I woke up at the Pike house hotter than normal today. The box fan, not more than a foot from my head, was roaring. My alarm, now under my loft for unknown reasons, clanged brazenly but could not compete with the jet-like thunder of the fan. Sweating, I stumbled out of bed, slapped the alarm off, and braced myself for the light of day.

After taking a shower, I decided to tackle the perpetual heat that saturates third floor, location of my room. After feeling the HVAC registers, I decided that a low air flow was the source of my agony. Increasing the flow meant examining the ductwork and the AC unit.

I made my way through the crawl space to the air conditioning evaporator unit, pulled of the cover, and was not at all shocked to see a dirty air filter. Very dirty. In fact, it was so caked with dust that it had become opaque. The last time the filter was changed was in August 2001 when I discovered a similar situation. I’ve heard that the filters should be changed monthly; now I see why. I got a new filter from the supply closet, installed it, and was dismayed to find no increase in air flow. What else could cause the problem?

I checked the evaporator core to see if it had frozen. Nope. Perhaps the blower fan had something touching it. Nada. Maybe the flexible ducts were being pinched. Indeed, some were. Although moving the ducts didn’t increase flow, doing so led me to the real culprit: poor duct joints.

I emerged from the plenum, hopped in the Bonnie, and drove to the hardware store. “Where’s the duct tape?” “Down aisle 10” “No, not the gray ‘Duck’ duct tape. I want the stuff that actually can be used on ducts. You know, the shiny silver adhesive foil.” “Ah, you want aisle 10” “Great. Yowza! That stuff is expensive!” “Yup.” “That’s it? That was some pathetic empathy…” “Yep. Do you need a bag for that?”

Okay, I made that exchange up. The people at Ace Hardware were actually quite helpful, and the girl who showed me the HVAC duct tape nearly freaked out over the price. It was a bit expensive: 10 yards for $3.99. Ah well. Supply and demand.

After I got back to the House, I returned to the ducts. Everywhere I felt cold air, I slapped some tape down. In one case I plugged a hole with tape and a sock. Another time, I needed to plug a gaping (5 x 20 inch) hole, so out came the cardboard. Incidentally, I think that the behemoth hole was the source of my air pressure woes.

After buttoning up the system with the foil duct tape, socks, cardboard, and a pear tree, I checked the register. Success! Iced air was gushing out in a stream of cold.

In fact, it is getting so cold in here that I can no longer tolerate sitting at the computer. That, and it is now 3:20 a.m., so I probably should go to sleep. Off to enjoy a blissful protracted slumber!