Dead Stuff in November

Usually my posts include pretty pictures like this one below. But November has had it's set of challenges, The furnace died, so I have been spending every spare moment in an interesting mechanical surgical procedure in a way too small space.


The old furnace has been on it's last leg for a couple of years. The new one is smaller in BTU output, bigger in physical size, and more efficient, however, with that efficiency comes more places to connect things. The old furnace had connections to gas, electricity, thermostat and a flue. The new one has a different method for venting and needs a connection to combustion air, plus a means to drain condensation. Apparently new furnaces extract a lot of moisture out of the air, therefore lots of water and drainage issues to resolve.

The old furnace had a vent that was share with the water heater, which is in the way now.

The new furnace is wider and deeper and the plenum is larger and therefore the old plenum needed to be revamped, which means that the plenum now looks like a sheet metal patchwork quilt.

Here is the new furnace sitting in the dining room ready to be transplanted into the old space. The process of removing the old furnace and finally getting the new one set in place hooked up to all the infrastructure and started to actually produce some heat has taken just over a week. I pulled the old furnace out on November 6th and had the new one running for the first time on November 15th. I still have some small details to finish, but it is operational.

Karen and I did get to go on a couple of short bike rides, even though by the time I get home from work now it is pretty much dark. So we will only be riding on the weekends and will need to find another way to get some exercise.

Also this past weekend Friday, late afternoon, Karen was in a car accident. She was in her car in North Webster and was hit from behind by a pickup truck. It was not a high speed hit but as it turned out it will take over $8000 and over two weeks to make the repairs. By the way Karen is OK and only has a bit of soreness.

Deer season started on Saturday the 13th. In the morning Blake, Trae, Skyler and I went out early in the morning and hunted until mid morning. We all saw deer, but none that we could or wanted to shoot. In the late afternoon Skyler and I went back out and Skyler shot this nice buck. It was pretty late by the time we found it and got it field dressed and loaded into the truck. It is one of the more positive dead things that happened this month so far. Good food for the table.

This time of year other dead stuff appears, corn stalks, leaves, grass and weeds. Trees are pretty much bare and lifeless looking. Even the sun is low in its path across the sky. But as the verse go there is a time for every season and November, brings on dead stuff sometimes.