Stovetop Burner Question

Adventure Location: Rockport, Texas

The labels that say to not use the stove top burners for comfort heating have always amused the OFM. The OFM needs an explanation. Why is comfort heating with a certain size flame on a certain burner going to kill him but if he puts a pot of beans to cooking on the same size flame on the same burner for the same amount of time it is ok. Do the beans or other food absorb something to make the air safe? Is the food then unsafe? What happened to the bad stuff that was going to kill him? Hmmm interesting! Those are some really smart burners to be able to tell if cooking is going on instead of comfort heating.

Morning arrived with chores to do. An important chore is to uncover the duct vents in the floor of the Castle. For several years now the OFM has used “throw rugs” from Wal-Mart for keeping his bare feet from feeling the cold floor vinyl. While the furnace is not being used, the floor vents are covered and that keeps junk like small rocks and debris from falling into the duct work. But with the furnace coming out of retirement the ducts need to be free and clear of any obstructions. The major chore today was to get the ducts uncovered.

Here is the rug covering the duct in the bathroom.

The soft rubber backed rugs stay in place pretty well. They would likely get very soft with the furnace trying to send hot air out the duct. Melted rubber is not a wonderful fragrance for living quarters. The solution chosen was to cut openings in the rugs to let the hot air pass the rug. This was actually done in the past in the first Arctic Fox trailer the Teams had up in Washington State. It works very well we found out.

Crawling around on hands and knees is the only way the OFM could get down to mark the vent. He feels around the raised vent cover that is under the rug.  Then moves out a nice amount and marks the cutting line with a marking pen. That is the easy part.

The rug was lifted clear of the floor and the cutting began. On this first one, a pair of cheap scissors was used.  It was hard work. These rugs are tough. 

For the next three holes we found that a sharp utility knife worked much better and gave a much better cut line on the rug. The rug was given a trial fit and nay corrections were done at this time.

Then the edges of the rug cuts were sealed with a flame from this igniter.  Slowly moving the flame along the edge of the cut line melted the fibers to the base mat.  Now the rug will not be unraveling. It is possible to hold too long in one spot and set the rug on fire. However it puts out with a nice blow of your breath. DO NOT PRESS ON THE HOT PLASTIC TO PUT THE FIRE OUT. YOU WILL GLUE YOUR FINGERS TO THE RUG WITH VERY HOT PLASTIC. No the OFM did not do that (this time).

After all this work the furnace is now ready for the repair man on Friday. But it was not to be. After some fishing at the waterfront, the Fishing Team returned the OFM to the Castle for some rest. He got to thinking that the furnace should be tried so that he could tell the repairman exactly what is happening when the furnace is starting. Good idea was the Teams consensus.

The thermostat was set to heat and the setting was raised to 85 to force the furnace to cycle and give us its clues.  WRONG AGAIN AS USUAL. The furnace fired up like it is supposed to fire up. Everything went exactly perfect.  What is going on???  To cut to the chase, we waited a half hour and tried again. Same result, perfection. Another hour wait, same result. So the appointment for Friday was cancelled. It is hard to get a repair on an item that is not broken. It must be leprechauns hiding in the furnace. Anyway now as soon as the mail from the Escapees mail service arrives the Teams can be rolling.

Having a working furnace certainly gives the Teams a lot more choices in where we go for trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.