Rats, There's Rattles

Rattles. We've all had them at one point or another. Baby rattles are comforting when we're babies and not so much as we get older. We rattle around the house when we are kids, forever distracting our parents by saying "There's nothing to do!"

When they give us chores to do, it just isn't the same thing…

I have a particular rattle that is the focus of my attention most days. My house is pretty old by Canadian standards - 1980 or so - but practically new by European standards. Be that as it may, at the start of the cold weather, as the furnace starts up, there's a rattle in the duct work. Only in one section of duct work. The one in my bedroom.

Can't hear it anywhere else.

I'm not sure why these things happen in the place that will cause the most distraction or grief. It's like the house gremlins actually undertake a study of our habits for a few months then they design the most annoying experiments possible.

I guess the worst thing is the rattle only seems to bother me. I know my darling wife can hear it. So can Son #1, which is amazing, since he really doesn't seem to hear me when I ask him to do something for me. Both can blithely go about their business. I'm beginning to think everyone else is losing their hearing except me.

So now is the time to find whatever is rattling and get rid of it. I turn the thermostat up and as the furnace goes on, I listen intently at the register, to try to figure out if something was dropped down and how far from the register it is.

Boy, it sounds close. Taking the register cover off, I start reaching down into the duct work to see if I can reach the noisemaker. As I get my elbow past the first bend, a thought occurs to me. (Yes, it does happen occasionally). I decided that it would be better if I didn't reach any farther, considering my elbow was at a sharp bend at the moment. It just goes to show, with Age comes Wisdom. Maturity, not so much.

With the wisdom comes the realization that sound will travel really, really well through furnace ducts. The rattle could be just at the register or where this particular duct comes off the main trunk. There's no way of telling. So my next idea is to turn the furnace on and bang the pipe until the rattling changes or goes away.

To do that, I'll have to remove most of the drop ceiling in the hallway and in one of the basement bedrooms. Remember, this is a 1980's home and the drop ceiling is only a little younger. These days, the new frames are rigid aluminum and fairly easy to work with. Mine are plastic tees that just hang together without fastening to each other and the ceiling tiles are not quite all the same shape. Sigh.

I figure it will take about 20 minutes to take the ceiling down, 15 minutes to find out where the rattle is and probably 40 minutes to replace the puzzle ceiling properly. Mostly. Maybe.

When you add in the DIY factor of four thousand, six hundred and thirty-two, I calculate that this job shouldn't take me more than two days, give or take a week.

So when you see me out and about and it looks like I'm sleep-walking more than usual, it means that I haven't found the rattle yet. Just point me to a quiet place where I can catch up on my sleep, like next to the train tracks.