13TH FLOOR HAUNTED

There's quite a backstory to this one!

My entire time growing up, I was always a huge Matchbox fan. I used to play with these things constantly, as did my friends and cousins. We had tons of them, and the tracks and all sorts of stuff.

When I was kid, just about 4 years old, my mom got upset with me (I have NO idea why, and of course it couldn't have been anything *I* did, right? *grin*). Now, if you have kids you know how this goes... you want a simple answer from them and instead of answering, they start avoiding you and not listening and make it worse, and in the end you get more upset with their behavior and how it all devolves than you were with the original issue... Well, that sort of thing occured...

I was so busy playing with my cars I was not answering her (ignoring her, playing with my car). She looked at me and said "Give me that car!" in anger. In retrospect, she was probably just trying to get my attention/focus. But to a 4-year-old brain, I'm thinking "Uh oh, I'm gonna lose my car!" Of course these things roll really nice, huh? So I zoomed it across the floor and under a nearby couch. (these things zip pretty fantastic across hardwood floors!).

Well, needless to say, that just enraged her more... She grabbed me by the booty and slid me under the couch (it was one of those Victorian style ones up on post legs, giving about 6" of clearance underneath. Not enough for a grown up, but a 4-year-old slips right in there...) and demanded I retrieve the toy and give it to her.

I played dumb and pretended I couldn't reach it...

A whack on the ass reminded me that I could reach it just fine...

When she pulled me out, she put it on the floor, and stomped on it and smashed it and threw it in the garbage and admonished me that NOW she's got my frickin' attention, and I had better learn to listen, yada yada yada...

I couldn't believe what just happened, and I spent the rest of the day (yes, literally HOURS) sitting by the trashcan staring into it with weeping eyes, just mortally crushed... looking at the little patient in the back (you can sort of see him through the blue glass window in back, moulded into the plastic inside), and saying "I know how you feel..." (him being hurt and all)...

Broke mom's heart, and she has regretted this ever since. Not one of her finest moments, but as a parent I can attest now -- kids can drive you to the brink at times! :-)

Well, this story got told and retold over the years... mom is amazed at my photographic memory (everything down to the pink fuzzy slippers she was wearing at the time!), with me being only 4 years old and all... and it's become a bit of a family legend.

She tried for years to buy a replacement but they stopped making that model, so (and Dad) search in vain for years.

Then in the mid- to late- 1990's comes eBay in all it's glory, where you can find just about ANYTHING online! And low and behold, one day I found a mint condition Stretcha Fetcha #46 in the original box, from a collector. I don't remember what I paid, but it was something ridiculous like $3.00 plus a couple bucks in shipping... I got TWO of them. I kept one, and I gave one to mom for Christmas... :-)

As I said, it's a well-known family legend now... :-)

I was careful to include an inspection port so I can look inside my chimney. It I go up on the roof remove the cap I can go back down and see all the way up with an mirror.

Generally you want to only burn seasoned hardwoods of coal in this furnace but since I am experimenting I want to be able to watch up for any build op of soot or creosote or anything else.

Safety first. The chimney itself is triple line stainless 6 inches on the inside and I believe either require zero or one inch clearance for code. Since I have a meta break I made a steel box that allows about 3 inches clearance around the triple walled pipe, and that is built inside a chase that is sealed from the top of the chimney down to the workshop ceiling, lined with sheetrock for fire protection and has about a foot of clearance from the metal box I made. It's anchored with straps to keep it center and I have about a ten foot section of one inch schedule 40 pipe T's off of the line for the freeze proof spicket on the back deck. The pipe is capped and naturally collects a pocket of air at the top. If I ever have a chimney fire not only will it first have to heat the extra steel box then try to heat the timber on the other side of the sheetrock which qualifies for fire protection if you use the 3/4 inch stuff, but the pipe will melt and burst and flood the chaise top to bottom with a one inch line running directly from my well which delivers 72 gallons a minute. The water will hopeful stay inside the chase, extinguish the fire and only flood the bottom garage floor instead of soaking all my oak floor and it's completely passive.

It's just a simple length of pipe with no serviceable parts.