Wind-Whacking, Smoke-Sucking, High-Velocity Thingie

My new financial crash diet has forced us to be more innovative. And self-reliant. I've also become more contemplative because, well, there's not much else to do. Sometimes I feel like I've ended up on Walden Pond with a detour through Gilligan's Island. I don't know if I'd rather be Thoreau or Tina Louise. Given that I'm one of the few human females within several miles, I could probably qualify as Ginger.

The heat in our house comes from two sources: the ambient heat from the sun room that gathers during the day, and the wood stove. On clear days, the sun room gathers light like a glass trap. The warmth radiates through the house and lingers until evening. In the winter, the temperature can get up to the high 50s indoors without even lighting the stove. Our house is about 1,200 square feet, and when the elements cooperate, it gets pretty toasty in here.

(I never thought I would refer to 56 degrees F as "toasty," but that was before I'd been through a few nights where the temperature sank to -30 or below.)

When the sky is overcast, the house stays cold. On gray days, we use the stove for heat, with a little propane space heater at night. This house used to admit drafts like a leaky old ship, until E. attacked the leaks with a caulking tube.

I think I'm going to take up sun worship -- not just figuratively, but literally. You don't want to piss off the sun out here. You'll be very, very cold, and you won't be able to access the internet, watch a movie or take a shower.

Or maybe I should worship the wind. The wind pushes the clouds in front of the sun, after all. We've had a few problems with the prevailing winds in Blanca Flats. These are the same winds that have been throwing their weight around for millions of years, creating the Great Sand Dunes and generally dumping dirt everywhere. The south wind still blows a lot of dirt around Blanca Flats. Worst of all, the south wind crams air down our chimney, which is located on the south side of the house. When you're trying to burn wood in the stove, this phenomenon fills the house with smoke, sets off the alarms, and makes me worry about the whereabouts of the members of the Costilla County volunteer fire department.

We've been talking about buying a special wind-defeating chimney top since we moved in. But the chimney had a bigger issue -- it was lower than the roof, which not only violates county building codes (which aren't enforced very meticulously, judging from the ramshackle particle board mutations that people inhabit in Blanca Flats), but forced the wind back down the chimney every time there was a big southerly howler.

Phase one in our battle against the south wind involved making the chimney higher than the house. That seemed to work fairly well, until a gale-force south wind proved us wrong by blasting air down the smoke stack one frigid night, turning our wood stove into an ash-spewing volcanic monstrosity.

Phase two involved buying a new chimney top -- not just a cap to keep the birds out, but a "high velocity wind-beater." Unfortunately, my scrawny budget hasn't left us with a lot of extra money to buy one of these things. When E. announced that he was going to make a high-velocity wind-beater himself, I was skeptical. I always shake my head when I read instructional articles online about building your own satellite dish, or your own iron lung (although the Professor on Gilligan's Island could have succeeded brilliantly, I'm sure). And why would you build your own wind-beater, when you can just buy one online?

Because they cost almost $200, and you can make one yourself for about $25, as E. proved this weekend:

Sheet metal: $14.00
Spray paint for cool Goth look: $5.00
Black pipe: $6.00
Tin snips borrowed from neighbor: $0.00

This thing is so cool -- it looks like the ornament that would crown a very large, goth/industrial Christmas tree.



We lit a fire in the stove last night, with some really delicious, hot-burning pine, and the wind was incredibly well behaved. It was obviously tamed into submission by the high-velocity wind-whacker.