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Dec. 11th, 2006 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI got to go into Everett again this evening to spend even more time in the basement of 321. Hooray. There was nothing wrong with the upstairs tenant's gas furnace.
*sigh* The reason I went in to examine the basement at 321 was because the upstairs tenant did not understand why his 74-degree apartment did not have scalding hot radiators. "Surely," he exclaimed, "the furnace is not working!" I inquired if there was heat in his apartment. "No," he said. "There is not heat in my apartment and my wife turned the thermostat up to ninety and the radiators *still* didn't get hot. There is no heat. We have a sick child. MAKE THERE BE HEAT!!!"
So, what the hell. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Everett we go. We (Dad and I) got to Everett where there was nothing wrong with the furnace. It wasn't running when we got there and the radiators *were* room-temperature, but that was because the rooms were 74 degrees and the thermostat was SET for 74 degrees. Fuckwit tenant.
I cranked the hell out of the thermostat in front of the tenant. We all adjourned to the basement to see the furnace run, which it did without any huhu. We stood there and watched the little temperature gauge on the furnace creep up. We all felt the pipe carrying the hot water to the radiators. Yes. Hot. We went upstairs to the apartment and felt the radiators, which had gotten warmer in the interval.
I explained to the tenant about the delights of central heat, with special emphasis on the fact that the thermostat has to be calling for heat before the circulator pump circulates the hot water that makes the radiators get hot. If there is no calling-for-heat from the thermostatly department, then there is no circulating of hot water and there are no hot radiators.
Furthermore, I explained that if the apartment was only a wee bit cold, the radiators never ever get scalding hot because the circulator (it's a cold-water furnace) circulates mildly hot water as soon as the thermostat starts calling for heat. It also kicks the furnace on to start heating up more water hotter, but the circulator starts circulating from the get-go, even before the water is very hot. (A hot-water furnace has all-the-time hot water and just turns on the circulators when heat is needed. The hot-water furnace makes there be heat faster, but it is a less efficient system than the cold-water furnace Way.) That being the case, in an only-slightly-cold apartment, the temperature rises the few degrees it needs to rise during the circulating of the not-very-hot water and that shuts off the thermostat which shuts off the circulator before the radiators have gotten very hot.
I went over this a number of times, using small words. It could only have been clearer if I'd had a Powerpoint presentation and perhaps a laser pointer for explaining the slides. I am optimistic that the tenant will grasp the important part of the lesson, which is mostly Don't call me about having no heat as long as your apartment is over seventy degrees, asshole. (I did not say the asshole part.) I also advised tenant to invest in a thermometer seperate from the one included free of charge in his thermostat so that he could check the temperature in his apartment in two ways, to get an accurate read of how warm it was in there.
*sigh* The reason I went in to examine the basement at 321 was because the upstairs tenant did not understand why his 74-degree apartment did not have scalding hot radiators. "Surely," he exclaimed, "the furnace is not working!" I inquired if there was heat in his apartment. "No," he said. "There is not heat in my apartment and my wife turned the thermostat up to ninety and the radiators *still* didn't get hot. There is no heat. We have a sick child. MAKE THERE BE HEAT!!!"
So, what the hell. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Everett we go. We (Dad and I) got to Everett where there was nothing wrong with the furnace. It wasn't running when we got there and the radiators *were* room-temperature, but that was because the rooms were 74 degrees and the thermostat was SET for 74 degrees. Fuckwit tenant.
I cranked the hell out of the thermostat in front of the tenant. We all adjourned to the basement to see the furnace run, which it did without any huhu. We stood there and watched the little temperature gauge on the furnace creep up. We all felt the pipe carrying the hot water to the radiators. Yes. Hot. We went upstairs to the apartment and felt the radiators, which had gotten warmer in the interval.
I explained to the tenant about the delights of central heat, with special emphasis on the fact that the thermostat has to be calling for heat before the circulator pump circulates the hot water that makes the radiators get hot. If there is no calling-for-heat from the thermostatly department, then there is no circulating of hot water and there are no hot radiators.
Furthermore, I explained that if the apartment was only a wee bit cold, the radiators never ever get scalding hot because the circulator (it's a cold-water furnace) circulates mildly hot water as soon as the thermostat starts calling for heat. It also kicks the furnace on to start heating up more water hotter, but the circulator starts circulating from the get-go, even before the water is very hot. (A hot-water furnace has all-the-time hot water and just turns on the circulators when heat is needed. The hot-water furnace makes there be heat faster, but it is a less efficient system than the cold-water furnace Way.) That being the case, in an only-slightly-cold apartment, the temperature rises the few degrees it needs to rise during the circulating of the not-very-hot water and that shuts off the thermostat which shuts off the circulator before the radiators have gotten very hot.
I went over this a number of times, using small words. It could only have been clearer if I'd had a Powerpoint presentation and perhaps a laser pointer for explaining the slides. I am optimistic that the tenant will grasp the important part of the lesson, which is mostly Don't call me about having no heat as long as your apartment is over seventy degrees, asshole. (I did not say the asshole part.) I also advised tenant to invest in a thermometer seperate from the one included free of charge in his thermostat so that he could check the temperature in his apartment in two ways, to get an accurate read of how warm it was in there.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 09:00 pm (UTC)I never wanted children, ever. I didn't want them when I was a little girl. I didn't think being a mommy sounded like very much fun. When I was a little girl, the mommy did a shitload of repetitive, thankless drudgery that was never appreciated. The mommy stayed home and cooked and cleaned and grocery shopped and wiped up messes and nursed the sick and took care of the laundry and saw to it that the rest of the household enjoyed comfortable, clean surroundings with regular, well-cooked meals. In addition, the mommy didn't get a working garbage disposal or an upstairs toilet free from the phrase jiggle the handle or enough of a budget to grocery shop without the shame of having the cashier at the IGA not-take her check on more than one occasion. The mommy got cars that didn't run right and died on her (in the era before cell phones and without public transportation). The mommy got stuck with the kids all the time and never, ever got to do anything of her own. The mommy didn't get to spend a lot of time with her people because the daddy's people were closer in distance, finance, and influence with the daddy. (The daddy, of course, was the decider.) On the infrequent occasions where the mommy got us to go visit her people, there was pouting on the part of nearly everyone but her. Also, the mommy got discarded for a younger, prettier model and had to start her entire life over at forty-one, with nothing much (INCLUDING no retirement and no savings for the future because, d'oh, all the money belonged to the daddy) to show for the twenty years she'd spent sweating under the shitload of repetitive, thankless drudgery.
Before anyone jumps on me, I feel certain that not all mommies have lives like the one I saw. I'm sure that quite a few mommies have lives chock-full of Hallmarky goodness and heartwarming moments of togetherness and rather less repetitive, thankless drudgery than my mom had in her life. Probably lots and lots of mommies in modern, equality-driven marriages have fully-funded spousal IRAs, prenups, and other financial instruments to ensure that they won't be starting over penniless at forty, with no recent work history and credentials that are fifteen years out of date. I'm sure that modern mommies have much greater equality, both on the labor front and on the financial front, than my mommy had. However, my mommy's life was the one I saw and the one from which I drew my conclusions about what it was like to be a mommy.
It didn't look like fun to me then and it still does not look like fun to me now. I believe I'll let that cup pass from me, thanks.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 09:27 pm (UTC)So it's not so much that I think you guys should have kids when you don't want to raise them...