:: plumb crazy

The plumber-who-put-Jack's-bath-in-wrong wasn't busy at all. He - or rather his underling - rang the doorbell at 9am on Thursday, the day after I phoned. Underling, an extremely reserved youth, scurried up the ladder into the loft and had the ballcock replaced in a jiffy. He didn't have a timer in the van, he said, so he'd be back later.

I popped up to the loft and put the lid back on the header tank and tucked in its cosy insulation. It is winter, after all.

Underling returned at lunchtime. He had the old timer off in a jiffy but couldn't work out how to fit the new one. After a phone call his boss arrived. I sat in on the lesson in How to Replace a Timer and I think I could do it myself now. Apparently it's reasonably important to make a note of which wire goes where, or else you may fuse the switch and get told off and have to run out to the van for a new fuse and a better screwdriver. Also, it's good to turn off the switch before poking at live wires with said screwdriver.

Eventually they got the thing wired up, but then the heating wouldn't come on. It's your solenoid, Bossman said. Eh? Then the heating came on. "It should come on right away," he said. "It came on right away last night," I replied. He denied having caused solenoidal problems & suggested I replace it - "forty quid". When I balked, pointing out that it was actually still working, he suddenly noticed the lack of ventilation.

Uh oh. Next thing Underling is hurrying out to the van for a notice, which Bossman duly affixed to the front of the gas heater.



Every time a gas plumber comes to my house I end up with a notice tied to the heater. Scottish Gas do nice big yellow ones. The real scunner though was when he came back the next morning (9am again) with a form for me to sign, presumably absolving himself of all responsibility in the event of me dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. I don't know, I was still asleep when I signed it.

The new timer is a snazzy electronic number, though it does pretty much the same job as the old one. Which had a sticker on the back showing that it was over 20 years old!



The new timer won't need to last that long - I'm planning to get a new system in the next couple of years.

I'm really tired of those warnings.