Handy Woman to the Rescue

Yesterday my local paper published an article about my upcoming trip to see the Nativity Story premier. If you're interested, you can read the article here.

On to more mundane things--

A couple of days ago, the thingamagig in our attic began to vibrate every time I ran the dryer. The more I ran it, the louder the hum became, until I began to worry about a possible fire danger in the attic.

Our house is two stories and the dryer is in an inner room on the first floor. That means the dryer ducting runs up through the second floor (though a wall in a closet) and then up through the attic to the room. Because that's a long way for lint to travel, the builder installed a DBF (dryer booster fan) in the attic. It's electric, and it turns on whenever it senses hot air coming through the duct.

The DBF has worked four years without a problem, but I began to suspect that it might be dying. So I went on the Internet to first 1) identify the thingamajig and 2) figure out who to call to fix it. Should I call an electrician? A duct cleaning company? An AC guy?

I found the fan, identified it, and read that it was supposed to be cleaned every six months! LOL! This is a part of the attic I never even ENTER, let alone clean!

So I called the company who made the fans and learned that these gizmos are supposed to be installed with clamps for easy removal. Mine wasn't. It was taped into the duct line with shiny electrical tape. And the very nice man on the phone assured me that I could find a way to do this myself.

I brought the 20 foot ladder out of the garage and climbed into the attic armed with a scalpel, duct tape, a flash light, a can of compressed air, and a tiny scrub brush. Found that cutting the DBF out of the duct line wasn't as severe an operation as it seemed--in fact, the hardest thing about working in the attic is finding a place to stand--there's no flooring up there, and my husband has already fallen through the ceiling once (in another house). He doesn't do attics anymore.

So, thanks to the miracle of compressed air, scrubbing, and duct tape, I managed to clean and reinstall everything. Found that the long duct is simply sticking up throught the ceiling--next time I think I'll take it down and vaccuum the thing out. It's amazing how much lint travels a very long way from the dryer. No wonder dryers create such a fire hazard!

And now my dryer is operating normally--quietly.

God bless tech guys who can explain things over the telephone.

~~Angie