Reflections - Internal Climate Change (Part 3)

Herb Digging, Randy and Spence Talking, Greg Monitoring

A gray-haired Kennihan employee with tattoos on the back of his hands operated the backhoe Friday morning, December 17. Wary of approaching him in the scraping, crunching, beeping machine, I headed for the two younger employees standing at the edge of the deepening trench that would bring the geothermal pipes from the first well to the house. I approached these young men from behind. “Welcome. May I take photos of you working?”

Greg, a geothermal pipe and duct specialist, chuckled. “Go ahead.”

Because they were both tall and athletic, I used Greg’s sporty black beard to distinguish him from Randy, the clean shaven head plumber who came to spot and fetch. He smiled and nodded.

Greg shouted to the older man in the backhoe. “Hey, Herb. She wants to take your picture.”

“Grrr. I’ll have to stop the machine until she gets out of the way.”

Though I stood farther from the ditch than the helpers, I backed away, circled the house to keep far from the backhoe, and took photos from the porch steps.

Greg jumped into the deepening trench to shovel dirt off the basement’s Superior Walls and rocks away from the sides of the trenches.

Herb scooped them up. When the sides of the trench crumbled, he yelled, “Get the metal box. I don’t want this caving in on Greg.”

Randy fetched metal bars and assembled them. Greg chained the box to the bucket. Herb lowered it into the five by two-foot trench near the basement wall.

Going inside, I set the camera on the kitchen table and fetched a rooibos tea bag from the cupboard.

BRRRRRREET.

The metal stairs vibrated from the loft to the basement.

I dropped the tea bag, covered my ears, and hoped the cats wouldn’t freak.

BRRRRRREET.

Ande dove under the sofa and sucked in his cheeks. Gilbert dashed behind the wood stove. Rills crouched under the kitchen table.

I crept down the vibrating stairs. Eight inches above the basement floor, the drill had bored two holes like snake eyes, each big enough to allow a fat black snake to slither through.

Not wanting to miss a moment of the geothermal process, I raced back to the kitchen window.

Outside Randy jumped into the trench with Greg. Herb directed. Greg pulled the geothermal pipes—hard, one-inch, black plastic tubing—from the well across the trench. Randy threaded the pipes through the holes. He climbed out and hustled to the basement.

I crossed to the steps in time to see him pull the pipes across the basement floor. The basement door slammed shut. Footsteps crunched gravel. Silence. I settled in the great room with the mail.

Spence returned from dumping the compost pail. Scratching Rills behind the ears he said, “They’re arguing in the truck.”

“What?” I set down the Christmas note I’d been reading and searched Spence’s face for an explanation. 

“The young workers. They’re yelling at Herb. Telling him he made the people afraid to come out of their house.”

I peeked out the kitchen window. They had deserted the worksite—the trench from the first well across the driveway to the basement. Grabbing my camera, I crept the long way around the house, rather than behind the backhoe, to get the view from the opposite side and to avoid attracting Herb’s attention. I stopped two yards from the trench and focused the camera.

“Let me show you where you can stand closer,” he said walking over.

Closer? He’d been obstinate that I stay far from the trench earlier. I forced myself to look at him.

Herb pointed at his feet three-inches from the edge. “Stand here. It’s solid. I’ll explain it to you.” He gave me a friendly smile and stepped back for me to take his place.

I did, clutching the camera like a child squeezing a teddy bear.

He motioned to the silver-gray grout oozing around the pipes bending into the well. “A little of the grout spills into the trench.”

My hands shook from nervousness at Herb’s change in attitude so those pictures blurred. As he continued to explain, however, I relaxed and the pictures came out clearer.

“We’ll cement around the intake pipes so no water leaks in.” He swiveled his wrists in circles. “I’ll dump the good dirt with no rocks first. See I piled it over there.” He pointed to what looked like topsoil. “That will cushion the pipes. We’ll fill in the trench with the rocky dirt then dig the next one.” Herb gazed down the road. “We’re waiting for the inspector. He wants to see the pipes before we fill it in.” Herb sighed. “I’ve called. The boss has called. Neither of us have heard back.”

I thanked Herb.

He gave me a half smile and ambled to his truck.

 

Randy Monitoring, Greg in Trench, Herb Taking Photos for the Inspector

Around 2:00, Randy cemented the pipes while Herb took pictures with his iPad. Then Herb shook the backhoe shovel, sprinkling good dirt over the geothermal pipes. He jumped out of the cab and took more photos with just the tops of the pipes showing. Greg and Randy strung yellow caution tape over the pipes. Herb took photos then sprinkled good dirt over the caution tape. He shoved the rocky dirt into the trench then rolled back and forth, back and forth to tamp the earth down.

While they worked, I photographed from the porch steps.

Still waiting for the inspector so Herb could show him the photos and explain the process, the crew sat in the truck. 

With a break in the action, I decided to make a solo trip to Meadville. I told Spence I wanted to pick up the new medicine Dr. Mathews had prescribed for my tremors—the propranolol he’d prescribed had made me short of breath and wheeze to the point Spence wanted to take me to the emergency room. Spence offered to get the medicine. But I said I also wanted to select thread for sewing butterfly note cards. I didn’t mention planning to buy an emergency auto kit and other Christmas gifts for Spence and his Maverick that, despite ordering last June, still didn’t have a build date. He shrugged and walked me to the garage. Staying away from the Kennihan truck parked beside the road, I took the tractor path by the evergreen grove.

Herb spotted us and hustled across the lawn.

So much for sneaking away.

“The fellas said I made you afraid to come out of the house.”

Yikes. How to answer that diplomatically? I hadn’t pestered the crew like I had the two drillers, but I did get the pictures and the information I wanted. “You were just keeping everyone safe.”

Herb’s face relaxed. “Yeah. The inspector never came. I’ll send him the photos when we get back to the office. It’s too late to dig another trench today. We’ll do it Monday.”

Monday morning I lay on the sofa nibbling a potato pancake because Dr. Matthews’s new primidone prescription caused me to vomit for twelve hours Saturday and spend Sunday watching six mediocre Christmas movies. Gravel crunched in the driveway. A pickup door slammed. No one came to the porch.

Curious, I put my breakfast on the coffee table and eased to the bedroom to peek out the window. A gray-haired man, carrying a clipboard, tramped through the mud around the third well site.

Standing in the doorway, Spence held his fists on his hips and said to me, “What do you think you’re doing?”

I dodged his question. “I think the inspector’s here.”

He stepped back and pointed down the hall. “Back to the sofa. I’ll take care of him.”

But the inspector got into his pickup and drove away before Spence tucked the blanket around my ankles and stepped onto the porch.

Two hours later Zach, Kennihan’s duct work expert, arrived. He had visited Wells Wood a week before with Jerry, the project boss, to determine the number and location of vents. Zach also measured for duct work. This time he came with a helper named Mark.

“On Friday, while I was gone,” I told Zach, “Greg and Randy drilled a vent hole in the wrong place. It’s between the bed and dresser, not under the desk.”

“No,” Zach said in his calm, patient voice. “I changed the plan. I’m putting two service vents in the master bedroom. It’s fine.”

The “master bedroom” and guest room are exactly the same size. Did Zach really change his mind? He could be covering for his colleagues’ mistake, or he could intend to make the room warmer than the others. I’ll never know. Following Zach and Mark to the bedroom with the camera, I leaned on the doorjamb.

 

Zach Sawing, Mark Vacuuming

Zach moved the chair, throw rug, and electric cords before sitting cross legged by the desk. Mark crouched beside him. Zach traced a template and asked for the drill. Mark hustled down to the basement and fetched it. Zach drilled the blade straight into the edge of the drawn rectangle. Both went downstairs to check the placement. They moved a set of braces between the floor joists.

Back upstairs, Ande hopped onto the bed to watch.

Mark turned on the floor vac.

Ande’s ears swiveled. His claws dug into the quilt on the bed.

With Mark holding the nozzle of the vac beside the blade of the sawzall, Zach pressed the trigger. Rrrrrr.

Ande bolted out of the room and scratched his way down the hall.

I lost count of the numerous trips Mark ran up and down the stairs. Once Zach lifted out the cut floor, Mark pushed the metal vent up from the basement. Zach hammered the vent in place and taped a piece of cardboard over it because the service covers hadn’t arrived yet, a supply chain issue.

While I rested on the sofa, Zach and Mark installed a return vent behind the bedroom door and moved to the guest room. Rills and Gilbert had napped through the bedroom drilling. They woke for the guest room work. Ears flattened and tails thrashing, the tabby brothers stalked through the great room. Ande took refuge under the plant table.

An hour after the indoor team arrived, Herb came with Justin—plumper, plainer, and quieter than the handsome assistants Herb had yesterday.

Shuttling between the bedroom window and the great room, I kept an eye on both crews.

Herb dug a trench in the front yard four feet out from the middle of the house then made a ninety degree turn toward the second well across the driveway. They lowered the metal box into the trench by the house and took a lunch break.

Zach didn’t take lunch breaks so Mark kept working too. I hoped he’d eaten brunch during the hour and a half drive from Butler. They opened the bathroom window, covered the surfaces with drop cloths, and drilled through the ceramic tiles. RRRRRRR. Rills monitored from under a kitchen chair and Gilbert from my hewn log chair in the great room. Ande scampered to the guest room and squeezed between the bed and the wall.

When Zach and Mark moved furniture around in the kitchen, Ande’s brothers joined him in the guest room.

Zach traced a service vent under the kitchen window. Mark checked its position. They opened that window, sat on the floor, then covered themselves and the work area with a blue cloth. Buzzing and hammering penetrated the cover cloth.

 

Zach and Mark Sawing Tile for the Kitchen Vent

After their lunch break, Herb extended the driveway branch of the trench. Justin measured the depth and shoveled out rocks. That trench complete, Justin, BRRRRRREET, drilled holes in the basement wall. Herb clomped to the basement. “I told you to leave a space between the holes,” he yelled. “Not put them together.”

I didn’t hear Justin’s answer.

“I don’t believe it. I honestly don’t believe it,” Herb ranted. “You got the holes so damn close together.”

Maybe they could fix it? When Herb tramped out, I tiptoed halfway downstairs. Justin had left less than an inch between the holes.

The basement door squeaked open.

I hustled back up.

Zach and Mark repeated their kitchen window procedure by the great room window, but the drop cloth didn’t cover their derrieres completely.

RRRRR. BANG. RRRRR. CLATTER.

Tile dust floated down the hall and tickled my nose.

To the cats’ dismay, Zach and Mark sawed a total of nine vent holes. Those plus the one made Friday totaled ten—seven supply and three return.

Outside, Herb sprinkled dirt over the tubes in the bottom of the driveway trench. Justin spread yellow caution tape over the tubes. They filled in the trench across the driveway to the ninety degree turn. Justin arranged orange, plastic fencing around the open hole outside. Herb finished the basement connections from the second well’s tubes. All four men left at 4:30.

Quiet.

The cats relaxed.

I went downstairs. The holes for the pipes were closer than those for the first well, but Herb had managed to get wider spaces. He must have cemented some holes in and bored others.

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, Winter Solstice, two Kennihan trucks brought the same four workers to Wells Wood. Soft spoken, patient Zach moved junk in the basement so he and Mark could set the WaterFurnace 7 Series under the main support beam.

Ande trotted downstairs to supervise until sheet metal crackled. He scampered to the top step. 

Zach banged a screwdriver into a metal duct to make a hole for metal shears.

Ande dashed to the loft and hunkered beside my yoga bag. 

Zach cut holes in the ducts for take offs. Under the guest room return vent, Mark stapled thermopan, silver colored cardboard that insulates and muffles sounds.

Outside the backhoe rumbled, and Herb dug the third trench.

I photographed him through the bedroom window—an experiment to see if photos would take through the screen.

You’re a coward.

It’s a great angle!

You didn’t ask Herb a single question yesterday.

I’m staying out of his way.

You’re avoiding him.

Maybe.

I forced myself to go outside to take pictures of the third trench.

Herb walked over. “We broke a pipe to your cistern.” He pointed into the trench. “We didn’t know it was there.”

“I didn’t either. I thought it was over here.” I motioned from the corner of the house to the cistern. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Herb’s white beard, lips, and cheeks morphed into a gracious anyone-can-make-mistakes smile. The tattoos on the back of his hands danced as he illustrated his next sentence. “The pipes come from the gutters and meet to form a T in front of the house. Then the pipe goes at a diagonal to your cistern. We’ll fix it. Jerry’s coming up with a part this afternoon and bringing the truck to haul the backhoe. I’ve got another job tomorrow so we’ve got to load it up tonight.” Still smiling, he climbed into the cab and dug around the remaining pieces of the pipe. He changed the bucket size from big to medium to small to finesse the job.

I left him at it and checked on the inside crew. A hammer banged against a screwdriver to punch a hole in metal. A drill buzzed to screw the trunk line to the support beam. No cats watched the action. By 4:30, the end of the day for the inside crew, the service trunk line hung in place with the middle fatter than the ends to increase the speed of the air, according to Zach. They also had most of the return trunk line installed.

Jerry arrived when Zach and Mark left.

As the sky darkened on the shortest day of the year, the outdoor crew hustled to fix the broken pipe, fill in the last trench, and load the backhoe. Spence walked about chatting with the workers. I carried my camera and wished for more light. Herb grinned at me. “Here comes the boss.” He waved in my direction. How could I have thought him prickly? He had a cordial part to his nature.

Spence snatched a green post-it note off the electric box and waved it at Herb and Jerry. “Did you fellas put this here?”

They shook their heads.

Spence read the message aloud. “Approved.” He scrunched his forehead. “Huh. The inspector must have left it yesterday morning.”

Jerry took the note and stuffed it into his pocket. The men hustled to their trucks and drove off.

With the outdoor work completed and approved, I thought I wouldn’t see Herb again.

I was wrong.

 

Four Geothermal Pipes into the Basement from the Front Yard

 

End of Part 3