Living with Engineers

So here's what happened.  I have a large industrial type hood over my kitchen cooktop.

A while back, I posted about when we remodeled our kitchen and the significant effort we went to installing this hood.  The kitchen is on the middle floor, and so it required some thought and no small amount of demolition of the ceiling.

Fast forward to today...or, more accurately, about two weeks ago...and you'll find me happily cooking up something in the kitchen with the fan sucking exhaust like it was intended to do.  I think I was frying up bacon or something that makes a lot of grease, and the fan was going full blast.  When it's on full blast, it sounds something like a jet engine.  (Fortunately, it has some quieter settings as well.)  It was roaring along nicely until I shut it off and there was a distinct sound of rattling inside the fan followed by a high-pitched wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee sound.  "Oh no," I said.  "That can't be good."

When Mike got home, I told him what had happened, and he knew instantly what the problem was.  It seems that when the hood was installed, there was a bushing missing and so he and the guy we hired to do the duct work jerry-rigged a part that would do the trick.  Over time, that solution has failed and the flapper valve (these are technical terms, so try to keep up) fell down onto the fan.  

Knowing what the problem was and fixing it turned out to be two different balls of wax.  For the past couple of weeks, Mike (the engineer) has been considering options for lowering the hood (preferably without dropping it) and repairing it.  Calling a repairman is always out of the question when one lives with an engineer.  Finally, he figured out what he was going to do, and today he put his plan into action.  

It involved the purchase of a motorcycle/ATV jack, which will come in handy when he needs to repair the ATVs.  (Why do I get the feeling that the plan was always going to include the purchase of said jack no matter how the fix went down?)  So today, he called me into the garage to admire the contraption he built.  He is calling it the Deepwater Horizon II.  I have to admit, it does look something like a scale model of the Deepwater Horizon, minus the Gulf of Mexico.  In giving it that name, he also hoped real hard that there would be no problems with it bursting into flames and sinking into the ocean.

Step back and let a professional show you how this thing works.

Here's how it looks from the other side.

And here's your little helper.

So, as he lowered it down, he realized that he would also need to support the "chimney" (for lack of a better word).  He needed that to stay up so that he could unscrew the hood.

And may I just say right here that anything that can be done in the kitchen is always better with a can of tomato sauce added.

Smitty was wishing very much that someone would do something interesting.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO rule the roost.

I took pity on him and threw his favorite sparkly ball up the stairs a few times to wear him out.  This is his favorite game, and he likes these balls, which inconveniently look like Christmas bows.

Oh, and while Mike is unscrewing the hood, I'll just show you the apron that Santa Claus brought me.  Isn't this a riot?

So once he had the hood disconnected and lowered.  He could see the problem.

And here is the culprit, just as he predicted.

So this is where he left it when he went into town to buy some parts.

As I'm writing this, he is putting it all back together.  He's already turned it on, and it sounds like the old familiar jet engine again.  What a relief.

When I wasn't holding things up or handing him tools, I was working on my latest Doors of Ireland quilt block.  Here's the door I'm doing:

And here's what I ended up with.

I think next time around, I'll give this one a try, and maybe 'zazz it up with some terra cotta pots or something.  I kind of like the split door feature.

How has your weekend been?