B***er!

[Nigel Watts]

Just poured £70 down the drain.

My son told me his desk light wasn't working. It has a 110W, 36 inch "architectural bulb" - horribly expensive and fragile things beloved of the kind of architect who designed his bedroom. Smashed the old bulb getting it out because one of the connectors was too stiff. Very carefully inserted the spare which I had kept lovingly in my workshop for the last 7 years. Didnt work. Tried carefully to push it further in case it was not making proper contact. It broke. Got my meter out. No reading. Turned out he had switched off the fused spur under his desk and I had destroyed two perfectly good £30+ bulbs

 

[JoceAndChris]

How very annoying! Set him to cleaning the chimneys at once.

 

[Feltwell]

Hmm - if my kids tell me once more that the computer isn't working, when in reality all that has happened is one of them has been swinging their legs and caught the power switch, there will be murder! First time that happened it took me ages to work out why it wouldn't power up - we never use the switch

If it's any consolation Nigel, our central heating boiler has decided to develop an intermittent fault. Being a modern gas condensing boiler, it's all electronic (apart from the gas bits, before anyone says... :roll: ) and I don't really want to fiddle with it myself. Whenever the heating engineer comes out it works perfectly of course :evil: - so we're at the point of replacing parts "because it may well be that part that's faulty, but as it's working right now I can't say for sure" - which will inevitably mean replacing some perfectly good parts initially.

The engineer is great, lives local to me so doesn't charge me any callout fee unless he actually does something to make a material difference. I swear the boiler has eyes, and waits for him to appear in order to then work perfectly!

 

[Flyfisher]

What are the symptoms. We had a gas boiler that developed intermittent ignition. It would cycle repeatedly before eventually lighting after 30 seconds or so, but gradually it took more and more cycles before starting and eventually gave up completely. It turned out to be a faulty fan. I didn't even know gas boilers had fans but this one did (about 15 years old), apparently to guarantee adequate airflow for good combustion.

Anyway, a new fan fixed the problem, leaving me a little annoyed that I didn't have a quick look myself before calling in the gas man for what turned out to be a simple electrical fix nowhere near the gas gubbins. Still it was due a service as it hadn't been looked at for about 10 years (yes, I know, I know! )

 

[Feltwell]

It doesn't start it's ignition cycle when the thermostat calls for heat. Press the reset button and it works fine, for a while.

The engineer did spot today that a connection to a temperature probe was a little corroded - so let's hope that's sorted it. Only time will tell!

Seeing the kit that he carries for the annual "service" - which is really more of a check of the combustion efficiency than anything else - it's not something you can do yourself. It's not that expensive though at £40 all in, worth it for the peace of mind that all is safe.

They are rather like cars - a few years ago I would happily take cars to pieces, do servicing, change head gaskets etc. Now they are so complicated and rely so much on computer diagnostics that I don't really do much to new cars. Progress? Well, they are also faster, quieter, safer, more comfortable and more fuel efficient.