laupäev, oktoober 02, 2004
Come On, Baby, Light My Fire!
I reached another milestone in daily life here: I got our heat going! Now that may not sound like a big deal to you, except that we are heating with a wood furnace, which I have not experience in using.
The way it works is actually quite clever: by the entry way on the first floor of the house is a small fireplace-like opening that is surrounded by brick and tile. You light a fire in this and allow it to burn down to hot coals, then you shut the fireplace door and close the flue and the hot air will circulate through channels in the brick and tile, heating the tiles and radiating the heat for up to 24 hours. That means, if we get good heat going from the furnace, I only have to deal with a fire once a day for around two hours, not bad.
Of course, first I had to figure the whole thing out. Fortunately, one of the Americans who live here, Kevin, offered to come over this morning and give me a quick primer on how to do it. All of my Boy Scout fire-building training flooded back to me as we laid down a good bed of paper, then some smaller wood, and finally the larger pieces of birch (a good hot-burning wood). He got the fire going easily; because it is so well drafted, it literally took only one match to get it going. We used a smaller amount of wood and after about an hour and a half, it had burned down to nicely glowing coals and Kevin simply closed the door and the flue and let it heat.
While we waited for the fire to burn down, Kevin and I were able to talk quite a bit and get to know each other better. He was interested in what the Army will be doing here, and he was able to tell me about his work here, which is to build the vision for church planting and resource people to fulfill that vision. It is amazing to see what he is involved in, and it is so completely compatible with what we plan to do here. It was definitely another one of those relationship-building times that God keeps sending our way, and I think we will see great good from it both in our work as well as personally.
Because the fire was rather small, it cooled in just a few hours, so I decided to make another attempt solo. I built up the paper and tinder and packed it full of wood and after one false start, got a roaring fire going. Elizabeth sat there just staring at the flames and listening to the wood hissing. It was very cool. I had a great pile of coals before I shut it up, and once I did felt a lot of heat coming from the tiles. Now it is nine hours later and it is still radiating heat almost as strongly as when I first started. Somewhere deep inside, that satisfies some primal hunter-gatherer need.
We have another fireplace in the basement that we will also use for heat (different design), but that was enough for one day. We have the warmth we need for tonight.
--Tim
The way it works is actually quite clever: by the entry way on the first floor of the house is a small fireplace-like opening that is surrounded by brick and tile. You light a fire in this and allow it to burn down to hot coals, then you shut the fireplace door and close the flue and the hot air will circulate through channels in the brick and tile, heating the tiles and radiating the heat for up to 24 hours. That means, if we get good heat going from the furnace, I only have to deal with a fire once a day for around two hours, not bad.
Of course, first I had to figure the whole thing out. Fortunately, one of the Americans who live here, Kevin, offered to come over this morning and give me a quick primer on how to do it. All of my Boy Scout fire-building training flooded back to me as we laid down a good bed of paper, then some smaller wood, and finally the larger pieces of birch (a good hot-burning wood). He got the fire going easily; because it is so well drafted, it literally took only one match to get it going. We used a smaller amount of wood and after about an hour and a half, it had burned down to nicely glowing coals and Kevin simply closed the door and the flue and let it heat.
While we waited for the fire to burn down, Kevin and I were able to talk quite a bit and get to know each other better. He was interested in what the Army will be doing here, and he was able to tell me about his work here, which is to build the vision for church planting and resource people to fulfill that vision. It is amazing to see what he is involved in, and it is so completely compatible with what we plan to do here. It was definitely another one of those relationship-building times that God keeps sending our way, and I think we will see great good from it both in our work as well as personally.
Because the fire was rather small, it cooled in just a few hours, so I decided to make another attempt solo. I built up the paper and tinder and packed it full of wood and after one false start, got a roaring fire going. Elizabeth sat there just staring at the flames and listening to the wood hissing. It was very cool. I had a great pile of coals before I shut it up, and once I did felt a lot of heat coming from the tiles. Now it is nine hours later and it is still radiating heat almost as strongly as when I first started. Somewhere deep inside, that satisfies some primal hunter-gatherer need.
We have another fireplace in the basement that we will also use for heat (different design), but that was enough for one day. We have the warmth we need for tonight.
--Tim
