – took off for the living room to assess – heard JN in the kitchen and water running – and immediately headed outside for the hose while dialing 911. No panic, no discussion, no “huh?” “What?” “duh” moments – just instant, quick but deliberate, action. In fact, in retrospect, we were both completely calm. Just a bit of adrenalin rush – but that’s about it. We both instantly knew what to do and just did it. (Take notes Michael Brown – if confronted with an emergency again in the future – like the ad says – Just Do It!)
In fact, while I was on the phone with 911, I was simultaneously deciding it would take the fire department too long to get there and the only things to grab would be shoes, wallet (for ID and credit cards), keys (get the truck and car out of the garage for transportation in the aftermath), pull on some long pants, and that’s it. The rest would be history. The only decision to make would be how long to fight the fire to leave us enough time to safely pull back and get the hell out. I was actually thinking it would almost be kind of pointless for 911 to wake up the Volunteer Fire Department because by the time they got there it would all be over but dousing the ashes.
Attacking the situation from both directions, chimney and firebox, quickly got things under control. The combination of water spray from above (killing the sparks and creating a vapor barrier), dousing the firebox (creating steam and cutting off the heat source) and closing the damper (cutting off oxygen) put out the flames almost instantly. Plus – the flue build up could not have been much. When we examined the flue on Monday, it looked as though it had been cleaned!
In retrospect, one lesson we were reminded of is to keep fires a reasonable size. We never leave a fire unattended – which alerted JN to the situation. Keep the flue cleaned and maintained. Even still, accidents can happen. When an emergency happens, stay calm. Well, that’s either going to happen or not. That’s more of an intrinsic personality trait you either have or don’t. In an emergency, when in doubt, get the hell out. Possessions are nothing.
Let’s see – what else did I do Monday besides clean up a little?
I ran errands, went out for lunch, and watched bowl games all afternoon and evening. I went to the Post Office to mail a couple packages for anysoldier.com but forgot they were closed for New Years Monday (mailed packages today during lunch). PBS had the Vienna Philharmonic New Years Concert (tape delay) that was great. Pulled up the North Carolina Symphony web site and found a couple of concerts to go see. A Mozart 250th birthday celebration and another program featuring Beethoven’s 5th. Individual tickets are on sale now so I’d better get them this week.
JN slept during the day as he had stayed up all night to watch for ‘hot spots’. Once he got up he went grocery shopping, cooked dinner and then griped about having to watch football. I don’t think he realizes there’s a bowl game tonight and tomorrow night! LOL
Other than about 30 minutes of excitement Sunday night, all in all, it was a pretty routine weekend.
Work today was routine. Everybody seems to have weathered the Holidays well. Last week it was very quite since a lot of people took the week off to bridge between Christmas and New Years. You can get a lot of work caught up when the office is empty.
Overall, since the house didn’t burn down and no one’s died (as of yet), I’d have to say the New Year is off to a promising start.
:-)
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