Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Temperature Alarm

Good morning everybody. It is 2am and I just got home from a nearly futile hour of troubleshooting in the greenhouses. That's right the low temperature alarm went off this morning and I got the call at 12:45. I had a feeling that was going to happen but I figured everything was ok since the last few nights everything had been copacetic. First thing I noticed is that the swamp cooler was still running. The Gift Store was really cold. So I shut that off. Then I went up the ladder to the boiler room to see what's what. The controller was calling for heat but the furnace wasn't turning on, the pump wasn't going. Nothing. It finally dawned on me to check the fuse boxes and low and behold the breakers were off for the pumps, thermostats and furnace. So I flipped them and they roared to life. What a sweet sound. So I stuck around and everything seemed fine so down the ladder I went into the greenhouses. I heard the fan going in the east greenhouse and thought "great!" So I went back into the butterfly house and waited for the hot water to make it to the radiotor in there. And I waited. Waited. And waited some more. Up the ladder I went and discovered silence. Everything had shut itself off. The furnace was still warm although the water temp was less than 80 degrees. The outdoor sensor light was on Good. But the furnace had turned off. Not so good. I fiddled with the manual pump but that didn't do anything. Hmm. The controller was still calling for heat. I had reset the night temperature and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with everything shutting off. The breakers hadn't flipped but I was about to. I'd done everything I could for now. The outside temperature wasn't going to go below 50 tonight both the butterflies and the plants would live through the night. According to the controller the temperature in both greenhouses had only dropped by three tenths of a a degree in the last hour. The temperature in the puparium was at 68 so the chrysalids would be fine too. I decided to call it a night and try again in the morning when I can talk to someone who call help me figure this whole mess out. I'll let you know how it all works out.

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