All going wrong… then being put right
This week and a bit I’ve not been posting as mainly I’ve been going to hell and back.
Well perhaps a bit of an overstatement but things have been pretty bad and they’re just coming unstuck now.
What went breasts up and how it then turned the right way up.
- My wonderful multi-fuel stove turned out to be a wood burner.
- Bad bit
The fitter had phoned to tell me that the stove was smoking badly when he’d tried to light it and it was very poor. I’d got home and found it lit and working, I’d filled it full of coal and topped it out with some logs, it was working but it was puffing out smoke whenever the door was opened and the air wash system was just causing more and more smoke. This was all pretty disappointing as I’d bought a super recommended SAS special forces of a stove in purchasing a Dunsley Yorkshire, a stove that no-one could fault, the HETAS fitter loved it, recommended it and fitted it with love, care and attention.
The thermal store was languishing in its first run out, the oil tank was dry so I only had the stove’s back-boiler to try it out, but despite stoking the fire up and suffering the smoke it was hardly touching the store. The thermometers were creeping up slowly but the thing just wasn’t heating the radiators. So a smoky, cold night ensued with me sleeping on the living room floor, the electric heater on full belt while I suffered from the drafts coming under the door and through the floorboards. It was so bleeding cold that I donned a trapper hat in the middle of the night and even buttoned down the earmuffs… which occasioned a comic moment trying to answer the phone the next day.
Anyway I tried and tried to get the fire working but it just got deader and deader, the fire door glass was completely coked up now and it just wasn’t having any of it.
I had a brainwave, wasn’t the stove meant to have a grate that one adjusted for multi-fuel burning or wood burning. Perhaps it was stuck in wood burning mode, a quick hop onto the internet and I found that there was an adjustable flange on the side of the unit that one altered to switch between the modes. Quickly back to the fire I looked for the flange and where there should have been a flange there was a blanking plate. It very quickly dawned on me that my wonderful Dunsley Yorkshire multi-fuel burner, all fitted and plumbed in, filled to it’s backboiler fullness with water wasn’t a MF but a woodburner… the MF…er.
To the office, searching high and low in my receipts there was nothing but glancing to the side I noticed a fleck of blue in the in-tray. Picking it out there were the quotes for the original stoves I’d shortlisted, all were for multi-fuel burners. As the day was Easter Monday the shop wouldn’t be open but I could rest assured that I had the evidence that I needed to provoke a replacement stove.
Next day I phoned them up and jokingly told them what had happened. They said they’d investigate and quickly phoned back.
“Our records say you ordered a wood burner”
“My quotes say I specified a multi-fuel stove, in the store I explained my desire for a multi-fuel to the salesperson and he said if I ordered the next day then he’d be off on holiday but he’d insure he would pass on my details to the salesperson who’d be taking my order”
“That might be right, but do you remember that day sending us an email for a price match”
“Yeeees”
“Well the price match you specified was for the wood burning model, we have a copy, do you want me to email you one across”
“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”
The next ten minutes, well I’m not proud of myself, I got a bit agitated, I think I mentioned “being screwed” a lot.
That wasn’t fair…. Easy to say with hindsight, I’m really not like that, I spent 30+ hours in conversation with Sky and I think I might have got a bit flustered once, it really is out of character for me.
- Good bit
I settled down quickly and realised the error of my ways and got into an email conversation with one of the people at the store.
I think I might have apologised for my manner and we settled into a more positive banter. I did get a bit of “didn’t you see the label on the box” and “didn’t you read the receipt” pointed out to me, but apart from that – which I countered with “I didn’t see the box, the fitter met the delivery” and “what receipt” – it was mainly civilised.
My problem was I could not consider just having a wood burner, I needed a multi-fuel.
If I had to purchase a replacement multi-fuel then I would be forking out in excess of £2,000 erk. I would need to have my old one de-plumbed and I would need to have my new one plumbed in. I would have to photo and clean up my old one, advertise it and then I’d have to arrange to have the monolithic device packaged and shipped. This would mean I’d lose lots of money on the sale, lots of money on the fitting and unfitting and it would take lots of time and lots of energy, it could also result in someone getting in touch to tell me it no longer worked and what was I going to do about it… It really wasn’t a good day.
Still the shop was now very reassuring and they said they’d look into a conversion kit. This would mean an outlay but it would mean too that I’d just have to fit the parts and all the sales and fitting etc. wouldn’t have to be done.
A day passed and then the next day just as I’d sent them an email regarding the issue I got one smartly back with an apology as to the person concerned had been on holiday the previous day. The news was brilliant and it got better.
Dunsley did a conversion kit… waheeee
The cost was £600 odd and they’d be very happy to supply it to me at the paltry figure of just under £300 or simply the mark-up it would have cost me in the first place to source the multi-fuel rather than the wood burner… double waheee. This left me £0 out of pocket and it would only cost me a bit of time and effort to fit it.
I picked the part up later that week, I ate my hat washed down with some humble pie and offered to promote the wonderful service in Homecare Heating of Darlington for what it is… wonderful and understanding service. They saved my bacon, not to mention other bits of a mixed grill thrown in. The really were very brilliant and if I’d not got it through them I’d now be picking up the pieces of a rather unfortunate but simple to do typo.
2. My camera ended up having a pot noodle bath.
- Bad bit
Saddened by my house having been taken apart by builders I sought solace in a meal. Visiting the kitchen I found the sink had been removed and the kitchen was rather upside down too, with drawers littering the floor where they’d been removed from the now missing sink unit.
The house was freezing with no heating so I decided to leave my jacket on and make a tray of pot noodles, an OJ, a cup of tea and a yoghurt biscuit. A rather sad meal too.
I sadly – I was sooo sad J – trudged to the front room, set the tray on the floor and in the action of bending over my rather splendid £300 camera popped out of my overcoat pocket and plopped into the pot-noodles and proceeded to skittle around the tray knocking over the OJ and tea. I quickly picked it up and gave it a shake, it was barely touched but on turning it on there was nothing. I rapidly sought out a suitable piece of Tupperware, I placed a bed of sugar at the bottom (I had no rice or silica-gel) a bed of kitchen towel and then the camera, sealed the lid and hoped for the best. A day passed, I replaced the battery, fired it up, the lens popped out proudly and correctly, everything that should whirr whirred and all was well until I noticed the blank white screen.
Buggers
- Good bit
No good bit at all yet, it would be wholly inappropriate under the circumstances to try to get a replacement under warranty wouldn’t it. Well wouldn’t it?
OK it’s been ages since these events, I really have lost the will to live writing down the last two items. Here’s a quick synopsis of what’s been going on.
- Bad
Dinted full side of car on some bollard going to the bank for money – bollards.
- Good
Went to the wonderful Bert (Burt?) in Ladysmith garage of Hartlepool who did a better job fixing it than any other paint shop could have done for the wonderful price of £300… which I reckon would be a quarter of what most garages would ask. The only penance was Bert’s love of having a chat, it took me 1 ½ hours to pick up the car on the Friday afternoon last week. It’s a good job I’d taken the afternoon off to pick the car up and another good job that I love listening to Bert’s stories.
- Bad
Came home from work to find that I couldn’t get on with fabricating a door as a contractor had used some of my boards to build a shelf and also a padlock had gone from the old oil tank that had been removed as per instructions.
- Good
Quick chat with the builder and he replaced the board straight away and got the padlock back from the people who’d taken it.
- Bad
Engineer had removed part of the chimney breast to investigate the feasibility of fitting the piping from the stove through the chimney. There were now two big holes in the chimney breast and the vermiculite that had been in the chimney was now in sacks in the front room
- Good
The engineer had discovered that there was a problem with the chimney lining and offered to fit the pipe in the chimney side, to patch up the holes and to do it all at cost.
- Bad
Engineers and builders arguing about the RSJs and the possibility of my gable end collapsing.
- Good
Gable end not collapsing and everyone happy.
- Bad
Me getting paranoid about everyone being against me
- Good
Everyone is not against me, well I think they aren’t now at least J
- Bad
My mate wanting to stay when the builders were in full flight
- Good
My mate being understanding and postponing his visit
- Bad
Credit card application stalled
- Good
Credit card application unstuck
- Bad
Engineer ringing to tell me that my “garbage” thermal store was “p***ing” water
- Good
New fittings and plumbers tape and it’s all working beautifully
- Bad
Out of heating oil, bought heating oil, managed to get most of the heating oil in the tank but also got drenched in the process.
- Good
Smell of oil on clothes I drenched and on the clothes I washed with these kerosene drenched clothes is starting to fade. The discovery that syphoning is much easier and faster, much more efficient on the fuel loss stakes too and also holds the key to what kerosene tastes like.
- Bad
Wheelie bin disappeared
- Good
New wheelie bin bought from Durham Council for £20 and delivered last week.
- Bad
Shovel stolen
- Good
Shovel had been borrowed by builders… oops
- Bad
All scrap copper gone
- Good
Have learned to write a proper job specification in future, “scrap to be left on site” being the pertinent line…. My fault, I’m not criticising anyone.
- Bad
Sleeping on floor in freezing cold, wearing hats and clothes in bed, draught under door brrrrrrr
- Good
Sleeping in a bed again and within a centrally heated house, weather getting better, knowing more about where the cold is getting in.
- Bad
Dust everywhere
- Good
Less dust now, builders should be finished and windows in within the next month.
- Bad
Money – on credit – running out quickly
- Good
No good on this one…
Good, Good, Good and more Good hey I’m finishing on a positive here.
- External tank replacement is brilliant and is now done and dusted.
- The boiler move went to plan and is working merrily.
- The thermal store is a masterpiece and despite initial concerns it’s going great guns and looks like a steam punk heating creation.
- The Nest thermostats are wonderful and provide much entertainment for me and whizzbangedness wow factoring to the house
- The builders have finished the work on the roof shoring up, the room splitting and the French door aperture aperturing and have now provided a marvellously low quote for work to my guttering, barge boards, the flashing for the bay windows and other odds and sods, not least a tiny £140 for squaring out all the wonky door frames from the initial roof problem. Marvellous.
- The windows are going in soon
- The oil tank is almost secure, come on me.
- The summer is coming… and my garden is beginning to look like a bag lady lives here J I need a strimmer next.
