As I intend to have a new kitchen fitted, eventually, it seemed sensible to have a new boiler first. The old boiler was the age of the house (about 20 years) and I had been sent a letter from the people who service it saying that they might no longer be able to get parts. I just knew that if I didn’t get a new boiler the old one would break down as soon as the new kitchen was fitted.
So in May, I started getting estimates and then there were surveys and “green deal” paperwork and then I went on holiday…..
The day after I got back, the new boiler was delivered. It was supposed to come between 4 and 7 pm, but the delivery man phoned at about 9.30 a.m. and asked if he could bring it then. That suited me fine and it turned out that he stopped work at 4 p.m so someone had made a mistake somewhere!
The boiler was to be fitted 2 days later and the fitter phoned first to give the time of arrival. The really good thing was that the fitter was female – it felt so much more comfortable having a female rather than a male around the house! I am not quite sure why, but it did. After looking round the house at all the parts she would need to get to and reading the paperwork that I had to give her, she started by removing the old boiler – that needed some strength! The (male) electrician turned up to do the new wiring for the new programmer and the waste disposal company turned up at about 11.00, instead of the afternoon, to remove the old boiler and other rubbish. Good thing my fitter had got a move on!
She then put in the new boiler, which involved “gas safe” stuff, plumbing and drilling holes in the worktop for the drain from the condensing boiler to the waste-pipe. Her blow torch set off my smoke alarm – which was interesting, but did at least show that it was working. She also had to be a “brickie” to reduce the size of the hole to the outside as the new vent was smaller. Not bad for someone who started as a person taking the complaints phone calls. She said she trained as a fitter as she thought she would like to gain some skills (other than that of calming irate customers?). I reckon she decided it was better to cause complaints rather than hear them!
Anyway, it was all done and explained and tidied up and she had gone by 5.00, including putting more insulation on pipes in the airing cupboard. That was quicker than I had expected as I had been told it might take into a second day.
The real trouble that day was that it was quite warm and she had had to run the central heating at full blast to check it was working and to get the lime-scale remover round the system. The house, me and her got rather over-heated! The water was so hot, too, that I didn’t need to turn it on again until mid-way through the next day.
When I tried to set the programmer I realised that it had been set so that the programme for heating and hot water would be the same each day. Now the point of the new programmer was so that I could have each on three times a day (if I wanted) and have each day different. On reading the booklet I found that I could have what I wanted, but it had been set wrongly.
After several phone calls over the next day and my nice lady being (wrongly) blamed for not explaining how to set the programmes, she sorted it out for me the following morning. But it was actually the (male) electrician’s fault for assuming I wanted the same each day, not different. Naturally, being retired, I do different things each day so will need my heating on at different times!
So, another job done! Only 3.5 months since I started…… It seems to be a good thing, but I will only really be able to tell when I get the next gas bills. The hot water was much hotter (even though it is on for less time), so I nearly scalded myself a couple of times until I turned down the thermostat on the water tank – another thing my female fitter told me about.