Thursday brought the heating problems back into focus. The young man on New Years Eve had failed to get any heat into the system and then spent most of New Years Day trying to get it right and failing. His solution arrived in two separate estimates. One was for almost a thousand pounds and the other for a hundred and fifty pounds. Both solutions were based on sludge having gummed up the works.
He told us also that he had had three other jobs before becoming a plumber and it was clear that we had a Walter Mitty character on our hands. ( young readers will need to look that one up) all the jobs involved lengthy training!
He said I had to bleed one radiator a day unless I allowed him to pressure pump it because the system was blocked with sludge!
Hmmm .... I found a properly trained man I knew slightly and asked him to come and look!
No sludge, the water from the bleeding was clean as well as cold.
The culprit was the Magna Sweep, supposed to save us huge oil bills! Air is being introduced into the radiators etc and we are not sure how....
The Green homes firm who installed it for us appears to have gone out of business so there's no help coming there!
The system tonight is much improved though still not perfect but the radiators are mostly hot now.
Then another letter arrived from the first young man aka Mr Mitty. He had booked himself in to service our boiler at the end of January!
I rang the firm who employed him to cancel this booking. I added that I would not want the young man dealing with our heating from now on! The young lady who took the call was very amused...especially when I told her about his previous three jobs....
Full marks for creative line spinning. Zero for actually providing heat!
Friday morning.
Most radiators are on this morning but I have had to bleed the one in our bedroom! It's now chirruping away!
To we really need any more complications Lord?
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1 comment:
Central heating seems to me to be designed deliberately to need and expensive plumber to even maintain it. Our radiators can't be bled because you need a special type of key to turn the tap on and off, you can't drain them down if they leak for the same reason.
I can't remember how many times that I've struggle with an adjustable spanner to turn them off.
Our solution is an insurance based maintenance contract - not the cheapest thing, but over the years it has repaid itself as every radiator has been replaced at one time or another as they've sprung a leak.
The boiler itself, now over 30 years old continues going with an occasional bleep - but spares are still available so we persevere with it and pay the contractor to maintain it.
Nothing sophisticated about it - belt and braces, but it works for us. We dread the day, which will come and we have to replace it with one of those modern boilers which are only warranted for 5 years and seem designed to fail just after the warranty runs out :(
Prayers for you and David as you struggle to maintain an even temperature in your home as David obviously needs to be comfortable.
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