Tag Archives: smoke alarms

Holy Smoke!

1 Apr

About halfway through the service this morning some one came into church and asked if  The Squire would come help with a problem. The smoke alarm in the kitchen was going off and nobody could get it to quit.

Lovely.

By the time the service was over the alarm was still going full tilt.  The Squire tried calling the phone number above the above the alarm panel, but the service has been changed and that was the number for the old company, not the new one. Not only could we not get it to turn off, but the alarm system had already called the fire department. The neighbours were treated not only to a non-stop claxon, but the bells and whistles of the local VFD. fire truck

The firemen were no luckier than we were with getting the alarm to stop. One fellow even climbed up on the countertop to reach the box, but even after he removed the battery the fool thing kept on blaring.

AHA!

In the midst of all this commotion, The Squire realized the noise was not coming from above the door but nearer the stove. On Thursday, somebody had pulled the Carbon Monoxide detector out of the electric outlet to plug in a crock pot for the weekly soup supper, and forgot to plug it back in, which means it was running on batteries. When the battery went dead, the alarm started. And kept on and on and on.

There is peace in the valley once again. Whoosh!

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The Perversity of Inanimate Objects

29 Nov

Maybe it’s only at our house.

I have written often – and with great feeling – about the fluorescent lights that hang around our house. The one in the den only worked once every six months, and woe betide the person who turned it off by sheer force of habit. We were often reduced to using the computer by the glow of a kerosene lamp. Talk about irony! The one in the bathroom just took its own sweet time. Generally, it waited until you had done whatever it was you came in to do, and smiled at you as you walked out the door. I’ve showered by candlelight more than once.

After changing the bulbs, to no avail, The Squire bought new switches for both rooms. Both lights have worked perfectly ever since. The one in the bathroom did stumble slightly, but The Squire shook his fist at the ceiling and snarled, “You an be replaced, you know!” The light came on immediately. (I’m perfectly serious.)

The smoke detector in the kitchen is hyperactive. We have a self-cleaning oven (Woot! Woot!) so I am reasonably sure there’s nothing burnt on it there, but every time I turn it on the smoke alarm goes off. Really? Setting it on 100° F to put bread on to rise is dangerous?  Boiling water will make the thing start shrieking!  Yeesh!

Sunday night, I glanced into the kitchen as I headed up to bed, and the room was flooded! The dishwasher had decided that draining was too much trouble. Fill, yes. Drain, no.  Luckily, our friend Mac has a wet-vac, so I drove over there to grab it.  Worked a treat!

A few weeks ago the pull-shade on my side of the bed stopped working. I think the spring has died, but I’m not sure. I spent a couple of days reaching under the drapes to roll and unroll the thing by hand. The Squire suggested I switch it with the one over the window a/c (duh!) which I did. As I slotted it into position, the bloody thing unrolled  completely, all the way down to the floor! Arrgh!

And what’s with the thermostat? We have programmed it to remain at 68 during the day, and drop to 62 at 9 PM.  Every morning it has hiked itself back up to 70. Turn it down, and it will stay there until about 3 in the afternoon, and those hot flashes I keep having are not because my hormones are out of whack.

The water heater much prefers to be set at 130°, never mind what we want.

As I said, maybe it’s just at The Rice Paddy.

 

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Holy Smoke!

13 Aug

I had a doctor’s appointment this morning at the unearthly hour of 8 AM. Normally, the only time I have to be anyplace at that time of day is when I am working, so when I mentioned getting up at O:dark-ugly, The Squire assumed that was where I was headed.

When I came down at 5:45 this morning I could smell “burnt”. We had over 6 1/2 inches of rain yesterday between 8:30 and 5, and I figured the rain had come down the chimney and dampened the ashes.  When I walked into the kitchen I found four very well done eggs in the compost, and two others cooling in a pan on the stove. My usual breakfast is two hardboiled eggs and a cucumber, and The Squire, bless him, had fixed me some eggs to take to the office.  He told me that he had put the first eggs in the pan, brushed his teeth, etc., intending to come out and turn off the fire once the water had boiled and let them cook on retained heat. Instead, he had gone up to bed on autopilot.

About 1:30 in the morning, the dog had started to carry on, and he had gotten up to see what had Blazer all in an uproar.

Both the kitchen and dining room smoke alarms were going full-tilt, and the eggs were not only boiled, they had exploded.

Bless him, my husband cleaned up, and then fixed me two more eggs, which he stayed and watched until it was time to turn off the heat and put a lid on the pot.

Me? I slept through the whole thing.

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