Winterize?

It’s that time of year where we “winterize” our homes.  I really had no idea what this meant.  Close the windows?  Get out the blankets?  Turn off the swamp cooler and turn on the heater?  This all seems pretty logical and certainly not noteworthy of a specific term such as “winterize”.  Unfortunately, I know better now.  To “winterize” your swamp cooler is a little more than just turning it off.

Last winter, I did just that.  I turned it off.  With my keen homeowner’s senses, I picked up the first problem right away.  When you walked through our hallway (where the swamp cooler is located) it was freaky cold!  Aaah!  That big, square, boxlike, canvas cover?  Where is that?  In no time, we found it, and shut off the cool draft coming straight through the ceiling.  All is well.  Winterize?  Just a bunch of men making something sound so much harder than it really is right?

Winter went fine.  No problems.  We stayed warm.  We baked.  We slept peacefully beneath all the down comforters.  And then we began to yearn for spring.  And spring came.  And summer.

Obviously, we remembered that we had covered the swamp cooler.  Piece of cake.  Just take the cover off and we are good to go!  I’m sitting at work when I get this frantic phone call.  My daughter is screaming, “The bathroom is full of water!”  I’m trying to understand.  “What?  What do you mean?  Which bathroom?  Where is the water coming from?”  She then explains, although still screaming, “There is water pouring out from the ceiling fan in the upstairs bathroom!  I don’t know when it started, but the bathroom is flooded with water!  And it keeps on coming!”  Naturally I jump in the car to rush home.  I get another call, “The water is coming through the ceiling lights in the kitchen!”  “What the?”

Those of you who “winterize” and know what it means to “winterize” understand that I never drained the water from the copper piping of the swamp cooler.  The copper pipes burst when the water inside froze during the winter.  Aaah... frozen pipes?  Summer came and my daughter turned on the pump of the swamp cooler and the water flowed from the broken pipes, filled our attic, flowed right through the ceiling fan in our bathroom, and then made its way to the kitchen ceiling lights.

Yeah… “winterize”… it means something.

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