The Chimney and the Plague

Today I bring you a laugh at my expense.

Normally our life is boring.

Writing Maggie is very consuming, and having a set routine really helps. I’m not going to bore you with our daily schedule. Most of it revolves around writing the sequel to This Kingdom and singing the tip sheets. The never ending tip sheets. A tip sheet is a signed page that is bound into a special edition hardcover, and we have a lot of them at the moment.

Unfortunately, this fall wrecked our schedule. I had cataract surgery, which shot our workout routine in the foot. We had to say good bye to one of our family pets. It was time, and I’m not going to talk about it too much, because it is very difficult. (Miss Sookie in the photograph above is still very much alive, no worries.) And then Gordon, Kid 2, and her boyfriend went to an Irish pub to see a show, and Gordon brought back a horrible cold.

This is some crud from the deepest bowels of frozen hell. I mean, this plague is so bad, we were coughing nonstop and drowning in mucus. I tested us for flu and Covid, even though we had shots, and it is not either one of those. It is just some Holiday Cold.

Anyway, we’ve been struggling with it for over a week and the night before last was especially awful. Gordon coughed and woke me up, then I coughed and woke him up, and we got maybe 3 hours of sleep. But we have to work. We lost too much time as it is.

It was discovered recently that our wood fireplace is unsafe. There are four fireplaces in this house, but we only use one, and it gave up the ghost. I had no idea, but majority of the fireplaces in the newer homes are actually appliances. They are factory made and inserted into the house. Like all appliances, they wear out. A typical life of such a fireplace with moderate use is about 15 years. Ours was 27.

We had a long and detailed safety inspection. The insulating plates inside the fireplace were cracked and lost their integrity. Too much heat was being transferred to the drywall. The pipe that led into the chimney separated, and soot was getting into the attic. Oh, and to make things extra awesome, the vent in our smoke stack was not to code.

Picture a smoke stack. On top of it is a cap that keeps the weather out. The smoke escapes from the side of the smoke stack through openings in the chimney. These vents should be at least six inches tall. For no apparent reason, the first owner of our house, who was actually a builder, decided that it didn’t look pretty. Our vents are two inches.

This is not surprising in the least. We bought our home for a bargain prize after it sat on the market for a year and a half, and since then we’ve been slowly updating it. We love it, but if our house had a motto, it would be, “This is… interesting.” Every trade person has now uttered this word when diagnosing some new fun issue: the plumber, the electrician, the AC tech…

I should pause here to say that my husband is a fireplace fiend. There are deep personal reasons for his love of firewood, which I won’t go into, but having a working fireplace and a storage of firewood makes him feel comfortable on a man taking care of his family level. We have 3 cords of firewood right now. He built a shed for it. He is justified in this, because the last time Texas electric grid crashed, our wood fireplace kept us from freezing.

Even though it was not in the budget, we had to replace the fireplace.

Remember how we were severely sleep deprived?

The crew of fireplace installers descends on our home at first light and starts ripping into the wall. We open all the doors and hide in the study to work and minimize the germ exposure. The project manager carefully asks about the tile. We have this concrete monstrosity of a mantel we inherited, and it couldn’t be saved, so we decided to just tile it and be done.

Me, clutching my tea and desperately trying to get a grip on reality: Tile?

Project Manager: For the fireplace. Remember, I was going to give you a bid?

Me: Oh.

Gordon, staggering into the room: Eh?

Me: Tile.

Gordon: Oh.

Me: What kind of tile should we get?

PM: Not porcelain. Natural stone or ceramic.

We summon inner reserves and drive over to the tile place, where we wander around, dazed. After too much time, we finally find some limestone that is pretty, and I hug it. I am so tired at this point. I take a picture and send it to the PM.

He sends back the bid. His bid is way too high, but the tile place does installs, and they do fireplaces. We are shown the recent project pictures and decide that we are just going to do that.

Crisis averted, we drive back home, where we try to work while things are being smashed and broken, and metal is thudding, and people are on the roof, and the dogs are deeply perturbed… I spend hours looking at bugs. I need to get a composite bug monster together. If you have a fear on insects, do not google vinegaroon.

About 3:00 pm, I realize that I haven’t thawed anything out for dinner. For a while, Gordon was not eating hardly anything because the plague kills your appetite. I finally went with the nuclear option, summoned inner reserves for the nth time since this cold hit, and made a basket of fried chicken fingers on Monday. Fried foods are off limits for us usually, but I knew he would eat them. It worked, but I can’t feed him fried chicken fingers 3 days in a row.

I put in a late order for grocery delivery and go back to bugs.

Finally it’s 4:30 pm. The fireplace is installed. We are giving instructions, we write the check for the remaining balance, and the crew leaves. The house is clean, we have a new fireplace, and the only sign that construction took place is the bare wall.

Gordon stared at the fireplace for a bit and then gets this look on his face and goes outside. I follow him out there.

He stares up.

Me, feeling like my head is full of cotton: What are we looking at?

Him: The chimney.

We stand there, looking at the chimney.

Me: Why are we doing this?

Gordon: Didn’t he say our vents weren’t up to code?

Me: Oh. Oh crap.

Gordon: I thought that was supposed to be fixed. Was that on the bid?

Me: … … ………………………….

We stare at the chimney for about 5 minutes, trying to figure out what we are missing, then we go back inside, and I start looking for the bid in my email inbox. I find the appointment notifications, the safety report, more appointment notifications, the tilling bid. Everything but the fireplace contract. I don’t know if the vent is on the bid or not. I can’t remember.

I know we had a contract. I know because I signed it. Where did I put it? Did I put it into Contracts folder, because that would be foolish, since that’s where business contracts go? Okay, not in that folder. Is it in the House folder? No. Is it in Personal?

This is so stressful. I don’t feel good. The fireplace cost an arm and a leg, and now I am not even sure we can use it.

It’s 4:50 pm. I give up and call to the business.

The very confused business admin: It says here they installed a new cap.

Me: I’m sorry, but the smokestack doesn’t seem any different. Would it help if I texted a picture?

The admin: Let me get PM to give you a call. He will call you right away.

Gordon: Growl under his breath.

It’s 5:05 pm, and I text the PM: Hi, I am sorry to bother you, but here is our chimney and it doesn’t look different. You told us it wasn’t to code and I just want to make sure that we can safely have a fire.

PM, calling: I’m sorry, I didn’t call right away. I was buying a gift for my wife. It’s her birthday.

Me: Oh, happy birthday, and I’m so sorry to interrupt. The crew was great, everything looks good and they were awesome, except that I just want to make sure we are safe with this chimney vent…

PM: Mrs. Andrews?

Me: Yes?

PM: Please go to the backyard.

Me, shuffling out: I’m there… OMG.

PM: chuckling.

Me: I’m so sorry. I hope you have a great evening and your wife has a lovely birthday.

Me, hanging up: Hey honey!

Gordon stalks out in the backyard: ?

I point up.

We had spent all this time staring at and taking pictures of the wrong chimney.

Here is hoping the Holiday Cold passes you by this year.