dirt ducts snakes

[darkoshi]

Last weekend I mucked about in 2 crawlspaces.

At the new house, one of the ducts had been loose and leaking out hot air (hopefully the reason for the high gas usage last month). An HVAC technician fixed it, but I wanted to look around to make sure there was nothing else obviously wrong-looking down there, and to get photos of everything.

I explored a part of the crawlspace with my high-intensity flashlight, headlamp, and camera. But a big low-hanging duct blocked my way to the other half of the crawlspace.

I wondered how the HVAC guy had managed it. Surely if a small person like me couldn't get through, even slithering on my belly... I suddenly wondered if there was another entrance into the crawlspace. There were no other entrances around the outside of the house. But in the garage closet, I found an access hatch. Bingo! Qiao knew about it, but I hadn't thought of asking him before-hand.

So I went in that way, found the duct that the HVAC guy had repaired, and took a bunch more photos.






Then my mom told me that she had been in her crawlspace unsuccessfully trying to find out where one replaces the filters. Since I was full of dirt from the other crawlspace anyway, I offered to take a look. The headroom in her crawlspace is somewhat better than at the other house. It turns out her system has an electronic air filter which has been turned off since she got the house. I'll have to go back to check what is inside the unit; when I was down there, I didn't realize that the front panel can be pulled off. It's possible the original cells may have been removed and replaced with a disposable filter - that may be why the switch was turned off.

There was a surprise in my mom's crawlspace: a long long long snake skin winding around the HVAC system. A snake must have shed its skin. Or maybe multiple snakes. Or maybe one snake multiple times. It was so long that I hope it wasn't a single shedding from a single snake.

Now I know to watch out for snakes when crawling around in crawlspaces.

Comments

[andrewducker]

Wow! Impressive snake skin!

[darkoshi]

For all I know, it might be a decade old or more. I plan to check the photos I took the last time I was in my mom's crawlspace, to see if there were any signs of it back then. I don't remember seeing it before, but maybe it was there and just didn't grab my attention like this time.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Yow.
Do they have bullsnakes where you are? That's what it looks like to me -- and they do get to the nearly two meter long range, very occasionally, if they're well-fed.

[darkoshi]

I don't know. I didn't see any patterns in the skin though - it's a fairly constant light tan color.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

My wife points out you may want to look on top of the furnace and water heater, because snakes like the warmth there.

[darkoshi]

Good advice, thanks. I've now checked my photos from 2 and a half years ago, the last time I was down there, and I don't see the skin in those photos. So the snake must have been down there in the time since then. I was sort of hoping the skin was ancient and that I had simply overlooked it the last time I was down there.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakeskin :
" A shed skin is much longer than the snake that shed it, as the skin covers the top and bottom of each scale. If the skin is shed intact, each scale is unwrapped on the top and bottom side of the scale which almost doubles the length of the shed skin. "

I can't picture that, but it is somewhat reassuring at least to know that the snake might have been only half the length of the skin.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Whoah. I had no idea. But, yeah, that makes sense: it's like spraypainting a pinecone and then very carefully removing the cone, and what's left is this springy thing with way more surface area than you'd anticipate.