"jeff_wisnia" wrote in

Something I never knew or even thought about...

One of the ladies in our office lost her electricity yesterday thanks to
Katrina and by this morning it wasn't restored.

She took a shower at home and came into work early bringing her hair
dryer with her.

She began drying her hair in the office, about eight feet away from one
of the smoke detectors around a corner on an eight foot high ceiling.

You guessed it, the detector went off, alarms started ringing all over
our office building and the few people who were there that early bailed
out into thankfully mild sunny weather.

Two things come to mind that might have caused it. Knocking around in a bag
on the way to work dislodged a bunch of dust particles that ignited and set
off the detector. Your work outlet might deliver slightly more juice and
cause plasticizers that hadn't vaporized at the slightly lower temp to also
get into the air stream when heated to a slightly higher temperature. My
office outlets always ran a few volts higher than compared to home.

She might have used a higher heat setting at work. When I switch a space
heater from 500 to 1000W, a different coil is energized that has been
sitting in the air stream collecting dust that then incinerates as the coil
heats up.

It's why the VFD siren across the street sounds all through the fall as
people turn on their heat for the first time. All the dust accumulated from
the AC months burns off and it can be quite a stink, especially for those
stupid enough to run without filters. I always start up the heat when my
wife's TDY. It bothers her for days. This is a person who can smell people
smoking 10 car lengths ahead in the winter with the windows rolled up!

I run the furnace full tilt for an hour with the windows open and the fans
on, usually on the day I put the fans away for the season. Even with
filters the condensate water gets muddy and the furnace creates quite a
stink because the filter is AFTER the heat exchanger which is after the
A-coil. Not the best design, but it burns off pretty quickly.

This year we went with 2 window ACs instead of the CAC and the electricity
bill dropped by $50 for most of August. Didn't like the slapping noise the
new units make, but we've survived. Before, the basement would drop into
the 50F's with CAC because the house is old and the ducts are very small and
exposed. They end up giving off most of their "cool" to the basement.

--
Bobby G.