Battling the Elements

Freezing temperatures and 30+ mile per hour winds sound like a great reason to spend a Sunday inside where it is warm and cozy.  Of course, the key to that is the assumption that it is warm and cozy inside.  That did not turn out to be the case today.

While we love the wide-open view of the field behind our house, it does leave us exposed to what seems like an almost constant buffeting of wind.  Today was one of those days where the wind was even more fierce than usual.  C noticed this morning that the furnace was not running even though the temperature in the house had dropped well below where we had the thermostat set.  Thanks to my trusty windmill, I knew the wind was blowing straight out of the North.  This happens to be directly into the vent for the furnace on the side of the house.  While I'm not an HVAC expert by any means, I suspected that was not a good thing.

My first instinct was to run to Menards for a PVC elbow to direct the vent away from the wind.  There were two problems with that plan.  First, there was a 2 foot snowdrift in front of the garage door, and second, I'm sure there were plenty of other 2 foot snowdifts other placed between here and Menards.  While I'm sure I could have made it there, eventually, I decided to make do with what I had on hand.  I was proud of the makeshift vent cap I came up with using a plastic cup, plastic bowl and a hose clamp.  It gave me some false hope as the furnace ran for a while, but then seemed to stall out with the thermostat still 5 degrees below the set temperature. Figuring that even if I got it to run for today, I would be worried tomorrow while I was at work, I called the guys that installed our HVAC system to make sure there wasn't a more serious problem.  The guy didn't sound too excited about coming out on a Sunday, but after a quick description of the problem, said he would be on his way.  When he got here, he checked a few things and came to the same, albeit a bit more informed, conclusion that the wind was blowing in and tripping a pressure switch.  We tried to make a slightly more elaborate vent with some PVC he had in his truck, but he still ended up having to run to Menards for an adapter.  Finally, we got it on there, and the furnace started heating the house back up.

With that problem licked, I set out to clear the driveway.  I don't think we got alot of snow, but with the way the wind was blowing it all collected in a big drift in front of our house.  Fortunately it was a light snow, and the snow blower churned its way through it.  The only trick was figuring out which way to blow it since the wind was swirling toward the driveway from every direction.  I was finally able to get it all cleared, including the sidewalk.  I don't have any hope that the wind won't undo my work, but I hope it won't be as bad as if I hadn't done anything tomorrow morning.  We'll have quite a pile for N and I to make some tunnels and a snow fort when the weather warms up a little.