Celsius 9/11

I’m sure you’ve heard about the kind of stoves used to heat people’s homes—maybe in an old book, a movie, or from your grandmother. Well, we have one. First, know that our stove isn’t the old fashion type you’re thinking of. It’s a new-age, computerized contraption with a temperature reader you can keep anywhere in your house, a screen with menus, and the kind of manual that only the most attentive people, (Izabela among them), ever read. It burns only certain things—pellets, ecocoal, and, of course, wood. Pellets, which we’d been using for the first six weeks of the stove’s life, are honey-colored, about the size and shape of a half-used stick of chalk, and surprisingly civilized compared to coal or wood. We liked them, but we had discovered, upon moving in, that half the basement, as well as the space under the terrace outside, was filled with well seasoned kindling—the kind that would cost a fortune in California, and that many home owners would kill to have for their fireplaces. We were determined to make use of it—how could we not? To switch from pellets to wood, you had to clean up the pellet remnants and change the settings on the stove, which meant that Izabela spent Thursday night and all of Friday just getting the stove ready. Friday morning, I woke up to what sounded like the banging of a hammer. “It’s impossible,” I thought, “nobody here does construction.” But to my surprise, I soon learned that what I’d been hearing was indeed a hammer. It turned out that once the pellets were all gone, Izabela discovered that they had left a hard, black substance on the inside of the stove—not so civilized of them after all.

.

I grocery shopped all afternoon and arrived home to the smell of smoke, and the service man, Pan Henryk, in the basement talking to Izabela. It appeared that, between the two of them, the wood was finally starting to burn.

.

For the first evening, the wood seemed to be working fine. Yes, we had to check the stove a lot more often—every few hours instead of every couple days, and yes, there was a little smoke, but apart from that, it wasn’t so bad. We were not only saving money, but we were getting rid of this mass of kindling in the basement, and, as Izabela pointed out, doing our duty to the environment. Saturday, the temperature dropped in the house, and I started feeling cold. One important thing to know about me is that I am a complete ninny when it comes to cold—I fuss and complain my head off if the temperature drops below about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The wood, unfortunately, was not interested in my temperature needs. The house got colder and colder, and no matter what we did, the stove temperature refused to rise.

.

By Sunday, the smell of smoke was starting to make it seem as if we were barbecuing inside the house. “How long will this pile of wood last?” I asked Izabela. “For probably half the winter and we can buy more for almost nothing.” I was crushed. How were we going to survive an entire winter with all this smoke, cold, and general filth that wood created since we tracked ash up from the basement. Still, the experiment was making Izabela happy, and she was right—the wood was environmental, cheap, and already here.

.

Sunday was also the beginning of the end, as it turned out. I hadn’t been down to the basement since we started the experiment, but on the way to adding more wood to the stove what did I see, but the pellets, waiting, ignored, in their huge plastic bags. This was too much—dropping the wood I was carrying, I ran to Izabela, throwing my arms around her. “I miss the pellets,” I wailed into her sweater. “I do too,” she said. I was shocked. “You mean you don’t want to burn wood forever?” “No,” said Izabela. “I thought you wanted us to burn wood so we could get these great savings.” We agreed to burn through as much of the kindling as we could by Thursday, then switch back.

.

By Tuesday night, things had gone from bad to worse. Our poor stove, which had begun leaking an ominous-looking, tar-like substance starting Monday, was now covered with the stuff. Our rugs were dirty from the ash, and you couldn’t spend a minute in the basement without smelling like an arsonist. Now, when Izabela opened the stove, flames leapt up at her. We knew that there was nothing for it but to turn off the stove, clean it out as best we could, and reprogram it for pellets. We cleaned the tar from the inside for three hours, not getting nearly all of it off. By the end, Izabela’s hands were too sore even to cut bread, I looked like a fourteen-year-old chimney sweep with grey hair, and we had no hot water. We had a visit each from the plumber, the service man, and the chimney sweep; we still don’t know why by burning the wood we produced tar. Maybe there was glue in the wood--maybe the chimney is at the wrong angle… we have no idea. I spoke to my mom on Thursday night, and her contribution was “next time, you should burn what the stove is meant to burn,” which would make sense except that it has settings and a compartment designed especially for wood. Oh well—we ordered more pellets, cleaned up the basement, and gave the wood to some kind gentlemen who, so far, are making use of it just fine.

.

Now that the wood was gone, we were sure the drama was over. But, like the Iraq war, things just got more bizarre. The temperature reader, which we’d counted on to make sure we were warm enough and that the stove was working okay, had quit. The stove was refusing to process the pellets, the house was still an icebox, and the upstairs, two floors above the basement, strangely enough, smelled like smoke more than ever. We soon discovered the cause—some of the tar, in route to the chimney, had worked its way into our wall where it created a leak, discoloring it and making us worry about what would happen when the predicted rain began.

.

Because I don’t speak Polish yet, Izabela was forced to deal with everyone we consulted about the situation. The service man, Pan Henryk, told her to raise the temperature on the stove so it would clean itself of tar. Pan Karol, the plumber, said he’d never heard of such a thing, and that it would make the stove explode. Pan Hanryk started bad-mouthing Pan Karol. The chimney sweep agreed with pan Henryk about inducing higher temperature. It was Pan Wieslaw, our handy man, who finally fixed the temperature reader when Pan Karol stood us up for the second time in a week. Pan Henryk said we needed a different valve for the stove. Pan Karol said the one we had was fine. “All these guys are in love with you,” I said to Izabela, “they just all handle it differently.”

.

After a few days, though, the stove seemed to come back to itself. The temperature rose, the tar started drying up. After two weeks, life was finally turning normal again. The Iraq war was over.