Thursday, August 20, 2015

When It Rains It Pours

When it rains it pours This week definitely started out with a bang…and some smoke! 

Sunday afternoon our house suddenly filled with smoke. I was in my bedroom watching TV and blogging when my daughter came running in and said, “The roof is on fire!” I quickly ran out while she was on the phone calling the fire department. I got outside and into the backyard and my son was on the roof already with a water hose hosing down our swamp cooler. The motor had caught on fire! Thank goodness the smoke alerted us. 

By the time I got to the backyard I could already hear the fire truck sirens. I believe one of our neighbors must have seen the fire and called them because they were on their way before my daughter called them. 

Shafter PD was the first to arrive and the two officers quickly ran inside to make sure no one was inside. I thought it was weird that they opened the doors to all the rooms and I didn’t understand until later that they were making sure no one was inside in case the fire was worse. 

Then the fire department arrived and they quickly got on the roof and told my son to get down in case the roof collapsed or worse, yet they stayed up there. They were up there in full gear, boots and jackets and hats with tanks hanging on their backs in 105 degree heat! I wish I could have thought to take a picture but I had left my phone inside and they wouldn’t let us go back into the house until they were sure it was safe. 

SWAMP COOLER
So yes, our swamp cooler motor caught fire and I don’t know if you know anything about swamp coolers, but they cool using these pads that surround the fan and there’s something to do with water and evaporation and lots of other technical things that provide cooling into your house. I have no idea how it actually works all I know is that ours is kaput and went out in a blaze of glory! 

And…as if that was not enough, Sunday was the beginning of a heat wave in our neck of the woods! Seriously it’s been over 100 degrees every single day and Monday was 109! So here we are, with no type of cooling system and a heat wave on the way! 

I have a small window air conditioning unit in my bedroom, so I was ok, but the rest of my family had to scatter to the winds. My mom went to stay with her sister and my daughter went to stay with my brother’s family, along with our sweet little puppy Chorizo. My son chose to stay and tough it out at home. 

Monday morning it was time to start shopping around for a new swamp cooler. Swamp coolers work very well in the dry heat that we have. There are maybe 3 or 4 really humid days per year where it is useless so I opt for a cooler rather than an AC unit because of the savings. My cooling bill is around $130 a month whereas a friend of mine pays $400 to $600 a month since she has an AC unit. I think we can suffer through 3 or 4 humid days and just be comfortable instead of cold the rest of the time. 

The biggest problem is that no one is buying swamp coolers much anymore so they are not as readily available. There are just two companies in my area that everyone referred me too. One was Econo Air and the other was Floyds Stores. Mom and dad had always bought their cooler at Floyds but I figured that since Floyds is a small town hardware store they would be much more expensive than a big company like Econo Air. Wrong! Econo Air was $2,020 more than Floyds for the exact same unit! That is just crazy. 

Then this morning I set up the appointment for Floyds to come out on Friday morning and do the install and I asked the billing lady if she wanted my bank info or a credit card and she said, “no, it’s ok, just give the installer a check when he comes out or if you want you can pay by the invoice I am sending you in the mail.” Who does that anymore? Who doesn’t worry about collecting money first? I didn’t need to give them 1001 personal and financial details; they just took my word for it that I would pay the bill! Floyds is my new go-to store for anything from now on! 

Because of all the stress my Sciatica kicked in this morning with a huge painful twinge to my left “ahem” buttock. That’s why I say, "when it rains it pours"! But I made it to work and I’ve still been doing my exercises at work during break and lunch, just not pushing myself. So my little family will have to stay scattered to the winds until Friday when we can all be reunited. 

The Shafter Police Department and the Kern County Fire Department have my eternal gratitude for being so quick and helpful and patient. My thanks also to Floyds Stores for continuing to be the home town hardware store they claim to be on their advertisement…bigger isn’t always better.





 

11 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness Alicia, I am so glad everything turned out ok!!!

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    1. Thanks Cara, we were very lucky that the smoke alerted us.

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  2. I'm so glad you're alright!!! How scary!!! From now on only uplifting should be coming your way!!!

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    1. Thank you Olivia! I sure hope so. We don't need any more drama that's for sure. You know the day before my son and I had taken off to Santa Barbara to celebrate his birthday. My mom would have been alone in the house in her room probably napping and watching TV and not even realized that the cooler was on fire, so yes, things could have been worse, I'm very grateful!

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  3. So scary! After our Xmas morning fire in 1998, we took cookies to the local FD regularly. What we would do without them? So glad this story ended with you all safe and sound and your house still standing!

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    1. What a great idea Heidi! Once we get our cooler installed and the house is cool enough to bake I will definitely taken them by some cookies or muffins!

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  4. I can't resist being a nerd. Actually swamp coolers (which would not work in a swamp BTW) and air conditioners work on the same principle, removal of heat by evaporating a liquid to a gas. The liquid in the case of a swamp cooler is just good old plain water at atmospheric pressure saturated on four fiber pads and then a fan blower to draw air across those pads and into your house. To evaporate the water heat is required, just like boiling water on a stove, same principle just a relaxed pace in the cooler. The reason you can use a swamp cooler in California is because the relative humidity is very low most of the time. You will note directly after a thunderstorm your swamp cooler is worthless. That is because the local humidity went up due to the rain evaporation and the evaporation is no longer occurring in the pads. It will draw air into the house but have very little cooling and be rather humid.

    Air conditioners and refrigerators work the same way except that the liquid is refrigerant (what ever it is that has replaced freon) and it is a contained system. That is, instead of running water through pads and evaporating it off, the refrigerant is circulated within a closed system. The refrigerant is compressed by a pump which forces it into a liquid. It then circulates to an evaporator through an expansion valve. The compressed liquid expands into a gas and that change of state draws out the heat passing through the evaporator which is the equivalent to the pads in your swamp cooler. The reason AC is so much more expensive is the compression of the gas back into a liquid by the pump. That energy is being provided by your water source.

    Well it sounds like you had a lot of excitement on your roof. Thankfully no one was hurt and the house sustained no damage. In the future you may want to make sure the power is off to the swamp cooler before you squirt water on it. In the rush to find the breaker, just shut off the mains...unless you have a well and your water pressure is established by a pump. Life is complicated but we make it through most of the time.

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    1. I knew my resident nerd would chime in! Thanks for the detailed explanation. As a jack of all trades, master of none, I had a vague idea of how the evaporative (swamp) cooler worked, but there is no way that I could have put it into words as you did. Excellent!

      I did not however know why the AC was more expensive to run, so I did learn something today. Thanks! I wish my mind worked like yours but I've never been mechanical. I need a how-to book just to hang a picture!

      As to your comment about the electricity, the fire itself actually tripped the breaker and then when the head fireman got there he turned off all the breakers, but he also did mention that it was very lucky that my son didn't get hurt by squirting water on it, probably because the breaker tripped. My dad was very mechanical and understood all these things and he tried to teach my son but I think in the heat of the moment he forgot about the electricity.

      We are very fortunate that things weren't worse and as I type this they are installing the new cooler so when I get home this evening my little family should all be sheltered under one room again...my roof! :)

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  5. All's well that ends well.

    Several years ago the external part of my air conditioner caught fire . It was the smoke coming out of it that alerted us.The birds that used to sit on it sometime had caused a short circuit, and it could have ended badly. It was quite scary.

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    1. Thank goodness for the smoke, that is what alerted us as well. I can imagine, I know it was scary for us and then we realized later that we all ran out and after that the fire department wouldn't let us back in and we didn't even think to grab valuables or family documents. I know the most important thing is to get out safely, so I'm just glad everyone was ok and that it didn't end badly for us either.

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  6. OMG! I love the pic of Jim. He looks so tall and handsome!

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