Ems Little Stories Episode 2

Dan and Angie came to the Church House last night and they finished shoveling the coal out of the coal bins.

After church services today, I came home and decided to scrub the utility room, again.

As a little background on this utility room that is occupying my time right now, the propane furnace is also in this room. On the opposite side is a small white box that detects carbon monoxide, or whatever is a dangerous by product of propane. Anyway, it has gone off several times in the past and makes a loud noise similar to a fire alarm. It has caused me to wonder what's going on in that room, but I have checked with the propane company and they do not have any answer and do not seem overly concerned; so, I just push the reset button and ,so far ,we have been okay and no explosions! However, I have been careful to avoid getting any water on the box not knowing what might happen.

So back to my cleaning regime. I began to pour Tide and water on the floor and scrub; then I thought I should go upstairs and check on our Golden Retriever, Maggie, who has an injured hip. On the way up, I took a large pyrex plate and a stainless steel lid that belonged to Angie and Dan. I placed it at the top of the steps on top a box of "give away" clothing to remind me to give it to them. Then I went to check on Maggie.

After making sure Maggie was okay, I returned to the utility room downstairs and began to scrub. Happy with my progress of removing the coal dust on the concrete floor, I decided to throw more water up in the air onto the back concrete wall. As soon as I threw the water, the carbon monoxide alarm with off!

The water had not touched the box! I tried to push the reset button but it kept ringing! I knew something wasn't right so I took off running as fast as I could. I ran up the stairs not knowing what I was going to do or what was going to happen! Just as I hit the last step at the top of the stairs "Boom!! I heard metal banging and as I got to the the top I hollered "Maggie !!! Let's get out of here!

She limped out quickly with me and then we just were waiting outside for the whole Church House to blow up!

We waited. Everything seemed quiet in the building. Nothing more happened. So, I decided to peek around the corner and look downstairs to see what had blown out into the stairwell!

Cautiously, I looked down the stairwell looking for smoke and twisted parts of the furnace and other debris.

There half way down the stairs was the stainless steel lid and a broken pyrex dish!

I picked up the lid and the broken pieces. Then went downstairs and all was the same except the carbon monoxide buzzer was still going. I opened all windows and went in to the utility room ( I must say a little more confident than just a few moments before) and pushed the button the . The buzzing stopped.

All is safe and secured at the Church House. We have a lovely room downstairs 30 feet from the utility room.

Y'all come!
Love,
Em

Em's Little Story

The church building we bought here in Oak Creek, Colorado, at one time in its history, was heated with coal. Coal is an abundant source of fuel in this area. Years later that converted (so to speak) to cleaner propane heat. Anyway, we are trying to turn this room into a laundry room and here Em's Little Story begins.

You will not believe the project that literally "fell in" to the utility room I have been trying to clean and paint. On one side of the wall across from the propane heater there was a piece of wood about 4 feet by 8 feet. A few days ago I peeped behind it and saw that there was coal and an opening about 16"x16". It was a little spooky! (When I told our son Scott about it, he brought up the thought that maybe Jimmy Hoffa was buried in that chute!)

Anyway, there is so much residual coal dust that last night I took buckets of water and just threw it up in the air on the studs and the walls and the water and coal dust made this black mixture that continued to drip on me and I was black! I continued doing this until I had used all of the hot water out of the hot water tank. Then I swept and cleaned the floor.

Now, I thought, I can really begin to paint!

However , back to this morning, I decided that I would just shovel that coal out of those holes that were behind the board so that I could get the utility room totally clean. Well, each time I shoveled, more coal would fall in. I began to sing Ernie Ford's song "I loaded 16 tons, what you get....."(Yes, I wondered if some bones might be in the mix-thanks to Scott's suggestion!)

There is no way that I can get the coal out today. It is too big of a job. I loaded 10 bags of it and who knows how many more "truck loads" of that coal is still in that chute!! Plus, what do you do with unwanted coal?

Can't wait until Gary sees my project!

Got coal?

Love,
Emily