That White Stuff Is Falling From The Sky

That white stuff is falling from the sky. It's all over everything...grass, trees, shrubbery, and of course the streets and sidewalks.
We had less than an inch on the ground when I left for work this morning. After backing out of the drive, I instinctively put my truck into 4WD. The street wasn't plowed or salted yet and was a little slick. But when I turned onto the main road at the end of my street, I didn't expect it to be worse than my side street. Even 4WD won't help you when you hit snow compacted on top of what I can only imagine was either black ice or freezing rain that fell before the snow. I wasn't going fast, since I had to stop at the stop sign, tires didn't slip when I started moving, but when I hit the road I started sliding sideways. Luckily there was unpacked snow between the tire tracks and I carefully maneuvered onto those to get some traction. It worked, and I stayed on that part of the road until I got to the next town, which was about a mile up the road. They had their roads nice and cleared, salted, and drivable without any difficulty. I guess that's one of the drawbacks about living in a "township" instead of a "town". The Counties are responsible for the roads in the township areas, not the individual towns, so that means the two-lane roads like the I had to drive on are considered secondary to the main 4 lane road that leads to the highways, shopping, schools, etc.
Such is life...and winter in the Midwest.

When It Rains, It Pours.

Christmas Day the driveway was covered with about 5" of ice and snow. The day after Christmas the temperatures started to rise and all the ice started melting, creating a surface that is slippier than any I have ever known. Then the fog rolled in, followed by horrendous downpours during some pretty strong thunderstorms.

This is DECEMBER! In Illinois, south of Chicago, where we should be in the 20's and snowy. We were subzero then snow, then sleet and ice, then rain and storms. So this week we experienced all four seasons...kind of.

The rain seemed never-ending. Not only does it cause all the snow to dissolve and create puddles and massive flooding in some areas, it fills up my duct work. Our house is on a floating slab and the heating ducts are under the house, in the ground. This was the way they did it in the 60's when the house was built. So seepage fills the duct work, and then when the furnace kicks on, it causes the water to slosh and roll around, at times splashing out of the vents and onto the floor.

This is what woke me up at 3am, so I turned the thermostat down in the hopes it would shut the furnace off and give me peace and quiet so I could sleep. Didn't happen; the furnace didn't shut off. Seemed odd since it was about 55 outside at the time and it was quite warm in the house. So, I woke my husband up and asked him to check it out. He had to shut the furnace off completely.

Later this morning, after we were finally able to get some sleep, what with the rumbling in the floor from water sloshing in the duct work and the rumbles outside from the thunderstorm, my son checked the furnace and discovered that the hot surface ignitor was malfunctioning. That explained why the furnace wouldn't shut down last night and why the blower was at such a high speed and caused the water to really slosh around.

So, we spent all morning and part of the afternoon trying to find someplace that had the part for the furnace. The problem we had was that it's an American Standard furnace and they are proprietary and not many supply houses (that are open on Saturday) carry the part we needed. Finally, after a dozen or so phone calls, and running to 4 different supply houses in 3 different towns, we found the one we needed. Then it was back home and put it in. Just in time too, since they are calling for colder weather tomorrow.

We were lucky on several counts with this. First of all, the temperature today was close to 65 and second, a friend of my husband was finally able to locate the part for us. It was either a coincidence or pure luck that this friend also called my husband for help with a refrigeration job that he was on at the same time we were looking for this part. That was when he asked him if he knew anyone that might have it. Either way, everything worked out for everyone.