Come on, mateys, step in time!

I thought there’d be more frolicking.

Mr. Walt Disney led me to believe chimney sweeps like to whoop it up. They got the job done, sure, but they danced around the house, too. I’d been prepared for a little elbow linking, some flapping like a birdie.

As spring days go, though, yesterday felt more like bird flipping than flapping.

It all started last week with a broken furnace, diligently repaired. What followed is the flowchart we old home owners have come to expect when anyone with a ladder sticking off the back of their truck shows up at their house.

The working furnace set off the carbon monoxide detectors, so the repairmen came back. They spent most of a day trying to unblock the flue. Alas, they could not reach whatever living or dead thing was blocking the vent.

Enter the sweeps, a busy couple of gents, who had only one opening, and it was five days out. During that time, Wisconsin opted to recall its spring so it got a little chilly, some might say freezing, around these parts.

We muddled through (it actually wasn’t too bad, just a little challenging to leave those warm covers in the morning.)

Still, I was thrilled to see the sweeps pull up yesterday morning.

Come on, Mateys, step in time!

They did not return my enthusiasm.

“I didn’t bring my 40-foot ladder and I’m not going on the roof,” the one that talked grumped.

“Well, hopefully we won’t need you to do that,” I said. (I mean, maybe we could Mary Poppins ourselves up there, right?)

He shined his flashlight into the flue.

“I can’t unblock this,” he said. “If I do, I might rip the liner.”

I asked the alternative.

“I could install a new liner but that’s a very tall chimney.”

Cost?

“Thousands.”

I don’t like when that many zeros don’t begin with a specific number, so I offered an alternative plan.

“What if you tried to fix it and then, if you can’t, we talk about replacing it?”

“I can try that.”

He went back out to his truck for his rods muttering, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

I told him if I had a nickel for every time a repairman came into this old house and said those very words, I’d be a wealthy woman.

He seemed to like that.

I sat down to do some work, and left them to theirs.

He quickly popped back and said, “Well, I couldn’t get my rods in but he (and he nodded to the one that doesn’t talk) shook the liner and a bunch of stuff came out. Then the air flowed through. So, I think we get ‘er out.”

They added some insulation and a chrome band for good measure and we all did a little dance. (Mine involved running an ink pen over check.)

He turned the furnace back on, and we waited for the carbon monoxide detector to kick in.

Blissful silence, so my sweeps hightailed it on to their next job.

They probably should have gone round the chimney one more time, though, because the furnace kicked off immediately.

Furnace guy came back.

I told him the whole sad tale. He apologized for the entire repair industry,

“That guy just didn’t want to do the job,” he said, “He knew that if he couldn’t get his rods in, something was blocking that liner.”

So, I guess it’s time to call an audible on the sweep, (ie: bring in a different one.)

I hope this one dances.