Heatless & Sleepless

Susan and I are grateful to be home after vagabonding, but it was a heatless and sleepless night at Rosslyn.

Our home was 60° when we arrived last night, so we turned up thermostats. By the time we were headed to bed, we realized that the house was still not heating up at all. Actually, Susan realized. I was too exhausted to realize. She pointed out that none of the radiators were warm, and none of the radiant heat flooring felt warm to the touch.

I was of half a mind to disregard her concern. Maybe it was just taking them a little while to warm up. But the house would be cozy soon. Right? I thought about it. And I realized that she was on to something. So I headed down to to the basement to check on the boiler.

It was off. No pilot light. No hum. No warmth. No digital readout. 100% not operating.

How could that be? According to Pam the boiler had been serviced recently. When had it stopped? Why?

We tried to use the gas fireplaces that flank our bed to warm up our bedroom. But they too were mysteriously unresponsive. Lifeless. Cooold. For good measure I tried the twin fireplaces in Rosslyn’s living room. Nothing. Not a click. Not a flicker.

None of Rosslyn’s four gas fireplaces worked. Pilot lights out on all of them. They also had been serviced recently. Different contractor. Zero overlap. Except for the lifeless performance.

What in the world was going on?!

We were too beat to don our detective cloaks and caps. So we heaped comforters onto our bed, invited Carley to join us for warmth, and told ourselves that it’d be warmer and more comfortable than my March bikepacking trip around the Sky Islands.

It wasn’t. Heatless and sleepless we tossed and turned as the almost full moon measured the night into dawn. We started today without a clue that the unraveling was just beginning. Here’s Susan’s update to a friend.

We arrived last night, road weary but happy to be home, only to have no heat working. We curled up together with Carley and failed to sleep. Then in the AM the furnace exploded with water and steam, set off the fire alarm which sent the volunteer fire department. Good it was steam and not smoke or fire. And it was nice to catch up with firefighter friends!

And so it goes. Life is an adventure. Still grateful to be here on two beautiful days with a lovely, placid lake and pink moon. — Susan Bacot-Davis

An adventure indeed. She delicately (and with uncharacteristic diplomacy) leapfrogged the fact that the exploding, steam belching boiler was the result of a hasty-if-temporary plumbing repair. No names. No pointed fingers. No OPUD-fication. A mistake. A consequence. The courage to acknowledge, accept responsibility, and apologize. Several heroes with timely solutions. And a reminder that this incredible adventure is the result of life braided together with some singularly outstanding people.

Thank you, Glen, for racing into the basement despite the fact that it was a veritable hammam so thick with steam that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Your reaction time and your sprint from the vegetable garden to the house to the basement to the circuit panel, where you cut power to the boiler were beyond the beyond. And thank you too for identifying and solving the fireplace issue so that Susan and Carley could warm up hearthside this morning.

Thank you, Tommy Lambert and Tom Duca, Essex firefighters extraordinaire. I have no conceivable understanding of how you both made it to our house within minutes of the fire alarm going off. Superheroes! And thank you for quickly calling off everyone else once we confirmed that it was steam and not smoke that had filled the basement and triggered the detectors. We are immeasurably grateful to live in a town where so many friends and neighbors heed the call of duty in the way that the two of you exemplified this morning. Bravo!

And thank you to the plumbers who prioritized our problem, did their best to provide a temporary solution while working on a permanent solution, accepted responsibility for an unfortunate fumble with integrity and an urgent commitment to rectify both the new problem and the underlying failure. (I’ll skip names for now to ensure there’s no blowback, because the take-away for Susan and for me is once again outsized gratitude for getting us back on track.) Thank you.

And last, but not least, if it weren’t for the sleepless night I might’ve missed the majestic morning as it painted its progress in stereoview across the heavens and the undimpled perfection of Lake Champlain. What beauty. What perfection. No finer compensation comes to my imagination that the sights that Carley and I enjoyed early this morning after a heatless and sleepless night. Thank you.