chapter
9
Check the Plug
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
—SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY
War Story. In June 1984 my family moved into a ninety-year-old house and quickly became familiar with the hodgepodge of systems that kept it running. Everything was dual, it seemed, starting with the dual electric service for the apartment upstairs (along with wiring quirks that I’ll discuss later). There were dual furnaces driving the forced hot water heating system, one wood burning, which the previous owner had used for primary heat, and one oil burning, which he had used for backup and which I decided to use for primary heat. (They say that burning wood heats you three times: when you split it, when you stack ...
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