Beehive epilogue

I hope this is the absolute final time we have to deal with that beehive
from last year.

Once again, though this time we should have been checking it, we ran out
of propane, just before 4 am or so Christmas morning. I know because
that's when I woke up from being too cold and checked the furnace pilot
light. It was out, while the water heater still had enough to keep
going, which was quickly done when my mom got up and rinsed her coffee
cup later on. Maybe we should be checking the gauge every day to better
regulate our usage of propane...

Anywho, so I decided, at 4 am or so, to clear away the stuff around the
"Better n Ben's" fireplace insert which thankfully was not removed by my
older sister when she went on her rampage throwing away my grandparents
things, either by extremely cheap yard sale or just in the garbage
instead of letting us make money on eBay.

And so I begin to make a fire. It has a flue control thingy and it's
open all the way. This thing does a nice job with the heat stuff. I
probably could even cook on it, and I got the teapot we had used before
but wasn't being used now and filled it with water and put it on the
wood burner thingy. I used it as a gauge to tell me how hot the thing
got because it made a noise when the water was in its various stages of
boiling. Had I been in the mood during the day for tea or something, I
had ready access to the proper hot water. (grin)

After a while, I don't know how long, but at one point when I had the
fire going pretty well, something fell down the chimney. Then after a
while something else smaller also fell down. Ah. From the sounds, it
must have been the beehive's remains. Good. It's off the sides of the
chimney's walls.

Later on the AmeriGas guy shows up. Mom made a call to get some sent
out, and being Christmas and all, it would be an extra emergency charge,
and asked for the minimum amount to be delivered. Some time after 4 pm
(mind you, during the daylight hours, we were cooking and I was tending
to the fire, using a small fan to spread the heat out of my room into
the basement to keep the pipes warm - so we weren't cold and suffering
like similar winter conditions last year...) the guy shows up, does a
leak test, and accidentally puts in more than what mom ordered. He says
it was his mistake not watching what he was doing, but don't worry about
it now, let's just get the heat on again.

Anywho, this morning around 5 am. I wake up with a bit of sinus headache
that went away after a while. Ah... The guy last night checking the
exhaust from the furnace says it's not quite drawing things out like it
should and should be checked.

Well, I couldn't wait for help, and dismantled the exhaust pipe from the
furnace to the chimney. Part of the beehive remains, now somewhat ashy
and cremated, had fallen down and partially blocked the opening for the
furnace pipe. Ah. So I get a box, the poker and shovel for the
woodburner and proceed to dig it all out. Stinky and all. I used a
vacuum cleaner to get the rest out. Air flow returned.

I'm getting to know my grandfather's furnace pretty well. Hopefully it's
info I can use later.