Chai

 I only drink coffee in the morning.  Two cups is my limit and cut off time is 11:00 a.m. or I don't sleep that night.

Two nights ago, I wanted some hot chocolate.   I'd been outside and over to the park, gotten wet over there, in the downpour, come home and the snow had begun, although it didn't last.

This was hot chocolate weather and I searched my cupboards but could not find so much as a packet left from a camp trip.

My right shoulder has been terribly paiinful, rendering my right arm almost useless.  I sleep with an ice pack on it and sometimes a heat pad and hot chocolate sounded so comforting, in the face of it, and the bleak weather.

The only thing I found was a tin of Chai.  I bought it before Christmas to send to my sister in law, who, if my memory was correct, likes it.  I never sent it so there it was.  I had two cups of warm Chai and it was very very good.  Alas, if I'd thought much, I would have realized the black tea was loaded in caffeine.

I had a long phone conversation before bed with a Portland friend.  I'm not much of a phone talker but we went on and on.  It was after 11:00 p.m. when I went to brush my teeth and retire.   In the bathroom, however, while brushing my teeth, I heard this racket coming from my heat pump, which is right outside the window.  I would have heard the sound earlier if it had been doing it long, because I'd been in the garage, and can clearly hear the pump in there.

I took this recording from my bathroom window.  The heat pump is right outside that window.  

Oh shoot, I thought, oh no.  I put on sandals and grabbed a flashlight and went out the garage door and around the front and down the side to where the pump was.  I saw it was covered in ice on the top and felt a little better to see this, thinking the fan blades were hitting ice.  They had sounded like they were hitting metal and I could imagine the thing shredding itself into a twisted pile.

I shut the system down at that time, fearing the worst.  For a time, I tried switching it to emergency heat, which produces heat very very slowly, through the furnace coils.  It was not that cold outside, maybe 35 degrees F.  I spent the next two hours searching youtube for answers and worrying over a large expense on my brother, who owns this place, not wanting to be a problem here for him.  He works very very hard.  I don't want anything bad on him, like a big expense for this house, because I have a roof over my head thanks to him.

I couldn't get to sleep til the early hours of the morning.  Chai!!!

I woke at 9:00 a.m. this morning, an ungodly late hour for me to rise.  I was groggy and blurry but I called my brother or he called me, I can't remember which.  He said it's probably just the ice, that the snow came late and the heat pump's insides get colder than the air, in stealing heat from the air, and once it melted all would be well.   I felt relief talking to him.  He was very calm.    He was also going to be in meetings all day.

I carried hot water out to the heat pump once dressed.   I wouldn't go out in daylight in my pj's and scare the neighbors like that.  I think they already believe I'm nuts.   Two pans of hot water was all it took to get the ice off the top and the lip just inside the pump's cover, where it was clear the fan blades were hitting ice buildup.   

Snow, that turned to ice atop the unit

Fan blades hit ice that had accumulated from snow on the top of the unit.

I turned off the pump and furnace at the breaker too, and let it sit off for ten minutes.  Like a reboot of the thermostat and machines.  I turned it back on then.  In the night, despite being 35 degrees out, the house temp, without heat on, had only sunk to 60 degrees, a testament to good insulation.  Or maybe to cat heat, as an alternative.  I also changed the furnace filter.  Just for good measure.  I'd changed it only three weeks prior.  It was not dirty and I saved the old one and will put it back in.

When I turned it back on, however, despite the pump no longer making the horrible noise, the house would not heat and the thermostat said it was on auxillary heat.  This is a very slow way to heat the house back up to 68 from 60 and took hours, almost all day.  Just when I was sure the heat pump would no longer assist in heating the house, the system kicked back into heat mode, no longer using the furnace coils.  I sent a text to my brother with one word---Hallelujah!   He understood what I meant.

I learned a lot about heat pumps, watching youtube DIY repair videos, so I don't count the day as a loss.  But I won't be drinking Chai again, after 11:00 a.m.