Andrew over for a quotation
Back at work yesterday after taking a week off work to celebrate a rather large birthday.
This afternoon turned out well though as I had a doctor’s appointment booked for 2:20, the best I could get on short notice – honest guv. The turning out good bit though wasn’t getting a large part of the afternoon off work (not able to return to work as I live so far out in the sticks now – darn) but yesterday getting a text asking me if I’d be home at 3pm as Andrew the heating fitter was finally free to do some quotations.
I’d been trying to get in touch with Andrew for ages, he came very highly recommended from Anna and her Mum having done work for them. They told me of how well he’d do a job and how diligent and reasonable he was, he’d even done a day’s work for Anna’s Mum once too and he’d not charged for it as he felt it was his responsibility that what had gone crook had been on him. I like people like that, tradesmen of honour seem to be pretty thin on the ground, so far I’d been lucky and Andrew seemed to be another lucky charm of a tradesman. Him being available for one of the rare working hours I’d be at home was further luck indeed.
Anyway I gave a bit of blood for the doctor and headed home, I got in and on the spot of the arranged time Andrew was there on the dot.
I had three or so jobs for him to quote for:
- Moving the boiler so it wasn’t in the chimney breast and venting into my end garden – this made if obvious when I had fuel and it was just too central in what was to be the utility room.
- Commissioning the thermal store, linking it up to the radiators and domestic hot water and setting up all of the electrics.
- Linking the thermal store to the back-boiler of the new stove that I had had fitted.
- Figuring out a way to secure/hide my heating oil and stop people pilfering it.
Anyway we went through all of the jobs and I must admit I really admired the way he methodically went through each of them with me. He’s one of those thoughtful trades he takes it all very seriously and I toned down my usual jabber as I know that it wouldn’t have been welcome.
I’m not too sure how much this is all going to turn out for cost but I get a pretty bad feeling.
Andrew lumped both the commissioning and linking up of the thermal store into one job and he informed me that this was going to be the most expensive job. This was pretty disturbing as he’d suggested getting a new tank as the solution to my pilfering problems and I knew that this was going to turn out really expensive, sooo a job that was going to cost more than this could turn out really really expensive, erk.
When I did get around to the theft, he dismissed on of my ideas of buying an underground tank and burying it as he said they generally turn out to produce a heap load of problems in the long run. He agreed that locking the tank would be pointless as they’d either just break the locks or drill the tank. He told me too what I knew in that the tank I had was single skinned and illegal but he also informed me that the tank was illegally close to my house.
The solution he suggested was pretty neat as I’d not considered his suggestion of a custom made steel bunded tank that would fit through the door of my coal house. He reckoned on it being cheaper than a new plastic bunded tanks, it would fit neatly into the space and being steel it wouldn’t need as many safety gizmos as the plastic option, basically all it would need would be a lined fireproof ceiling. Sounds great.
He told me too of a lady just a few houses down who had her tank drained on Christmas Eve… really not nice people these fuel thieves. Andrew though turned out on Christmas day to help her out, despite having young kiddies of his own. Nice to know that there are good guys out there.
Supposedly they employ a car with a trailer, the trailer has a tank on it and a pump which he reckons could drain a tank quicker than it would take to fill it. Basically they throw the fuel pipe over your wall, read a newspaper and in a couple of minutes they drive off with a few hundred quid of your fuel, no-one takes and notice of a parked car and no-one notices the pipe.
Think I’ll leave my old tank in place and fill it full of salted water and cat pee.
Texted Andrew the arborist later and we agreed on him finishing the trees for £180. He called me cheeky as he’d quoted £150 a few weeks ago for him to take down only the trees around the drain, I’d managed to push him to agree to do these and that for the extra £30 he’d log the trees I’d done earlier last week, chip the branches from this too and also cut down the stump on my tree felling effort a bit neater.
It was a bit cheeky, I should try this tactic a bit more. Anyway as I texted to Andrew, I’d already done all the hard work anywayJ. He really is a good bloke is our Andrew.