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March 8, 2008
House Sounds
There have been a couple of times in the course of my adult life when a new noise will appear in the house and catch my attention. This is normally a noise no one else will notice but which ultimately means something is about to pass on to the big appliance god (Thor) in the sky.
An example of a new noise is the sort of a harmonic hum a garbage disposal might add to it's normal grinding repertoire prior to ending it's life as a garbage disposal and beginning its life as a heavy thing hanging in a tight space that requires some upper-body contortioning to replace.
This noise is unlike, and should not be confused with, the sound a disposal makes when a child drops several marbles down it "just to see what happens." The first noise, the harmonic hum, typically goes unnoticed by everybody except the person who will have to buy the new disposal and then lay beneath the sink banging his head into various pieces of plumbing while the second noise doesn't go unnoticed by anybody in the neighborhood.
I remember sitting on the couch one night and hearing the furnace make a new noise; I asked The Wife at The Time if she noticed the noise; she had not. This would have been ten or twelve years ago and, as I recall, my brother (an HVAC guy) eventually replaced a belt that ran off the blower.
As you know, we're getting a lot of snow, blowing wind, and were under a blizzard warning yesterday. And so it makes perfect sense that last night the furnace would make a new noise; it makes even more sense that the noise would appear just about midnight. This was a noise, I think, that would catch anybody's attention though maybe it wouldn't (I think everybody would notice the harmonic hum and the belt-replacement-related noise.) It was a rather loud hum.
My first thought, and really the only thought that makes any sense, was that my blower motor was humming. The way my furnace works is that the blower kicks on when it's time to pump some warm air into the house and then it turns off when the desired temperature is reached; it then kicks on a minute or two later to blow out any residual heat.
About midnight it kicked on and ran for a few minutes. It kicked off. When it was time to kick back on, it hummed. And while hmmmmmmmmmmmm is fine for a Wankel engine, it isn't all that good for a blower motor.
My brother called this morning and I told him about the humming. He thinks it's a capacitor and is going to bring me one.
Which, I'm sure you're all saying, is very brotherly of him though not outstanding as your brother would do the same for you.
Perhaps I should point out that my brother lives about 9 hours away. Of course then I'd need to point out that he was going to go mom and dad's tomorrow and I was going to meet the family there anyway.
Posted by delmer at March 8, 2008 12:49 PM
Comments
What was it the poltergeist said to you so many years ago? Was it "Rock On Punk!"? Do you think your new ghost needs speech therapy...hmmmmmm?
Posted by: Darrell at March 8, 2008 11:21 PM
It was, "Crank it up, Delmer."
Posted by: delmer at March 8, 2008 11:22 PM