The gas man cometh... part three
I am currently sitting at my desk with a wet flannel wrapped around my right calf, held in place by a paperclip. I look and feel faintly ridiculous, but that's an order of magnitude better than "itchy", so I'll take it.
In other words, I was doomed from the moment I commented that I seemed to be getting the better of my allergy rash. Hah. Itchy legs all last night, to the point where I got up twice, once just to sponge them down to cool off, and a second time to run a nice lukewarm bath. At 2am. Er, yes. I think I might have got about an hour of sleep in total, right before the alarm went off.
I dragged my weary (and itchy) body out of bed and headed off to work, but clearly I was doing such a good impression of death warmed up that my boss took one look at me when he got in an hour later and told me to go home. So I finished off a couple of essential tasks and did just that, and tucked myself up in bed for a few more hours. I do not comprehend the reasons why, but apparently itchy legs don't itch that much during the day. Just at night, when you want them to shut up so that you can go to sleep.
I did better at napping from mid afternoon onwards than I did before that though - it was a lot quieter.
While stumbling bleary-eyed through the process of washing and getting ready to face the day this morning, I happened to occupy myself during the electric toothbrush's two minute timer by wandering into the kitchen to take another look at the not-entirely-secure pressure gauge on the boiler. And I thought that I heard a funny clattering sound while I was there.
Wanting to eliminate the electric toothbrush as a culprit - after all, I wouldn't put anything past a device that can set up vibrations on a computer monitor just by being in the same room as it - I finished the tooth cleaning activity, rinsed, and came back for a second listen.
Tick tick rattle rattle clatter. Listening around the general vicinity of the boiler determined the most likely scene of the crime to be my nice new pump. Oh no!
The clattering sound was still there when I stumbled bleary-eyed in through the door after 2 hours of work and probably the same again of sitting in traffic jams, so on my way to bed I called the gas board's emergency number. Again. I may program it into my phone at this rate. So I mentioned the funny sound from the brand new pump that was fitted yesterday, and the pressure gauge hanging loose on its spring (I wasn't about to admit to my gaffer tape), and the nice lady at the other end said that they'd send someone out that afternoon, if that was convenient?
*faints* Same day service? We haven't had that since the last millennium!
Anyway, my third gas engineer of the week duly called midway through the afternoon, my fears of being too soundly asleep to hear the doorbell proving unfounded due to the helpful clattering noises from the kitchen down the hallway from my bedroom, and he drained out the water tank, took out the pump, inspected it and put it back again. (In about half the time the guy yesterday took, by the way.) He also produced the culprit - a bit of solder, only fractionally smaller than the nail on my little finger - which had somehow lept out of the central heating circuit since yesterday and found itself a nice expensive new home. My best guess is that it's been in the system since the new bathroom was fitted three years ago, since that involved the replacement of the original radiator with a heated towel rail, but who knows? It could have been there since the house was originally converted into flats. The newer, stronger, more dynamic pump just flushed it around the system a little more efficiently than was desirable, I guess.
The two of us also reviewed the pressure gauge mounting situation (I'd sneakily been up and removed all evidence of my gaffer tape before he arrived), and agreed that there were really only two options.
1. Do it properly. Replace the bits that had snapped off. Unfortunately, as those are part of the front control panel, this would necessitate disconnecting pretty much every part of the electronic wiring, and the circuit boards, and the timer and lights and sensors that indicate when it's working, as well as the cut out button. And then reassemble it all in the right order on a new control panel flap. Er, no. Not in February. Not when I might want to use the boiler again afterwards.
2. Bodge it.
Guess what? We went for option 2. Some fitters' miracle glue was thereby produced and applied to the edges of the gauge, and so far appears to be sticking okay. Since the only time that gauge would ever need to come out of its mounting is if it actually stopped functioning correctly, I can live with that.
And since things are supposed to come in threes and I've now had three visits, I'm going to hope that that's the end of my boiler saga for this year. But I've certainly made up for five and a half years of paying the maintenance charge without making any callouts. I reckon I've got my money's worth this year.
Oh, and for whoever it was who asked about gaffer tape vs duct tape (I'd check, but LiveJournal only wants to serve me blank pages today. I'm sure that as a permanent account holder it's serving those pages up to me before it does to 10 other people though), they're not quite the same thing but are very similar. The glue is different, which makes duct tape probably the better bet if you want something to stick and stick and never ever let go, but gaffer tape is superior if you want to eventually lift the sticky back off again without leaving any of the glue residue behind.
In other words, I was doomed from the moment I commented that I seemed to be getting the better of my allergy rash. Hah. Itchy legs all last night, to the point where I got up twice, once just to sponge them down to cool off, and a second time to run a nice lukewarm bath. At 2am. Er, yes. I think I might have got about an hour of sleep in total, right before the alarm went off.
I dragged my weary (and itchy) body out of bed and headed off to work, but clearly I was doing such a good impression of death warmed up that my boss took one look at me when he got in an hour later and told me to go home. So I finished off a couple of essential tasks and did just that, and tucked myself up in bed for a few more hours. I do not comprehend the reasons why, but apparently itchy legs don't itch that much during the day. Just at night, when you want them to shut up so that you can go to sleep.
I did better at napping from mid afternoon onwards than I did before that though - it was a lot quieter.
While stumbling bleary-eyed through the process of washing and getting ready to face the day this morning, I happened to occupy myself during the electric toothbrush's two minute timer by wandering into the kitchen to take another look at the not-entirely-secure pressure gauge on the boiler. And I thought that I heard a funny clattering sound while I was there.
Wanting to eliminate the electric toothbrush as a culprit - after all, I wouldn't put anything past a device that can set up vibrations on a computer monitor just by being in the same room as it - I finished the tooth cleaning activity, rinsed, and came back for a second listen.
Tick tick rattle rattle clatter. Listening around the general vicinity of the boiler determined the most likely scene of the crime to be my nice new pump. Oh no!
The clattering sound was still there when I stumbled bleary-eyed in through the door after 2 hours of work and probably the same again of sitting in traffic jams, so on my way to bed I called the gas board's emergency number. Again. I may program it into my phone at this rate. So I mentioned the funny sound from the brand new pump that was fitted yesterday, and the pressure gauge hanging loose on its spring (I wasn't about to admit to my gaffer tape), and the nice lady at the other end said that they'd send someone out that afternoon, if that was convenient?
*faints* Same day service? We haven't had that since the last millennium!
Anyway, my third gas engineer of the week duly called midway through the afternoon, my fears of being too soundly asleep to hear the doorbell proving unfounded due to the helpful clattering noises from the kitchen down the hallway from my bedroom, and he drained out the water tank, took out the pump, inspected it and put it back again. (In about half the time the guy yesterday took, by the way.) He also produced the culprit - a bit of solder, only fractionally smaller than the nail on my little finger - which had somehow lept out of the central heating circuit since yesterday and found itself a nice expensive new home. My best guess is that it's been in the system since the new bathroom was fitted three years ago, since that involved the replacement of the original radiator with a heated towel rail, but who knows? It could have been there since the house was originally converted into flats. The newer, stronger, more dynamic pump just flushed it around the system a little more efficiently than was desirable, I guess.
The two of us also reviewed the pressure gauge mounting situation (I'd sneakily been up and removed all evidence of my gaffer tape before he arrived), and agreed that there were really only two options.
1. Do it properly. Replace the bits that had snapped off. Unfortunately, as those are part of the front control panel, this would necessitate disconnecting pretty much every part of the electronic wiring, and the circuit boards, and the timer and lights and sensors that indicate when it's working, as well as the cut out button. And then reassemble it all in the right order on a new control panel flap. Er, no. Not in February. Not when I might want to use the boiler again afterwards.
2. Bodge it.
Guess what? We went for option 2. Some fitters' miracle glue was thereby produced and applied to the edges of the gauge, and so far appears to be sticking okay. Since the only time that gauge would ever need to come out of its mounting is if it actually stopped functioning correctly, I can live with that.
And since things are supposed to come in threes and I've now had three visits, I'm going to hope that that's the end of my boiler saga for this year. But I've certainly made up for five and a half years of paying the maintenance charge without making any callouts. I reckon I've got my money's worth this year.
Oh, and for whoever it was who asked about gaffer tape vs duct tape (I'd check, but LiveJournal only wants to serve me blank pages today. I'm sure that as a permanent account holder it's serving those pages up to me before it does to 10 other people though), they're not quite the same thing but are very similar. The glue is different, which makes duct tape probably the better bet if you want something to stick and stick and never ever let go, but gaffer tape is superior if you want to eventually lift the sticky back off again without leaving any of the glue residue behind.