So we had to start getting people in to quote for fitting a new boiler. This of course was not straightforward, as the old one was a back boiler, and they cannot install new versions of those, as these days every flue has to be able to be inspected at each joint, which would mean hatches every metre up a chimney breast through the bedroom as well as the dining room - which of course isn't practical. So we needed to find somewhere for the new boiler to go. When you are in a semi-detached house, with a porch on the front and a conservatory on the back, there aren't many options, and in our case there were two - the loft, or the back wall of the integral garage. There was nowhere in the loft that wouldn't have meant the flue would be too long or have too many elbows, so that was knocked out as an idea, so we were left with the back wall of the garage. That was straightforward for getting the gas supply along as it was the same side of the house as the meter, but needed a lot of extra pipework to tie it all in with the heating and hot-water system, as the airing cupboard was the other side of the house!
We did the correct thing and got 3 quotes, made our choice and eventually were given a date for installation - 12 March. This meant we would be nearly 2 weeks without heating, and after the warm few days towards the end of Feb, the temperatures had of course plummeted again. We couldn't just escape elsewhere, as we had to clear space in the garage, removing the shelves on the wall where the boiler would go, and finding new homes for their contents, changing the position of the ladder that had been suspended from the ceiling at one end, and resting on the topmost of those shelves at the other, clearing the airing cupboard, shifting things in the loft to allow access for the pipes that would come straight up from the garage, and run across the loft to the expansion tank. we managed to have 2 nights at the flat, and the weekend before the work was to be done we had already arranged to have a night away as part of the celebrations for my impending birthday.
We were expecting the work to take longer, but in fact E-on sent enough workmen - there were four doing different things in different parts of the house at one stage! - that it was all done in one day, and we were able to start getting warm again!
A couple of weeks later - having arranged with our neighbour, who wanted a new fence on our boundary, to go shares in having it done - we also arranged that they put new edging round the raised beds in the back garden, as the old edging was rotting and falling out. So we have two very smart sleeper-edged beds; the deeper one for veg - which has lain fallow for a couple of years because of the frail state of the edging
and the shallower one with flowers - which has been growing on regardless!
Not only does it look smarter, but the edge of the veg plot is just the right height to sit on!
