Nitty gritty

Cool, rainy (mid-30s)

Every time I see the warning label on a little wall-mounted space heater, I think, Yeah, of course you would be able to clean this thing out every six months. How hard is it to remember to prevent fire? It’s clearly a good priority. And really, vacuuming out a little heater isn’t a big deal. All you have bring is the vacuum, extension cord, and appropriate screwdrivers. Then you unscrew the cover, blow the dust out of the parts, vacuum up some of the dust, and put it all back together. No biggie, right?

Yeah… for the first one. Maybe even the first five or so. But there are forty-four of these tasks distributed throughout camp, and many of them are accessible only by ladder. Blowing them out means blowing nasty brown dust right back into my own face, and coming out of the whole adventure with black snot. It’s pretty awesome.

As you might predict, I only found time to clean six of these heaters today; after a few, the rain stopped, and I made it outside to work on some prettifying projects. This month is creeping up to be crunch time here; construction has finally begun on a few buildings, and we’ll also need to be getting ready for the rental season. It’s hard to fathom that the winter is coming to a close. I’m not really ready for it to end; I’m not eager to stop having evenings to myself, and I’m also not excited to see camp off just yet. I guess it’s the nature of seasonal jobs, but that doesn’t make it easy.