It was a problem three years ago, after the household got a new furnace. Harry, always curious to find the highest, most secure, point in a room, particularly in those days when he was frequently harassed by Abby and Floyd, found that if he jumped up from the top of the water heater to the top of the end of the shiny newly-installed cold-air return, and then crawled between the joists on the basement ceiling, he would land in a wondrous cat-sized maze of straight metallic passages, all alike. That is, the heating ductwork for the furnace.
(Harry, April 2007, in the rafters next to the ducts.)
One passage led him to the cold-air register in the dining room floor, where he'd sit on the far side of the grate and meow piteously to be let out (until you went to the trouble of removing the grate, when he'd turn and disappear back into the ductwork again). Another led him to the register in the foyer. Another led him, after a confused step forward into full reflective shininess, to a 10-foot chute, straight down the metal ducting, landing on the floor of the air flow reserve area in the furnace itself. I'll be clear: he was inside the furnace.
We could hear him meowing in there, a little scared by the sound of it, but more inconvenienced than in pain. The space he was in was perhaps 8 inches wide by 12 inches long, and 10 feet straight up. I unscrewed a grating from a vent from the wall of the duct, about 18 inches off the floor, and was able to reach in and down, and pull the cat out through a ragged vent hole in the metal -- not a job I care to repeat.
At the time, I blocked up the rafter entrance with whatever appropriately sized things we had in the basement. The cat did not appreciate the barrier, but eventually, I piled more there than he could scrape out of his way, and the adventures in metal ductwork stopped.
Today, emboldened by new skills with power tools and wood learned in the kitchen project, and aware that potential house-buyers won't be much impressed by a pile of plastic bin covers and an empty shoebox, I made a proper barrier. It isn't perfect -- one bit of wood split when I used it, but it's rather out of the way, so I left it as is. Certainly, it's in solidly enough that cats (and rats and possums) can't push it over. I left an explanation for future curiosity seekers, too.
(It says, BEHIND THIS BARRIER There is a hole in the cold air return system of the furnace. Everything works fine, but cats will crawl in, ending up in furnace. (Unharmed but trapped.))
2 comments:
Unharmed as long as the furnace isn't generating heat, I presume?
I'm so glad you closed it off. I feel short of breath thinking about it.
I don't really know about the unharmed part. He was actually in a floor-to-ceiling duct that is adjacent to the furnace proper. I couldn't see into it (beyond the angle allowed by the hole to the outside) but I assume there must be another hole from the duct into the furnace, to allow the cold air in -- and why put a grating over that internal hole? I don't know if the cat could, or would have tried, to jump through it.
I don't know how hot that duct gets when the furnace is heating -- in other words, even if the internal hole was not cat-tempting, might he have been baked by the adjacency? The duct wasn't warm when I rescued him, but this happened in late spring or summer, so it's possible the furnace wasn't heating at the time.
I mostly just don't want to think about it.
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