Heat Wave Walled Off




My Wall Separating Vent on Lower Right from the AC Units

We are in the midst of our first heat wave with weather very reminiscent of the South.  During my Army career I spent most of the time in the US stationed somewhere in the South, most of it around Washington, DC in Virginia.  One of the things I hated about the area was the summer weather.  It literally forces you inside for the bulk of the time.  We would turn on our air conditioning in May and it would stay on until late September.  Outside activities in the day during the summer were therefore limited.  This was painful for me because summers growing up in New England were so much fun.  The house I grew up in did not have air conditioning and except for two or three days each year we didn’t need it.   After being cooped up inside by the winter we would explode outside and spend literally the entire day outdoors.  This was one of the reasons I wanted to come back to New England so much.  We had some friends visiting a couple years ago from Virginia in August and the kids (teenagers) were outside playing.  One of them came over and marveled that they could do this without being soaked in sweat; I proudly said “Welcome to New England!”  All that being said, the last few days have been scorchers.  Each year when we turn on the air conditioning in the house we cross our fingers because it is used so infrequently.  We are also the victims of extremely poor design.  Our house does not have a chimney.  It has an electric motor that vents out the furnace gases.  The “geniuses” that designed the house placed that vent right next to the air conditioning units.  This exposes the air conditioning units to year round corrosive gases.  The house was only a year old when we bought it but the first summer the air conditioning wouldn’t work and when the technician came he found the unit was rusted shut.  He pointed to the vent and said they had been telling builders this was stupid and yet it still happened.  The next summer the same thing happened.  My wife vetoed installing a long stainless steel pipe so I decided to construct a wall.  My engineer son scoffed when I piled up some garden stones to make the barrier wall.  His scorn was borne out when the first heavy wind (lot of that on top of our hill) blew the wall over.  Not to be deterred I found some masonry adhesive and glued the wall back together.  The wall has stood for two years now and for those last two years the air conditioning has started up without issue.  I’m looking out my window at our next door neighbor who is the victim of the same poor design.  He’s got his air conditioning unit open and is trying to get it working because of the rust.  Maybe I’ll volunteer my wall making skills.  Somewhere in Kyrgyzstan an engineer is cringing.